[MD] What all is about.

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Ham]
Objective research and technology (!) .... , for a theorist in 
Science or Philosophy to allow his imagination to "run wild" in order 
to gain notoriety or celebrity status demeans the credibility of his 
profession.

[Platt]
Same goes for an artist who sets about to gain notoriety or celebrity 
by by letting his imagination "run wild" for shock value..

[Arlo]
In other words, gentlemen, the focus should be on Quality, not on the 
accumulation of static social-symbolic patterns of value, such as 
fame and fortune. Were all humans, not just "scientists" and 
"artists" motivated by this pursuit, rather than the 
generation-preservation-accumulation of social value. Were we all 
motivated by intellectual-aesthetic, reason-artisitic, and generally 
more concerned with furthering knowledge and art than with material 
commodities, celebrity, wealth and a score of other social patterns 
of value, then perhaps life would take on the seemingly utopic vision 
of Star Trek.

Indeed, wasn't this the underlying lament of ZMM? That people were, 
by virtue of a metaphysics that excised Quality, no longer following 
the path of the craftsman-artist-scientist-philosopher, but were 
instead becoming alienated, fixated on style-vendors.. the one Pirsig 
bemoans as "We're all strangers again! Folks, I just forgot the 
biggest gumption trap of all. The funeral procession! The one 
everybody's in, this hyped-up, fuck-you, supermodern, ego style of 
life that thinks it owns this country." (ZMM)

In short, isn't the problem here that its the Everyman, not just 
"scientists" and "artists", that are not pursuing Quality? Or do we 
expect "scientists" and "artists" to live to a higher, more-noble 
creed than the lowly vermin plumbers, mechanics, librarians, nurses 
and 'fill-in-any-profession'? Wasn't the whole point of ZMM to break 
down this artificial barrier and show that we all should be pursuing 
Quality-Arete-Excellence, and approach all our endeavors and 
craftsman-artists and philosopher-scientists rather than fixating on 
celebrity or wealth?

The problem Platt bemoans can be restated as such. While the Quality 
artist may achieve wealth and fame as incidental results of her/his 
pursuit of Quality, the low-quality artist sees wealth and fames as 
target of her/his pursuit. But within a strict capitalist-market 
paradigm, there is no way to fault the low-quality artist. When a 
record filled with hate, misogyny and violence catapults to number 
one, the artist is a brilliant capitalist who saw a market need and 
filled it, and likely will die a very rich man. Indeed, I'd say, the 
social success of such an endeavor is based squarely on a free-market 
underscored by S/O thinking as Pirsig describes in ZMM. Most simply 
stated, the market is a measure of value. When the type of product 
that Ham and Platt bemoan is a stunning market success, this is 
evidence of that Quality-Arete is not part of the metaphysical 
dialogue, and as such people are left scrambling for the only 
immediate S/O tangible they see: social-level celebrity and wealth. 
People want to be famous and rich, not wise and Good.

The final, short version restating Ham's and Platt's lament: 
subverting or neglecting intellectual-aesthetic, Quality-Arete 
pursuits in favor of lower-level social achievement is bad, this is 
true not only if you are a "scientist" or an "artist", but for us 
all, no matter what label our labor is given.