[MD] From each... to each

[Platt Holden]

SA:

>      Platt said:  "So I don't knock $. I think Bill
> Gates deserves every nickle of his fortune considering
> what he has done to foster interpersonal communication
> such as you and I enjoy at this very moment."
> 
>      It is the rigid value this culture places in $
> that I knock.

Rigid value we place in dollars?  I see $ has having changing value. The 
more you have, generally speaking, the less value you place in it. The 
first dollar you earn is usually much more of value to you than the 
millionth. Like water, when there's plenty of it, it has little value. 
When you are dying of thirst, it's priceless. So I'm not sure just what 
you mean by $ having rigid value. 

> It's not Bill Gates.  He is playing the
> very serious game of this culture, and at any point,
> along any discussion, about any one person we easily
> could notice the human and value them plainly and
> simply as the human being they are, not value the $
> attached to their pocket.

Some humans have more value than others. Bill Gates, for example, has a 
lot more value to me (and to the world I would claim) than Bin Laden. In 
Pirsig we find more value in "a Galileo fitting social repression from a 
common criminal fighting social repression. It has, as a result, been the 
champion of both. That's the root of the problem." (Lila, 24) But, I agree 
that money alone doesn't determine a person's value. Rembrandt, Vermeer 
and Van Gogh were not rich.

>      Why has he had to foster interpersonal
> communication you and I enjoy?  What about cell
> phones?  They are not just convenience tools that make
> it easier for us to talk to each other.  They are also
> survival tools made to keep intact a value that we
> each have more deeply and part of the larger world of
> beauty that I mentioned, which is the interpersonal
> communication.  

Well, we survived very well without cell phones for a few million years. 
As for a larger world of beauty, yes, yes, yes. But somehow I don't 
associate cell phones with that world. Museums, wide open spaces, symphony 
halls, love making--those are some of the access points to the "larger 
world," not cell phones. 

>      Imagine our lives not being able to make such
> tools that keep such interpersonal communications
> possible.  In the culture, we would be very isolated
> from each other.  Look around, the village is gone.  I
> can't simply get up and go next door to the neighbors
> house or find my wife nearby, either.  You want to sit
> down and chat.  That'all cost you $.  

Lots of people, including Pirsig, claim we're isolated from each other 
today in spite of all the communication tools. "A scientific, intellectual 
culture had become a culture of millions of isolated people living and 
dying in little cells of psychic solitary confinement, unable to talk to 
one another, really, and unable to judge one another because 
scientifically speaking it is impossible to do so." (Lila, 22) Personally 
I don't find "socializing" all that an attractive as a past time. I'd 
rather read instead. 

>      When you look at interpersonal communication you
> notice the $ aspect.  I am focused on the personal
> aspect.  Are you or I wrong?  That is not any easily
> answerable question, but it is more difficult to
> contact each other.  I would say on the other hand we
> can talk more easily with somebody in Africa.  So we
> give up the local, in our own hands experience and
> exchange that for the more global, somebody else takes
> care of it for us experience.

I find it very easy to talk to my neighbors, so I don't relate to what you 
say about it being "difficult to contact each other." Which means I don't 
agree with Pirsig on his claim of "psychic solitary confinement" either.

But, like in everything else, I could be wrong.

Platt




 
>      Platt said:  "I appreciate the beauty of the
> activities you mention, but find that $ are
> necessarily involved in whether we like it or not."
> 
>      Yeap, to even take a walk I have given up my
> local hands for foreign hands to make most of that
> stuff, too.  This culture attaches the narrowly
> focused $ value onto everything to create a whole new
> world, a whole new reality in order to save its'
> extinction.  Now we can say $ is just reality, and so
> the next time we look at the stars you might notice
> the $ attached to such an experience, but I'd rather
> notice the larger world that is more free in which the
> squirrel works hard but has the food and shelter in
> his/her local hands.  
>      The squirrel hasn't had the need to come up with
> more and more tools to keep those more valuable
> heartfelt, mind freeing activities intact.  Ever
> notice how much of the new technology is just a
> survival tactic to keep alive the more valuable
> aspects of our experience that don't necessarily have
> to do with $.
> 
>      Arlo said to Marsha:  ""Can" a society be held
> together as you suggest? Sure. The Indians proved
> that."
> 
>      Then $ wedges in-between our intellectual
> thoughts and we have divisions popping up all around
> us.  Another SOM mercantile miner type language. 
> Wedge it in-between and pull it apart to see what you
> can exploit in all of these separations that this
> culture can just say reality is this way.  Full of
> divisions.
>      Create separations, then blame it on reality, and
> come along as some kind of doctor with all of these
> nifty gadgets that you sell for a price$, that will
> advertise and prove that humpy-dumpy can be put back
> together again.  Exploit the human spirit that is the
> middle way of all of this.  The actual glue of our
> human world, that is non-SOM, is mined out of our very
> original nature.  It is labeled as an invention of
> human intellect that is able to conquer, have miner
> dominion, and rule even reality itself (the so called
> SOM one).  The non-SOM effort itself becomes something
> only of human engineering, and the squirrels life will
> only be labeled savage to hide the real reality that
> dances in harmony all around us.  
>      Who will win out in this world?  With all the
> conflictive attitudes and wedging of SOM divisions
> exploiting any non-SOM original as only a slave of our
> frankenstein creation.  Or will the wool be lifted
> from the predators fake solution that $ does not
> further destroy the lives of our society.  $ is the
> healer, the doctor, and the bringer of life together. 
> 
>      Could $ really be innocent?  Sure, in the end
> everything is innocent, everything had its' part to
> play in the value latching that could either harden
> static quality or let DQ in as quality is not that
> narrow focused world and when air and the much larger
> world comes into contact even with $ it can be used
> for the better, too.  What I am arguing $ tries to
> make better, such as cell phones interpersonal
> communication, is something gained only because it is
> being lost.  Is it being lost because of $?  No, but
> once $ is wedged in-between all relationships of the
> world, how do we unwedge it and view the world that
> was here long before $ was considered the most
> valuable thing that makes all happen (even the world
> go round) - the view of this current culture.    
> 
> SA  
> 
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