[MD] Problems with Intellectual control of Society

[Ham Priday]

Greetings, Craig --

...and thanks for coming to my rescue.


> Call me “Green Eggs”, but I’m with Ham on this one
> (apologies to Dr. Suess). The MoQ needs to reconcile the
> notion of DQ as the “undifferentiated continuum” & as
> what there can be more or less of (or more or less promoted.)
> In particular, do we experience DQ & from that conclude
> what is good?  Or do we identify what is good & conclude
> that is DQ?

I would say that we "sense" DQ (Value) and we "experience" what is good.

But what Pirsig says in his polemics of Dynamic Quality is somewhat 
equivocal.  For example:

"From a static point of view socialism is more moral than capitalism. 
...But what the socialists left out and what has killed their whole 
understanding is an absence of a concept of indefinite[?] Dynamic Quality. 
You go to any socialist city and it's always a dull place because there's 
little Dynamic Quality.

"On the other hand the conservatives who keep trumpeting about the virtues 
of free enterprise are normally just supporting their own self-interest.

"The Metaphysics of Quality provides the vocabulary.  A free market is a 
Dynamic institution.  What people buy and what people sell, in other words 
what people VALUE, can never be contained by any intellectual formula.  What 
makes the markeplace work is Dynamic Quality.  The market is always changing 
and the direction of that change can never be predetermined."  --  [LILA: 
Chpt. 17]

Now this DQ which Phaedrus had first euphemized as a "faceless Giant, ready 
to devour and digest him," but which he now realized "HE was as much a part 
of as anyone else," is actually Value.  And Value is not contained in cities 
and structures but in one's own sensibility.  This, I suspect, is what 
Pirsig was reaching for, except that it didn't quite fit his hierarchical 
scheme and he objectivized ("reified") Value instead.

What about his statement that conservatives (i.e., capitalists) "are just 
supporting their self-interests'?  Isn't what's "important", "desirable", or 
"interesting" precisely what is meant by realizing Value?  If so, nothing 
describes it better than "self-interest".  In other words, Capitalism works 
BECAUSE it supports self-interest.  It fails to work when government imposes 
its tentacles of regulation and control on the free enterprise system, which 
is the collectivist policy of statism or Socialism.  This reduces the 
incentive of innovators and producers, and upsets the dynamics of a free 
market economy which is based on individual values.

I am an advocate of "rational, self-directed value" as a moral principle. 
You may substitute "intellectual" for "rational", if it's more in keeping 
with the MoQ.  But you can't abstract Value from the individual who realizes 
it because value-sensibility is his very nature.  And therein lies your key 
to reconciling "the notion of DQ as the 'undifferentiated continuum' 
[Essence] & as what there can be more or less of (or more or less promoted) 
[values]."

Are we on the same page philosophically, Craig?

Best regards,
Ham