[MD] Catching up to Pirsig

[Platt Holden]

> [Krimel]
> But not one single individual's contribution has ever amounted to 
> diddly squat unless others in the community thought it worthwhile.
> 
> [Platt]
> What utter and complete nonsense. Nobody but Frank Llogd Wright and 
> his client thought his plans for Falling Water was worth diddly squat.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Why do you bother, Krimel? Platt's pedantic view will never be 
> anything more than the Good Individual versus the Evil Society. For 
> him, "individual" and "collective" are unrelated, and in fact, 
> oppositional forces. Its like arguing climatology with someone whose 
> view of the weather consists only of "Sunny=Good, Rainy=Bad". You can 
> get into all the nuances, intricacies, codependancies and 
> inter-relatedness all you want, but the extent of your "thoughtful" 
> reply will always be, "hey commie Krimel, stop trying to enslave us 
> sunny-lovers with your rainy day liberal propaganda".
> 
> I'd submit that, as you say, its never "individual opposed to 
> collective", but "individuals engaged in collective activity". To 
> present the two as a rehashed "God/Satan" story is simply inane.

"My personal feeling is that this is how any further improvement of the 
world will be done: by individuals making Quality decisions and that's all. 
God, I don't want to have any more enthusiasm for big programs full of 
social planning for big masses of people that leave individual Quality out. 
These can be left alone for a while. There's a place for them but they've 
got to be built on a foundation of Quality within the individuals involved. 
We've had that individual Quality in the past, exploited it as a natural 
resource without knowing it, and now it's just about depleted. Everyone's 
just about out of gumption. And I think it's about time to return to the 
rebuilding of this American resource...individual worth. There are 
political reactionaries who've been saying something close to this for 
years. I'm not one of them, but to the extent they're talking about real 
individual worth and not just an excuse for giving more money to the rich, 
they're right. We do need a return to individual integrity, self-reliance 
and old-fashioned gumption. We really do."  --- Robert Pirsig