[MD] From each... to each

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

DMB,

First.. thanks, best post I've read in a while. Now...

[DMB]
And these quotes work to indentify it. To be an enemy of the world instead of
being a part of it. This stance toward the world is reflected in all our
standard options from Thomas Aquinas to the Vienna Cirlcle. We're talking about
a disease that has infected nearly every corner of Western civilization, with
just a few exceptions. Theism and materialism in the West both have a
world-hating streak and they're both part of this problem. Capitalist and
Communist are just two sides of the same materialistic coin insofar as wealth
and power are the central realities and the central concern.

[Arlo]
All of have the Pirsig moment of "YES!". For me, that was the "part of the
world, not an enemy of it" part of ZMM. The Indian-Victorian conflict was (is)
rooted on this same schism. Our values are built upon cultural assumptions that
find their origin in this basic, simple split.

The modern political distraction of Absolute Good (Capitalist) versus Absolute
Evil (Communism-- Stalinism, which some, like Orwell, have been able to
disambiguate from Marxism or Trotskian thinking).

[DMB]
See, if we have a worldview in which man is alienated from nature then it seems
like the only option is to take sides with one or the other. The hippies,
greens, noblesavage idealist and other romantic types basically take sides with
nature while Randians, Victorians are all about self and Ego.

[Arlo]
Logically, of course, the conservationists and the sportsmen should be in the
same camp. Both use the outdoors, both desire clean water and unpolluted lands,
both want unmessed with forests and wide open spaces to hike, hunt, fish, etc.
But modern politics has made them bitter enemies. Hunters I know often talk
about "environazis" (Limbaughian), and environmentalists I know talk about
hunters/fishermen as if they are redneck dunderheads. And yet BOTH are arguing
(mostly) for the same thing! 

[DMB]
Hedonism or delusion. That's a helluva choice, eh?

[Arlo]
That's it right there, DMB. That is the slogan for the upcoming elections.
Elegant, precise and spot on. An over-the-fencer.

I'm going to have to end it right here and just let that stand. "Hedonism or
delusion". Indeed.

Arlo