[MD] An MOQ based political system

[Platt Holden]

Hi Marsha, 

> Greetings Platt,
> 
> I offer this for your consideration.  It's a comment I extracted from an
> interview, conducted by Daniel Blue, with the Nietzschean scholar, Christa
> Davis Aumpora:
> 
>  http://www.nietzschecircle.com/interview.html
> 
> DB: I had no idea that it was that hard to republish works. That 
> strikes at the heart of what might seem a purpose of academia.
> 
> CDA: Right. The purpose of a university press used to be to identify 
> and publish the very best quality research it could find without 
> regard for its financial viability. In those days you knew that 
> university presses didn't have to direct their acquisitions decisions based
> on marketing considerations. Now university presses have a requirement to
> be financially self-sustaining, so increasingly, marketing decisions are
> playing a role in acquisitions decisions. And as for journal publishing,
> Blackwell owns very many of the quality philosophy journals, and since it
> is a commercial publisher, and so its very reason for being is to make
> money and as much as it can, it can name its price. It's very hard to
> escape, and that was my greatest nemesis.

Thanks. A fascinating interview. Here are a couple of points I underlined 
with comments:

"I think philosophy always has the responsibility to identify and address 
our current questions." (The reason why I bring up current 
social/political problems with ideas about how the MOQ might address 
them.)

"I find the rejection of competition to be flat-footed and potentially 
harmful for women, given the realities of social and political life." (I 
didn't know competition was an issue with women. Now I know.)

" . . . so philosophers are trying to give the naturalistic account of 
everything under the sun. But I have the impression that very often 
naturalism in philosophy is conceived as a sort of crude scientism."
(I take this to be an oblique reference to the dominate subject/object 
mindset of modern intellectualism that Pirsig finds incapable of doing a 
good job in directing the social level because it lacks a moral sense 
based on empirical reasoning.)

"I just want to talk about the interplay between science, philosophy and 
art." (Exactly Pirsig's goal -- to unite these disparate disciplines by
showing why and how moral values are the common denominator.) 

"There is a model for this in the sciences: you identify what you call a 
center for excellence." (Isn't this what Pirsig would approve of? Maybe
Ant or Arlo could establish such a center for the MOQ which would serve 
"as a magnet for drawing and coordinating resources." Of course I would be
banned from contributing. :-).)

Thanks again for sharing a thought-provoking interview.

Platt