[MD] Barbarians & Hippies

[beauteak4u at aol.com]

DMB,
 
    Thanks for you reply to my question. You said: 
"I grew up expecting to live in a hippy free-love world. But by the time it was my turn to have fun the hippies had been replaced by preppies and yuppies, the war on drugs was raised to the level of an actual military operation and HIV arrived on the scene, which meant love was very far from free. It would cost you your life."
 
  So help me out. i'm not sure i completely understand. You were a hippy at heart but you masqueraded as a frat boy? Did you fraternize in any way with the real hippies: protests, get close to any "hippy chicks" pick up a guitar and sing about love, peace, or facing down "the establishment"? Here's an important question: what did you wear?
 
  There's something about the questions that i ask that get little response. How difficult is to answer: yes i was, no i wasn't, or maybe i always wanted to be one? No one asked: "What about you Smith"? Maybe i'm trying to read too much out of the words or lack of words in some cases.
 
And although this question may need a seperate thread as short as it might be: Has any of Pirsigs students from Montana or Chicago or anywhere else he may have studied or taught for that matter come forth to tell their story or memories of RMP the person? i would love to tell Dr Levy, professor Jensen, Mr Solomon from 7th grade, Dr. Wells and one of my philosophy teachers Dr Bradley just how big of an impression they made on my life. Wouldn't you expect that one or more of RMP's students or maybe colleagues would find us and join in on the discussion.
 
Thanks again David for your contribution.
 
Smith
 
-----Original Message-----
From: david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Sent: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 19:59:20 -0700
Subject: Re: [MD] Barbarians & Hippies


Platt, Arlo, Marsha, Smith and all MOQers: 
 
Smith asked: 
"...anyone here willing to own up to ever being a hippie?" 
 
Marsha replied: 
In the 70s I was a know-it-all, little Republican. Now I am striving to become a hippie. (I've always been a late bloomer.) 
 
dmb says: 
Gasp! Marsha was a know-it-all Republican!?! It wasn't even fashionable to be a Republican then! I'm shocked and tickled by the revelation. For whatever its worth, you've come a long way. I was a frat boy at a Republican college just as the "Reagan revolution" got under way. This would have been a much more pleasant experience except for the fact that I hate frat boys, Republicans and Reagan. I grew up expecting to live in a hippy free-love world. But by the time it was my turn to have fun the hippies had been replaced by preppies and yuppies, the war on drugs was raised to the level of an actual military operation and HIV arrived on the scene, which meant love was very far from free. It would cost you your life. 
 
Platt asked Arlo about a return of the hippies: 
Would it entail... having group sex and adopting the drug culture of its predecessor? ...Would the women parade around in T-shirts and no bras saying "Make love not war?" 
 
dmb says: 
One can only hope. 
 
Arlo replied seriously: 
Again. Pirsig. "The Hippie rejection of social and intellectual patterns left just two directions to go: toward biological quality and toward Dynamic Quality. The revolutionaries of the sixties thought that since both are anti-social, and since both are anti-intellectual, why then they must both be the same. That was the mistake." 
Whatever the movement, it is away from social and intellectual patterns, towards DQ. I would guess those who cling vehemently to social patterns would find this frightening, even to the point of ridicule. Just like the priests likely ridiculed the Brujo, and the Victorians ridiculed the Bohemians... 
 
dmb says: 
Right. The hippies were contrarians. I would only add some specifics and maybe even try to put it in terms the hippies themselves would use. They were in conflict with society, with "the system" or "the establishment" because they saw that it was perpetrating violence in Vietnam and racism here at home. The neo-Victorians would have us believe that the only reason anybody ever attended a civil rights march or a war protest was to get high and/or get laid. But there were actually some very serious people involved in that movement. They were serious about peace, rights and freedom. They wanted the culture to be more beautiful and less cruel in all sorts of ways. As Elvis might ask, what's so funny about that? 
 
Arlo continued: 
...But, whatever, your description certainly sounds more vibrant that uptight, sexually repressed men in ties and women in ankle lengths dresses and corsets, concerned with appearance over substance, patting their virtuous backs and parading saying "make war not love". Eh? 
 
dmb says: 
I don't have a comment here. I just wanted the "make war not love" joke to be posted here again. 
 
Platt asked Arlo: 
I mean, could you give us some idea of what we might expect from turning the clock back to the 60's to abstract what was right? 
 
Arlo replied: 
Pirsig said that the hippie movement was "moral". It lost its way when it confused bq and DQ. But since its origins were "moral" (in its movement away from social and intellectual patterns), I would think that would be a good starting pointing for looking at the way forward. Pirsig had said, "The end of the twentieth century in America seems to be an intellectual, social, and economic rust-belt, a whole society that has given up on Dynamic improvement and is slowly trying to slip back to Victorianism, the last static ratchet-latch." ...You are interested in furthering the slip back to Victorianism, I am interested in how we can get back towards Dynamic improvement. 
 
dmb says: 
Right. I think there are tens of millions of Americans who, like Platt, "are interested in furthering the slip back to Victorianism". If you can manage to see through the layers of irony and obfuscation, you can see that the so called "moral majority" and "family values" "christian conservatives" who think they are part of a "return to values" are actually part of "the collapse of values", as Pirsig puts it. Reagan or maybe the eleder Bush was in office when he described the "present period" as a collaspe, but now its much worse. Peace, rights and freedom are taking one hell of a beating these days. Despite what he says about Jesus changing his heart, this dude is one cold bastard. There's a whole lot of lying and dying and torture and a general lack of heart on full display. Heckuva job. 
 
Thanks. 
dmb 
 
P.S. If the hippy movement failed because they were confused about the difference between biological quality and Dynamic Quality, between pleasure and spirit, and the MOQ clears up that confusion, then a MOQish hippy is what we need, right? That's what I tried to do in FUN WITH BLASPHEMY. I mean, if Platt or anyone else is actually interested in some kind of answer to Platt's question... "I mean, could you give us some idea of what we might expect from turning 
the clock back to the 60's to abstract what was right?" 
 
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