[MD] What all is about.

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net>:

> [Platt]:
> > Looks like Arlo is back spoiling for a fight. He'll get one if he suggests
> > that "indecency" is high quality and that the "good ol' days" were all 
> > bad.
> 
> Yes, but aren't you thrilled by the way he credits us for touching on a 
> "profound issue"?

[Platt]
Yes, I'm thrilled to have Arlo's blessing as I'm sure you are. 

[Ham]
> There's another thought I'd like to throw in here.  Since Arlo believes 
> Pirsig lamented the lack of "caring" in contemporary culture, and that care 
> is a "correlate of quality", I wonder if he's ever realized that Value is 
> what we care FOR.  Essentialism is a valuistic philosophy, so this term 
> works best for me.

[Platt]
Excellent point. Simply saying "I care" says nothing. What one cares FOR
is the grabber. 

[Ham}
> To illustrate: When we take things for granted, we cease caring and their 
> value is lost to us.  When we take Freedom for granted, we forget that we 
> have to defend it--sometimes fight to preserve it--or we lose it.   Make sex 
> a "social recreation", and we lose the value of romantic love.  Fail to 
> nurture our sensibility to the arts, and we lose the value of aesthetic 
> beauty.  Pay only lip service to traditional moral values, and we lose 
> personal integrity and honor.  Freedom, love, beauty, and honor are not just 
> correlates of something called "quality", they are actual values. 
> Regrettably, they are all values that have depreciated in our 
> technology-driven, live-for-the-moment world.

Not only our live-for-the-moment world but our active condemn-everything-in
-the-past world, with the U.S. pegged as the great Satan. Indeed, many values
have been lost to the ever-attractive feel good forces of the biological domain.  

Best regards,
Platt




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