[MD] How far from the text do you go?

[david buchanan]

dmb quoted Pirsig:
"That's what all those tiny bodies were doing up in there suspended so many hundreds of feet up in the sky. Participating in the Giant." (Lila, page 219)


John replied:
what choice do they have?  I mean, you have to have all the wealth and success that the giant conveys or you're nothing. It's either participate in the giant or be accounted poor white trash.

dmb says:

That's a false dilemma. Wall Street executives and white trash losers both participate in the Giant. The Giant rewards his favorites with fame and fortune but the poor will serve the Giant's needs in exchange for the hope of a dream of the promise of fame or fortune. They're playing exactly the same game, except they're losing.

By the way, I didn't exactly say you were a loser. I warned you that somebody could easily construe your personal confessions that way. (My wife left me, my property has been condemned while the bank is closing in and the septic tank overflows while the school bus molders. If it rhymed or mentioned beer, it would be indistinguishable from one of those old-school country-western songs.) It's not like I pulled that characterization out of thin air, you know? I was trying to tell you - privately - what kind of impressions YOU were making with those personal confessions. The underlying assumption here is that you would NOT want to leave that impression. But since you keep bringing it up, I guess you don't really care. It almost seems like you want the "poor white trash" label to stick. Okay, I guess you are the somebody I warned you about.