[MD] Barbarians & Hippies

[Ant McWatt]

Ant McWatt concluded March 5th:

To sum up then: Chapter 24 of LILA informs us that the MOQ builds on
the intellectual revolution of the 20th century and the hippy
philosophy of the 1960s but also sees where they went wrong (namely
their SOM assumptions) and how society has been adversely affected by
these assumptions.

Platt Holden made an SOM confusion and so responded March 14th:

It wasn't SOM assumptions that caused hippies to go wrong. It was
hatred of both society and intellect, causing them to fall back to the
biological level value of "If it feels good, do it.".


Ant McWatt comments:

Platt,

“If it feels good, do it” is not necessarily a biological level value.  This 
confusion between biological static patterns and Dynamic Quality is an SOM 
error and is the one that Pirsig observed with some of the 1960s hippies.  
BTW, as an uncritical supporter of the Establishment’s mouthpieces such as 
Limbaugh and Fox News you’d do well to note the following:

“[Phaedrus] wondered why that statement had angered him so much in the first 
place. It had seemed so natural.  Why had it taken so long to see that what 
it really said was ‘What you like is bad, or at least inconsequential.’  
What was behind this smug presumption that what pleased you was bad, or at 
least unimportant in comparison to other things?  It seemed the quintessence 
of the squareness he was fighting. Little children were trained not to do 
‘just what they liked’ but - but what? - Of course!  What others liked.  And 
which others?  Parents, teachers, supervisors, policemen, judges, officials, 
kings, dictators.  All authorities.  When you are trained to despise ‘just 
what you like’ then, of course, you become a much more obedient servant of 
others...  a good slave.  When you learn not to do ‘just what you like’ then 
the System loves you.”  (ZMM, Chapter 19)

Now, Platt, which 1960s cultural group does this anti-authoritarian 
sentiment remind you of?  The Republican Party???

Best wishes,

Anthony


MOQ Joke about extreme static viewpoints:

Q. Whose Cartman’s favourite political commentator?

A.  Rush Limbaa-aa-ah (known for hating hippies and for pulling the wool 
over the general populace's eyes!)


“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...”

Dave Buchanan, March 5th 2006

(Just in case anyone doesn’t know, the new extended version of Dave’s 
impressive FUN WITH BLASPHEMY paper is now available at: 
www.robertpirsig.org.  LILA in hardback will be available soon as well!)


.

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