[MD] What all is about.

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

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

[Arlo]
And that's exactly what I was saying, exactly what Pirsig addresses in ZMM. 

[Platt]
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.

[Arlo]
Looking past the moronic right-wing rhetoric, both condemning everything in the
past, and uncritically glorifying it, are both low quality endeavors. As well
as both pegging the U.S as the great Satan or masturbating about how it is is
Holy and Righteous and has does (or can do) no wrong. But again, when these are
the only options droned by low-quality ideologues, no matter which path one
chooses one becomes mired in ridiculously low-quality rhetoric.

Far be it from me to point out that the majority of what I wrote was precisely
Pirsig's recognition (and my agreement) that there has been a slow, steady
decline in modern life due to Quality, as a metaphysical reality, being absent
from the foundation. A decline I have _agreed_ with you both is evidenced by
the problems you have both articulated (hell, I even talked about "thugs"
getting multiplatinum records... )

But hey, why bother to read what I actually write... The problem, of course, is
that you want to selective point out problems and ascribe them to evil
liberalism. Pirsig offers a broader context. A context, problem, and solution,
I feel, that is far more valuable. So yes, you both touch on a profound
problem, THE profound problem of ZMM, but quick turn and run when anything but
evil liberals is brought under the gun.

[Platt]
Indeed, many values have been lost to the ever-attractive feel good forces of
the biological domain.

[Arlo]
Exactly. And if you keep looking at this, and what the root of this is, and how
it relates to the broader issue of SOM; from labor alienation to consumerism to
social darwinism to the devaluation (and devolution) of art to our unending
fixation with both celebrity and wealth... then maybe there would be hope that
"futurism or archaism" would not be the only options you present.

And that's a dialogue I would love to have.