[MD] Quality Conversations

[Matt Kundert]

Hey SA,

Matt said:
Yeah, that sounds about what I thought you [DMB] and Pirsig (and certainly Heidegger) thought. That might be the difference that everything else stems from--politics first v. spirit first.

SA said:
Politics is a process that societies participate amidst to coordinate social power. Thus, bands, chieftoms, and states are types of politics/political systems. It involves organization and the size of the population has influenced if power is more centralized or not. Religion plays a role in carrying out the politics/the social order. So, the 'who's on first' seems more an Abbot and Costello routine.

Matt:
I might have a wider sense of "politics" then you do, SA, but you are probably right about the bickering that goes on with which one needs, or should, happen first.  I nodded in that direction right after the part you snipped.  The trouble with philosophy is that it is that great generalizing art form, so doing it in relation to a problem like this almost requires you to take general stances on convoluted problems.  But sometimes these stances have large cultural effects (like Rorty argues, I think somewhat rightly, that the academic left has gotten too caught up in, roughly, spiritual problems, thinking just doing those would make the world right--leaving the Right alone on the field of real politik).  On the other hand, aside from current situations in cultural energy expenditure (which someone might deploy resources on a stance like "politics first!" because "spirit first!" is beginning to have deleterious effects), I would otherwise acknowledge that the chicken/egg problem be left aside for just accepting the complicated relations between them.

Matt
_________________________________________________________________
Give to a good cause with every e-mail. Join the i’m Initiative from Microsoft.
http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Join/Default.aspx?souce=EML_WL_ GoodCause