[MD] Problems with Intellectual control of Society

[plattholden at gmail.com]

On 8 Oct 2009 at 12:38, Andre Broersen wrote:

> Platt:
> Yeah, locker room humor is so hilarious -- to randy teenagers perhaps.
> What's really funny is trashing talk radio although rarely listening to it.
> What bothers the trashers here are the conservative principles of limited
> government,
> 
> Andre:
> >From my observation here Platt (i.e.Holland) is that some wonderful
> American capitalist boys, through their greed and insatiable hunger for
> power and control have managed to unleash a world wide economic and
> financial crisis affecting/ ruining the lives of billions of people.Losing
> their homes, jobs, security, dignity, liberty, life-long savings etc, etc.
> The Arts are affected, education, health, you name it.
> 
> It has caused huge problems requiring huge interventions. Governments around
> the globe have done so and are still doing it because it ain't over yet.
> Should governments have done nothing, as you seem to advocate...and let
> everything go down the drain?
> The social consequences would have been catastrophic and we would have been
> back at the biological level: the law of the jungle.

Platt.
>From my perspective it was government interference in the mortgage 
market encouraging the purchase of homes by nonqualfied buyers 
(subprime mortgage holders) that caused the temporary dislocation of 
financial assets. The dislocation was exacerbated by further government 
interference, creating a media-driven crisis that led to the election of an 
overtly socialist government. 

> Last Saturday I read in the paper that there are currently 3 million
> homeless people in the U.S. and 9.8 percent of your fellow countrymen are
> jobless (15.1 million).
> Are you going to tell me that that is the fault of themselves? of their
> government?

Platt.
I doubt the count of homeless people but agree with the higher than 
normal unemployment figure, primarily caused by government 
interference in the free market as outlined above.  

> 
> Wake up man!
> 
> You continue:
> individual liberty, private property and Pirsig's endorsement of capitalism,
> 
> Andre:
> Pirsig endorses free enterprise only because it is more dynamic...and
> mindless. I do not think he endorses the latter. And, eventhough he has
> claimed that capitalism/ free enterprise has made everybody richer, I feel
> this is an exaggeration and not quite in line with the data which states
> that at present there are one billion people (!) going hungry every day.
> And, let's not muck around,he still finds an intellectually guided society
> morally superior... and a capitalist/free market system is not
> intellectually guided.

Platt.
I suggest you re-read Chapter 17 of Lila to see why Pirsig believes  
capitalism is morally superior to an S/O intellectually guided society 
(communism/socialism) which does not recognize DQ. 

> The individual liberty and private property ideas you talk about I have
> already mentioned in previous posts: they are based on an out-dated Lockean
> conception of 'nature'.

Platt.
Those who cannot own private property in a large, diverse society are 
slaves. How out-of-date is that? 

> Furthermore:
> not to mention his advice in ZMM to rely on individuals making quality
> decisions to improve the the quality of life, not big programs full of
> social spending like Obozo and his fellow leftists propose.
> 
> Andre:
> I addressed the latter above. And yeah, individual quality decisions. 'Ask
> not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country'
> seems to sum it up pretty well for me. Not only thinking for yourself but
> following your own dharma which strives towards DQ which represents the
> fundamental unity, harmony and beauty of all for all.

Platt.
I think you have a rather odd concept of DQ if you mean by "all for all" 
that individuals should bow down to an all powerful God-state in the 
name of the "public good."   
 
> But this, for you Platt, is 'lefty' prose. Pirsig is a 'lefty' as far as
> this is concerned.You don't want to make the world a better place. You just
> want a better place for you in the world.

Platt;
Are you suggesting you know how to make the world a better place? If 
so, the world will beat a path to your door. Then you'll probably find your 
place in the world isn't too bad.