[MD] irony and Socrates

[John Carl]

Marsha,
Welcome back, you were missed.  You bring out the most salient point for me:



> The social values are right only if the individual values are right.


I believe individual values arise from social patterns, starting with the
most basic of all social interactions, mother and child.



> The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and
> hands, and then to work outward from there. Other people can talk about how
> to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a
> motorcycle. I think that what I have to say has more lasting value. “
>

Well said rhetorically, Professor Pirsig, but dialectically deficient.  If
all you wanted to talk about was fixing motorcycles, none of us would be
here.

I  agree that my own heart and hands can be the only possible starting
point, obviously.   But the mindfulness of how my actions will effect others
and the bigger picture is vital for the evolution of the whole.