[MD] Cartman Lives?

[Ant McWatt]

DMB stated August 24th:

>Its strange how [Platt] parrots talk-radio and loves the law and order 
>stuff, especially considering the way outcasts and contrarians play the 
>hero in Pirsig's books. Pirsig is anything but an advocate of conformity. 
>As Emerson said in THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR in 1837, "Imitation is suicide". 
>(Guess what we're reading in my Pragmatism class.) He says, "the 
>self-directed" must "defer never to the popular cry" and live in a "state 
>of virtual hostility" to society. This struck me as very similar to the 
>MOQ's portrait of the clash of social and intellectual values but he also 
>seems to express the idea the Dynamic Quality is better than either of 
>those. And that's what I wanted to add.
>
>Emerson's piece does far more than make a case for good, independent 
>American scholarship. He looks more like a mystic to me and in the portrait 
>he paints of the scholar he asks the intellectual to be a saint, an 
>enlightened person, a genuine and authentic person, an artist and an 
>original thinker. I was quite humbled and astonished by it. He says, "The 
>one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul." The sort of creative 
>genius, he says, "is the sound estate of every man, In its essence it is 
>progressive. ...springing spontaneous from the mind's own sense of good and 
>fair." (Need we ask anyone, Phaedrus?) "In the right state he is Man 
>Thinking. In the degenerate state ...a mere thinker, or still worse, the 
>parrot of other men's thinking..."

Ant McWatt asks:

You don't mean like regurgitating talk-radio show propaganda, by any chance? 
  (BTW, if I ever own a parrot, I will call him "Platt").

DMB continued August 24th:

>Books, he says, "are for nothing but to inspire". "Undoubtedly there is a 
>right way of reading, so it be sternly subordinated. Man Thinking must not 
>be subdued by his instruments." This is the sort of stuff that made him 
>sound like a mystic and he touts Swedenborg (Named in Lila as a mystic) at 
>the end of he piece, which would support the notion too.
>
>Following up on this hunch, I discovered this piece was written just before 
>he started reading the Vedas and other Eastern texts. Maybe his later stuff 
>reflects that and is even closer to the MOQ. We're reading Emerson as a 
>sort of proto-Pragmatist. He looks like a pragmatist and he influenced 
>William James especially. Henry James, the father of William, was also a 
>Swedenborgian. I guess that had some influence on him too.

Ant McWatt comments:

This all sounds very good.

DMB continued August 24th:

>On Feb 29th, 1860 they all met at a secret meeting and agreed that slavery 
>had to be abolished. They all agreed with the popular motto of the day, "we 
>should fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here", 
>even though it didn't make much sense on the eve of the civil war. They 
>also agreed that we should support our troops by shopping as often as 
>possible. Each of them named Jesus as their favorite philosopher. Why? 
>Their belief in healing miracles allowed them to oppose socialized 
>medicine. In fact, they often intentionally misquoted him as saying "let 
>the children suffer" instead of "suffer the children". "No cash value", 
>William would sometimes add. Then they'd laugh their pragmatic heads off. 
>That's what Platt said he got from Wikipedia, anyway.

Platt then asked (in a type of ad hominine way) August 24th:

What is he talking about? Or, what is he smoking? Anyone?

Dr McCommielover replies:

I don't know but I sure would like some!




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