[MD] Barbarians & Hippies

[david buchanan]

Ant, Plant and all MOQers:

Platt Holden stated to Dave Buchanan, March 5th 2006:
I had to laugh at the similarity between DMB’s answer and Pirsig’s 
description of 60’s intellectuals:

“What passed for morality within this crowd was a kind of vague, amorphous 
soup of sentiments known as “human rights.” You were also supposed to be 
“reasonable.” What these terms really meant was never spelled out in any way 
that Phaedrus had ever heard. You were just supposed to cheer for them.” 
(Lila, 24)

I have yet to hear an answer to my question from Arlo, DMB or anybody else 
other than a “vague amorphous soup of sentiments” that we’re supposed to 
cheer for.

Ant McWatt comments:
...What the MOQ (which, btw, was written by an 1950s hippie, turned 1960s 
intellectual) adds to traditional (SOM) hippy philosophy (concerning freedom 
and an openness to new experiences) is a recognition that if the social 
patterns aren’t given due recognition and looked after to some extent, the 
intellectual (as with a woodman cutting the wrong side of a tree branch he’s 
sitting on) will find the underlying support required for his intellectual 
patterns disappearing.  And, in fact, that’s probably the central point of 
Chapter 24 (rather than just being an anti-intellectual or anti-hippy tirade 
as you falsely portray it)...

dmb says:
Right. Platt wants to construe the "soup of sentiments" quote as 
anti-intellectual and anti-liberal, but Bob was a hippy before hippy was 
cool. But seriously, Platt, its not an attack on "human rights" or an attack 
on being "reasonable" either. He's complaining about the inability to spell 
out what these things meant, how they can be defended as "morality". This is 
what Pirsig does in other parts of LILA. He spells out what they mean and 
defends them as a 4th level form of morality. He provides some distinctions 
and definitions where once there was an "amorphous soup". I think you've 
heard this answer more than a few times. Its been a while, but I remember 
dishing up some of the same quotes that Ant is using today.

Ant, thanks for the hippy.com stuff, for the kind words and for advertising 
my little paper once again. (I'm on a roll.) Platt, let's have coffee. I'll 
bring the sugar.

Later,
dmb

The FUN WITH BLASPHEMY paper can be found at: www.robertpirsig.org.

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