[MD] Multiculturalism scam

[Platt Holden]

Hi Ron, 

> Hello Platt,
> A very thoughtful post .

Whatever thoughtfulness it contains belongs to Pirsig. 

> However I ask, how are we to make the
> distinction
> from "an excuse for oppression through fear (central planning enforced at
> the point of a gun)."?
> How do we instill pro-social ethic without oppressing the individual?

I think you've put your finger on the great, swirling political debate of 
our time -- individual freedom vs. social order. IMO the default position 
is individual freedom, supported by the MOQ.

> I think we can not expect to fix this problem quickly because it evolved
> over a long period of time. America allowed a culture of oppression to
> develop
> a culture in opposition to "the man" (central planning enforced at the
> point of a gun).
> Even today I hear older whites reffering to blacks who conform to social
> standards
> as a "good nigger". 
> Remember slavery was abolished about 150 yrs ago in the U.S. and civil
> rights
> in the last 50, I would think it would be difficult break from subcultural
> values
> of anti-establishment after hundreds of years of development. If you do
> conform you are called an "uncle Tom" by your peers.
> Yes the charge of racism is abused but most black people I
> know see this as justified in defense of the more general racist
> atitudes
> of white america.
> I think it is idealistic to think that the MoQ would provide a quick fix
> to these problems developed over centuries. If anything MoQ
> helps us to realize that the fix requires changes in values and
> attitudes
> over long periods of time from all parties. 
> -Ron

Agree. But in regards to racism, giant steps to deflect it have occurred 
over the past 50 years, culminating with the election of a black man as 
president. Pirsig provides a philosophic basis to Martin Luther King's view 
that we should judge a person not by the color of his skin, but by the 
content of his character.

Platt

> ________________________________
> From: Platt Holden <plattholden at gmail.com>
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Sent: Tuesday, January 6, 2009 7:23:50 AM
> Subject: Re: [MD] Multiculturalism scam
> 
> All:
> 
> Pirsig pretty well pinpointed the problem with the multiculturism in 
> recounting his conversation with a professor at the University of
> Chicago:
> 
> "Phaedrus remembered a conversation in the early sixties with a University
> of Chicago faculty member who was moving out of the Woodlawn neighborhood
> next to the university. He was moving because criminal blacks had moved in
> and it had become too dangerous to live there. Phaedrus had said he didn't
> think moving out was any solution.
> 
> "The professor had blown up at him. "What you don't know!" he had said. 
> "We've tried everything! We've tried workshops, study groups, councils. 
> We've spent years in this. If there's anything we've missed we don't know
> what it is. Everything has failed."
> 
> "The professor added, "You don't understand what a defeat this has been
> for 
> us. It's as though we never even tried."
> 
> "Phaedrus had had no answer at the time, but he had one now. The idea that
> biological crimes can be ended by intellect alone, that you can talk crime
> to death, doesn't work. Intellectual patterns cannot directly control 
> biological patterns. Only social patterns can control biological patterns,
> and the instrument of conversation between society and biology is not 
> words. The instrument of conversation between society and biology has 
> always been a policeman or a soldier and his gun. All the laws of history,
> all the arguments, all the Constitutions and the Bills of Rights and 
> Declarations of Independence are nothing more than instructions to the 
> military and police. If the military and police can't or don't follow
> these 
> instructions properly they might as well have never been written.
> 
> "Phaedrus now thought that part of the professors paralysis was a 
> commitment to the twentieth-century intellectual doctrines, in which his
> university has had a prominent role. (Multiculturism) A second part of the
> paralysis probably came from the fact that the criminals were black. If it
> had been a group of trash whites moving into the neighborhood, robbing and
> raping and killing, the response would have been much fiercer, but when 
> whites denounced blacks for robbing and raping and killing they left 
> themselves open to the charge of racism. In the atmosphere of public 
> opinion of that time no intellectual dared to open himself to the charge
> of 
> being a racist. Just the thought of it shut him up tight. Paralysis.
> 
> "That charge is part of the paralysis of this city here. Right now."
> (Lila, 
> 24 -- Parens added.
> 
> Similar charges are flung today at anyone who challenges leftist
> doctrines, 
> as some recent posts on this site amply illustrate. 
> 
> Platt