[MD] Logos is not ergon

[Andre Broersen]

Ron to Matt:
?with regards to Andre and his post, I feel you greatly misunderstand his
meaning. it is exactly the virtue of logos as ergon he laments as lost to
the ego and the selfishness of the "I" at the expense of the community. To
lawyers and wordsmiths worshiping at the alter of materialist desires. Greed
has replaced honor as the virtue of the culture as it distorts logos and
twists ergon.

Andre:
Excellent Ron, I could not have said it better. If I understand Kitto
in 'The Greeks' properly, the relationship between word and deed was much
closer (if not the same) than it is now. We are talking about the time of
arete, the time before any systematic philosophy (intellect) had 'evolved'
out of the social level (this, Pirsig of course argues, happened with
Aristotle). A social PoV not yet kidnapped by intellect to serve its own
purposes.

Because 'ego' is a fiction it is insecure and driven, insatiably, to 'prove
its point' ...to affirm the reality it does not have.

'When an ego-climber has an image to protect he naturally lies to protect
this image' (ZMM, p 214)...and why?, because the image the ego projects is
false. To affirm the reality of this projection it has to extend its
boundaries, it has to expand to incorporate all, to make its own lie smaller
and the guilt of its trespass less. It sees itself as the centre around
which the universe turns.
'These projections lead people to fear and persecute in others precisely
those things that they fear and deny in themselves' In this way it
externalises its own failures. This is the stuff of religious/
corporate/cultural fanaticism, which seeks to convert/take over/ conquer
others.
So it seems to me anyway.

Andre