[MD] From each... to each

[Platt Holden]

Hi SA:

[SA]
>      This value you mention has nothing to do with $. 
> This value is of a different moral order of which of
> the two are valuing human life.  I don't see how $
> sets Bill Gates and Bin Laden apart from each other. 
> They both were or still are very rich in the sense of
> $.

I don't think most people value others on the amount of money that others
make. The celebrity factor comes more into play than money, but even at that
many celebrities are despised. My guess is that most people value members
of their immediate family first, their friends second, and their role models third.
Of course, there are many exceptions to that generalization as even the best
of relationships can turn sour (as you mention below)

>    Platt said:
>> 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.
> 
>   Yes.

Some people are reluctant to label anyone has having "low quality" which 
in common parlance can mean the person is "evil." Fortunately, Pirsig has 
no such compunction.

[SA]
> > >      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.  

[Platt previously] 
> > Well, we survived very well without cell phones for
> > a few million years.

[SA] 
>      Yes, exactly, the value in money stretches our
> culture into separations, and we have had to come up
> with ways to keep these older, more cherishable
> values, which include interpersonal communication
> intact.  

I wouldn't place all the blame for "separations" on money. Value placed on 
alternate attractions in the modern world has a lot to do with a it.

> Platt said:
> > As for a larger world of beauty, yes, yes, yes. But
> > somehow I don't 
> > associate cell phones with that world.
> 
>   Exactly, cell phones are just ropes holding the
> culture together.  Without interpersonal communication
> this culture would fall apart.

Don't forget the role of movies, radio, newspapers, TV and other major 
media outlets in holding the culture together.

[SA]
> So luckily somebody
> came along and invented cell phones for all of us that
> need to communicate with other, but don't have the
> quality time or valuable local distance to just talk
> face to face.  How many husbands, wives, boyfriends,
> girlfriends, friends, family members, bosses,
> employers, etc.. need cell phones to make the
> necessary communications happen?  Many, too many I
> would say.

I agree with that. There's too much gabbing going on and not enough 
thinking or contemplating.

>    Platt said:
>  Museums, wide
> > open spaces, symphony 
> > halls, love making--those are some of the access
> > points to the "larger 
> > world," not cell phones. 
 
[SA]
>      Cell phones only because of the valuable
> communications that are made by some (I don't have
> one, because of a story about gorillas being killed to
> extinction in Africa due to rock being mined there for
> cell phones, labtops, etc..., yet, my wife does, in
> case I am away somewhere necessary and she goes into
> labor), made by some to keep valuable communication
> lines open due to the necessary separations that $
> leads us towards for we need to travel far and wide
> for increasingly long time frames, especially if, as
> me, when my wife works at different times of the day,
> than I do.  This has become a cultural necessity.  I
> hope to get a better position where I work, and I work
> hard to increase my chances.  I just hope I don't miss
> out too much on the young ones life that is on the way
> in my wife's lovely growth in the tummy area.

I don't own a cell phone either. I use Skype though because it allows me 
to talk to my daughter in Munich free of charge.

[SA]:
> > >      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 $.  

[Platt previously] 
> > 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.
 
[SA]
>      Nothing against reading, I do that often,
> especially at work on the good behavior days, which
> are far and few in-between, and I read the posting
> here since I'm around the house a lot fixing it.  It
> is fun to go fishing with my wife though, and when I
> used to go fishing with friends that I eventually ran
> away from due to their drinking and drug habits that I
> wanted to have no part of.

>   Platt said:
> > 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.

[SA] 
>   I have no quality time, too talk with them.  I
> involve myself in activities that I find few people
> around here do.  For one, we are working on putting
> walls up in our new house.  I go fishing, and much of
> this psychic solitary confinement is probably my
> fault.  I had friends that I fished with and
> backpacked with.  Well, one friend, since all the
> other friends we had sat around in their houses,
> occasionally sat by a fire out in the woodsy yard at
> times, but these other friends at the time did more
> drinking and drugs than anything else.  What about
> that one friend that I did have?  Well, he drank and
> did drugs.  Yet, he walked in the woods more often. 
> Yet, I made a decision that I wouldn't associate with
> him anymore when I met my to-be wife.  Why?  I didn't
> want her around that kind of world.  I drank at times,
> but did not get into the drugs.  In a way I sacrificed
> a friend for what I thought would become a family life
> without drugs and drinking around.  I don't know... I
> miss those times I fished and camped with somebody I
> could simply call a friend.  I'm not perfect.

Sorry to hear about your friend. A few who contribute to this site think 
taking drugs in moderation is somehow enlightening and point to Pirsig's 
experience with taking peyote as directly responsible for the insights 
that triggered his metaphysics. I have my doubts. In any case, I don't 
recommend drinking or drugging under any circumstances. Maybe you'll have 
a creative breakthrough under the influence that will save the world. But, 
my skepticism of such an outcome knows no bounds.

Platt





Platt