[MD] Intellectuals will tell you

[Krimel]

Platt,
I have seen the light! America ought to be run by the stupid and ignorant.
In fact it would be better to be ruled by stupid, ignorant rich people. My
god why didn't I see that before. I now feel so validated in all the effort
I have put in over the years destroying brain cells. They were holding me
back I must have killed the last one standing in the way of enlightenment.
Boy you sure got there way ahead of me. Will it belong now before I find
Jesus?
Thanks!
Krimel

All:

A prophetic passage in Lila poses the question, "How do you tell right from 
wrong?":

"When people asked, 'If no culture, including a Victorian culture, can say
what 
is right and what is wrong, then how can we ever know what is right and what
is 
wrong?' the answer was, 'That's easy. Intellectuals will tell you. 
Intellectuals, unlike members of studiable cultures, know what they're
talking 
and writing about, because what they say isn't culturally relative. What
they 
say is absolute. This is because intellectuals follow science, which is 
objective.' "(Lila, 22)

Lest you think PIrsig was exaggerating or just blowing smoke, consider the 
following from an academic at Boston University:

"At stake are the most important questions: What is the right way for human 
beings to live? By what standard is anything true or good? Who gets to
decide 
what? Implicit in Wilson's words and explicit in our ruling class's actions
is 
the dismissal, as the ways of outdated "fathers," of the answers that most 
Americans would give to these questions. This dismissal of the American 
people's intellectual, spiritual, and moral substance is the very heart of
what 
our ruling class is about. Its principal article of faith, its claim to the 
right to decide for others, is precisely that it knows things and operates
by 
standards beyond others' comprehension.

"While the unenlightened ones believe that man is created in the image and 
likeness of God and that we are subject to His and to His nature's laws, the

enlightened ones know that we are products of evolution, driven by chance,
the 
environment, and the will to primacy. While the un-enlightened are stuck
with 
the antiquated notion that ordinary human minds can reach objective
judgments 
about good and evil, better and worse through reason, the enlightened ones
know 
that all such judgments are subjective and that ordinary people can no more
be 
trusted with reason than they can with guns. Because ordinary people will 
pervert reason with ideology, religion, or interest, science is "science"
only 
in the "right" hands. Consensus among the right people is the only standard
of 
truth. Facts and logic matter only insofar as proper authority acknowledges 
them.That is why the ruling class is united and adamant about nothing so
much 
as its right to pronounce definitive, "scientific" judgment on whatever it 
chooses." 

The above from an article entitled, "America's Ruling Class -- and the
Perils 
of Revolution,." located at:

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/print

Platt
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