[MD] From each... to each

[Arlo Bensinger]

Hi Platt,

When you write, "I mean we all pay lip service to morality and try to do 
the right thing and all that. But, mostly we chafe against the obligations, 
duties and sacrifices that morality imposes." And, "Say what you will about 
the Hippies, they expressed what I'm talking about -- an effort to throw 
off the yoke of the approved right way to think and act, and to create a 
new world free from smothering guilt trips. Then here comes Pirsig with his 
"the world is a moral order." How appealing is that?"...

This really comes across as nothing more than an interpretation that the 
MOQ demands adherence to social authority, or social codes. Which, albeit 
very much inline with the "return to Victorianism" we are witnessing in 
America today, I don't think really captures the MOQ.

For example, you taut "obligations, duties and sacrifices", but the only of 
these I ever hear you arguing for are the Victorian social codes relating 
to biology and status. Indeed, any mention of "obligations, duties and 
sacrifices" that aren't merely rehashed Victorian mores is always met with 
cries of Marxism. Are our "obligations, duties and sacrifices" simply 
obedience to social authority, an authority based on Victorian mores?

You continue to lambast the Hippies, but this was for Pirsig a moral 
revolution whose fault is only that it came to confuse biological quality 
and Dynamic Quality. Thus, the "moral revolution" of the future should be 
one that retraces the Hippie movement, but does not make this mistake. 
Without this, all you offer is The New Aristorcracy Part Deux.

Finally, the effects of SOM is more than just "hippies who refused to yield 
to social authority". DMB's post describes this quite nicely.

Arlo