[MD] Another parallel

[John Carl]

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 3:56 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> Ron and all MOQers:



> and chapter 22 says, "this conflict explains the driving force behind
> Hitler not as an insane search for power but as an all-consuming
> glorification of social authority and hatred of intellectualism".



What is the problem with intellectualism?  It's too dynamic.  Societys, like
egos, gets comfortable in "their" patterns and despise dynamic change which
upsets working social patterns.



Add this to the idea that we've been drifting backward in recent decades
> under the leadership of the "neo-Victorians", which I take to be a euphemism
> meaning "reactionaries".



By neo- victorians I assume you mean the bush gang, but I think you are
doing a serious disservice to the victorians.  The victorians had a
too-stiff morality but the bozos who've been in power got no morality at all
except the Texas Cattle Baron brand -


>
> In the USA, "the social upheaval was not so great as in Europe, but FDR and
> the New Deal, nevertheless, became the center of a lesser storm between
> social and intellectual forces". It says, "Intellectualism, which had been a
> respected servant of the Victorian society, had become society's master" and
> "it should be stated at this point that the MOQ SUPPORTS this dominance of
> intellect over society" (Emphasis is Pirsig's).



You just gave me an idea Dave, about the reason the social upheaval was not
so great in America - there were other social movements and cultural values
at play in the national character - the native values that Pirsig describes
so eloquently in Lila - America mocked victorian values.  From one side of
it's brain anyway.  What I'd call it's redneck side today.  Beer swillin',
Bush votin', church goin', americans.  Who think Norman Rockwell is cool,
deep down in their hearts.




> Pirsig then goes on to talk about the problem of SOM. He says, "science,
> the intellectual pattern that has been appointed to take over society, has a
> defect in it". This critique of the intellect is elsewhere applied to both
> capitalists and socialists, to political economics in general, but the basic
> hierarchy remains the same. The conflict between social and intellectual
> values still rages. You can read about in any newspaper, seven days a week,
> and I think this kind of diagnosis can really help to sort things out.
> I mean, who would disagree with the interpretation that says the MOQ
> advocates intellectual control of society rather than the reverse?


It sounds ok, depending on who your intellectuals are - which always
devolves into a political battle and we're back in the realm of the social
again.



> And isn't it fair to say that the political right defends social level
> values while the political left is identified with the intellectual level.
> (With right and left being relative to the politics of the various nations
> involved.)



See?  I told you.  You've got a political argument on your hands just from
posing the solution that the left has all the intellectuals.  Sure it does,
but it's those same intellectuals that bug the hell out of the other half of
the country and how do you propose to make them listen?

I believe it is possible, but intellectual governance has to come about on
the basis of individual choice.



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-- 
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There are differing interpretations of Reality, some are just better than
others, that's all.
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