[MD] Theocracy, Secularism, and Democracy

[John Carl]

Platt and Arlo,


I've been following along with this exchange, and an idea arose in my
thinking that Platt illustrates nicely with the following query;


> Finally, what has all this to do with the MOQ? Are you perhaps suggesting
> that
> Pirsig's metaphysics should be the basis of American law? If so, good luck
> with
> that.
>
>
>
The idea that arose, is a possible reason why America is unlikely to elect
an Atheist as President.  In our current paradigm, values are either
religiously derived, or they're subjective.  People like nice, clean
hierarchical understanding - "The buck stops here" sits on the desk of the
highest office in the land.  Or at least it did when HS Truman sat there.
If the president is not subject to some higher authority, then obviously in
the minds of most people he's simply serving his own self-interest - or the
narrow interests of his supporters.  But as long as the people have some
fantasy that the guy is aware of a duty to higher authority, they can cast
their vote in trust.

The unfortunate part of this equation, is that we can end up with
politicians simply mouthing religous dogmas, while actually serving their
own interests.  The Bushies demonstrated this aptly.

What this country needs is a sense of value that is above religious dogma.
A sense of value that is absolute and above the mere subjective whims of the
office-holder.  I think if an individual took office who was able to
explicate this sense of value, this devotion to duty to Quality, this would
go a long way toward bringing about a metaphysics of Quality into actual
political force.  Especially if he/she did a good job.

John