[MD] Politics and Change

[david buchanan]

Platt said:
Pirsig, I hasten to add, pointed out that modern intellect, in its attempt 
to guide society, contains a fatal flaw, namely, an inability to acknowledge 
the existence of values. Thus, the "evolutionary leap" has fallen into an 
abyss.

dmb says:
I'd say your reasoning contains a fatal flaw, Platt. And it would bother me 
so much if you hadn't already been corrected on this point several dozen 
times. By your logic, flaws in social level values should compell us to 
embrace the laws of the jungle so that the world is run by rape and pillage. 
By your logic, the negative side of the internal combustion engine should 
compell us all to return to riding horses. By your logic, we should accept 
devolution and return to a monarchical form of government. (Franco, the 
Spainish Fascist dictator tried to restore the monarch on his way out in 
1975. The King of England was a big fan of Hitler. Henry Ford was a pen-pal 
Hitler.) See, the thing about American reactionaries is that they look very, 
very American. Its a sort of hyper-muscular assertion of what would 
otherwise be normal social level values and so its hard to get people to be 
alarmed about it. Its like trying to get people to be afraid of hot dogs, 
apple pie and dear old mom. Its like trying to get people to see that having 
a bible-thumping cowboy in the whitehouse is a recipie for disaster. I mean, 
just look at the results. These guys are taking a huge dump on the 
constitution, on the democratic process, on our rights, our system of checks 
and balances, on artists and intellectuals. They've even drawn complaints 
from academic journals for their atttepts to interfere with what is allowed 
to be published. They've altered scientific reports for political and 
financial reasons. Not to mention all the facts they had to ignore in order 
to make a case for war with Iraq. Now we're fighting the wrong war, don't 
have the resources to fight the actual enemy and everyone on the planet 
thinks Americans are as stupid as is Bush. Its a huge disaster.

And yet there are millions of Platts out there cheering them on. And in this 
case we are talking about a flaw that has quite literally been fatal to many 
thousands of people.

But having your input on this point does serve a purpose. It allows us to 
see what standard American anti-intellectualism looks like. As a bad 
example, you're very good.

dmb

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