[MD] Barbarians & Hippies

[Platt Holden]

> 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.".

The intellectual revolution failed because of SOM assumptions. The 
hippie revolution failed because it rejected both social and 
intellectual patterns.

"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 
antisocial, and since both are anti-intellectual, why then they must 
both be the same. That was the mistake." (Lila, 24)

> Ant McWatt comments:
> 
> Platt,
> 
> “If it feels good, do it” is not necessarily a biological level value. 

"The MOQ sees emotions as a biological response to quality and not the 
same thing as quality." (LC, #141)  

> 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. 

No. See above. The confusion resulted from an error caused by hippie 
responses to biological level emotions -- "do it if it feels good."

> 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???
 
The Libertarian party. As for mouthpieces, add Pirsig to Limbaugh and 
Fox News because, unlike liberal academe and the major media, all place 
high value on individual freedom and the free market. 

Best regards,
Platt