[MD] Social Intellectual

[Platt Holden]

On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 2:07 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> Pirsig wrote:
> "What makes the free-enterprise system SUPERIOR is that the socialists,
> reasoning intelligently and objectively, have inadvertently closed the door
> to Dynamic Quality in the buying and selling of things." (Lila, 17, emphasis
> added by Platt)
>
>
> Pirsig wrote:
> "From a static point of view SOCIALISM IS MORE MORAL THAN CAPITALISM. It's
> a higher form of evolution. It is an intellectually guided society, not just
> a society that is guided by mindless traditions. That's what gives socialism
> its drive."  "the conservatives who keep trumpeting about the virtues of
> free enterprise are normally just supporting their own self-interest. They
> are just doing the usual cover-up for the rich in their age-old exploitation
> of the poor."
>  (Lila ch17, EMPHASIS ADDED BY RON)
>
>
>
> Pirsig's wrote:
> "...a culture that supports the dominance of intellectual values over
> social values is absolutely superior to one that does not." (Lila, p.311)
>
> "That's what neither the socialist nor the capitalist ever got figured out.
> From a static point of view, socialism is more moral than capitalism. It's a
> higher form of evolution. It is an intellectually guided society, not just a
> society that is guided by mindless traditions. That's what gives socialism
> its drive. But what the socialist left out and what has all but killed their
> whole undertaking is an absence of a concept of indefinite DQ. You go to any
> socialist city and it's always a dull place because there's little DQ. On
> the other hand the conservatives who keep trumpeting about the virtues of
> free enterprise are normally just supporting their own self-interest. They
> are just doing the usual cover-up for the rich in their age-old exploitation
> of the poor. Some of them seem to sense there is also something mysteriously
> virtuous in a free enterprise system and you can see them struggling to put
> it into words but they don't have the metaphysical vocabulary for it any
> more
>  than the socialists do." (expanded a bit by dmb)
>
> "It is not that Victorian social economic patterns are more moral than
> socialist intellectual economic patterns. Quite the opposite. They are less
> moral as static patterns go."
>
>
> dmb says:
>
> To be intellectually honest and to get a reasonably accurate picture of
> Pirsig's meaning, we have to add these up. These quotes are all part of a
> single analysis and they should all fit together quite comfortably. As Platt
> construes it, however, the statements about the moral superiority of
> socialism are to be ignored and the positive statements about capitalism are
> to be emphasized to the exclusion of every other statement on the topic.
> This is a selective use of evidence and it is dishonest. Since this has been
> going on for years, I'd say it's dishonest in the extreme.
>
> Again, the MOQ moral compass says, "a culture that supports the dominance
> of intellectual values over social values is absolutely superior to one that
> does not." (Lila, p. 311) When we add up the quotes so that they all fit
> together, Pirsig is saying that socialism is morally superior because it
> supports intellectual values over social values. He's also saying that
> capitalist countries are more successful in the buying and selling of
> things, even though they don't have the metaphysical vocabulary to
> understand why any more than the socialists do. "That's what neither the
> socialist nor the capitalist ever got figured out," Pirsig says, but Platt
> wants to use this lack of understanding ONLY against the socialists, as if
> capitalist didn't operate on exactly the same absence of understanding. That
> is another way in which he uses these quotes dishonestly and selectively.
>

[Platt}
Geez, I thought what was important here was not socialist or capitalist
understanding, but MOQ understanding. Of course, capitalists have the same
lack of understanding of why they have been so successful compared to
intellectually-guided socialists. They never understood that DQ existed
until Pirsig came along to point it out. But, now  capitalists do
understand, thanks to the MOQ.



> I think it's pretty clear that the MOQ is advocating an intellectually
> guided society that does NOT inadvertently close the door to DQ. The idea
> here is to give socialism the metaphysical vocabulary it needs. Political
> and social conflicts are not the sole aim, of course, this metaphysical
> vocabulary is also supposed to improve science, art, religion, philosophy
> and rationality in general. The MOQ political analysis is supposed to be
> consistent with all that too. There room for honest debate, of course, and
> this does not mean that the MOQ is opposed to any kind of conservatism. But
> Platt's pants have been on fire for a long time now.
>

{Platt}
I think its pretty clear that the MOQ is advocating a society guided by the
MOQ whereby the free enterprise economic system is valued over a
center-directed socialist/communist government. That's all the vocabulary
one needs. Under the MOQ system, improvements in science and quality of life
improve, as demonstrated by history. Whether there can be improvements in
art, religion, philosophy or rationality is pure conjecture. In any event,
DMB has been an advocate for socialism ever since he read that intellectual
masterpiece, the Communist Manifesto.

What's really intellectually dishonest is to ignore that DQ trumps
intellectual values.

>