[MD] The American Ruling Class

[plattholden at gmail.com]

On 11 Dec 2009 at 18:20, khaledsa wrote:

> I wish we can hear from Robert, to ask his opinion on the state of
> current affairs, and find out what his predictions are.

Hi Khaled,

I share your wish. In the meantime, the following from ZAMM is my 
guess at how Pirsig's views the current state of affairs:

"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."

"Self-reliance." Not a word you often hear from the ruling elite 
(Hollywood, politicians, academics and the major media) these days.

Platt