[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.".

Platt Holden then misleadingly added March 15th:

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

And that mistake (of confusing biological patterns with Dynamic Quality) is 
also an SOM error because SOM (as viewed in LILA) doesn’t recognise Dynamic 
Quality!

---snip----

>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???

Platt answered:

The Libertarian party.

Ant McWatt comments:

Exactly.  Now doesn’t that quote make you think Platt?  Or maybe that’s the 
trouble?  You’re relying on authority figures to do your political thinking 
for you!!!

Platt continued:

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.

Ant McWatt comments:

That’s nearly an hilarious combination.  I doubt Pirsig would be too happy 
to be put in a group with political propagandists such as Limbaugh and Fox 
News.  American intellectuals such as Thoreau, William James, Steinbeck and 
Ginsberg would, no doubt, be more his scene!

Anyway, Lim-baa-aaah and Fox News are part of the mainstream media so its no 
surprize then that they would tell you that a./ the mass media is dominated 
by liberals and b./ liberal academe doesn’t place high value on individual 
freedom.   Of course, we know a./ is largely false (and, therefore, 
misleading) because when I carefully examined the papers cited by the Media 
Resources Center’s website early last year (concerning media bias) it became 
apparent that there was little bona fide independent research provided by 
them to support their view that the media has a liberal bias (and the small 
amount of credible evidence that was provided by them was out-of-date).  
Still waiting for a well-researched response about media bias from you about 
this.

If you read my Education paper at robertpirsig.org, you will also see that 
Pirsig places academic freedom (an intellectual value) over the economic 
free market (which is a social value).  And, all I can say is thank Zeus for 
that!

>Platt Holden quoted “The Bible”, Chapter 29, verse something or other…

So now you mock Pirsig just to get in a dig at me? Strange.

Ant McWatt comments:

My purpose was not to mock Pirsig here.  I’m actually concerned that you 
keep quoting Pirsig out-of-context (just like a Fundamentalist Christian 
quotes the Bible) to support the Establishment views (as propounded by 
Lim-baa-aaah and Fox News) that you keep uncritically dumping on this 
Discussion group.  Next time, try and ask a few questions beforehand:  why 
is this particular news story being discussed today?  Whose values are being 
put forward here?  What is the evidence that these people are telling the 
truth?  What are opposing commentators (or commentators from other 
countries) saying?  (These scare stories concerning Iran would be a good 
start.)

As I mentioned on March 6th, I think Pirsig tries to be very fair in seeing 
the benefits and drawbacks of differing political viewpoints and different 
cultures though if you look at his history you can see his ideas being a 
development of the 1950s/60s hippy ethos and the 20th century liberal 
intellectual tradition.   However, if it wasn’t for the independent mind 
that this anti-authoritarian background gave him, he wouldn’t have realised, 
for instance, why a free market (in an economic context) is the best one to 
hold in theory and how it can be combined with progressive liberal thinking. 
   (Of course, as Northrop notes, there is no such thing as a free market 
economy – maybe such a state of affairs can only be reached when all the 
countries in the world no longer exist but that’s another story).

Best wishes,

Anthony.


“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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