[MD] Down the road of mediocrity

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt]
Are you suggesting those who rob to feed their drug habit are better 
than Einstein or Picasso?

[Arlo]
I'm suggesting that it is a lower quality activity. But you keep 
sliding into criminality. If "some people are better than others", 
apart from criminal behavior, how do we tell them apart? Why is James 
Gleick (advancer of intellectual patterns) not better than Sam Walton 
(advancer of social patterns)?

[Platt]
No. Soldiers, police, firemen volunteer for those jobs.

[Arlo]
So volunteers are better people than who don't volunteer? What makes 
a soldier a better person than you, if not the self-sacrifice for greater good?

[Platt]
I'm suggesting that Pirsig agrees with me that some people are 
morally superior to others.

[Arlo]
You mean the wealth-producers are morally superior to the poor? If 
not, why would you deny medical assistance to a poor person?

[Platt]
Yes, I know you would rather give up your liberty than go hungry, or 
"Better red than dead." For me, like Pirsig, freedom is the highest 
value. "Give me liberty or give me death."

[Arlo]
Since Pirsig is a self-avowed lifelong democrat, I doubt he'd side 
with those who want to toss the poor on the streets to starve and 
suffer in illness. "Freedom", according to the MOQ, rests on the 
strength of the static patterns supporting it. Creating a 
capistocracy, where who live and who dies is dependent on one's 
ability to generate wealth is hardly something I'd consider MOQ-supported.