[MD] The MoQ and Politics?

[Ian Glendinning]

Hi DMB, John, et al.
Inserted [IG] below ...

On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 8:45 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> John said:
> "... for those concerned with Quality, the point isn't to weigh in on the side of the right, or the left, but the good."
>
> Ian replied:
> You don't say John, (agreed, any ideology is anathema to quality and value). The point is how ?
>
> dmb says:
> Any ideology is anathema to quality? I think that's extremely unhelpful. It's just another way to take both sides and undermine the most basic distinctions entailed in any realistic political debate.

[IG] Hardly. We can debate and understand the distinctions in
different ideologies, but as MoQists, there is no reason to choose an
ideology. It's far from taking both sides, it's refusing to take
sides, when the choice presented is between ideologies, the point John
made that I was agreeing with. Would you describe the MoQ ideological,
or being an ideology ? (FYI I'm currently reading Zizek's end-times
right now, but this not-taking-sides point is fundamental to his short
piece "The Empty Wheelbarrow".)

> As Pirsig tells it, the political conflicts in the 20th century are a struggle between two distinct value systems; social and intellectual. The extreme forms would be fascism and communism respectively and in we see a milder version of this battle in the conflict between today's conservatives and liberals. There is a sense in which the MOQ is both conservative and liberal.

[IG] Clearly, so in exactly that sense you say it is NOT a choice
between ideologies, but understanding the workings of both in terms of
quality, without subscribing to either. Perhaps anathema was too
strong - ideology can clearly be a "subject" of MoQ, but the MoQ is
not and does not choose to be an ideology. There are no taboo subjects
in MoQ, only lower and higher quality behaviours.

In the same way that the MOQ insists that we need both static and
dynamic quality, the social order needs both stability and an openness
to growth and innovation. But for the most part the battle is between
social values and intellectual values as they are reflected in the
stances of these rival ideologies.

[IG] As I said to John, you don't say ;-)

>
> Just as a thought experiment, how about if you make a list of intellectual values favored by conservative ideology. Good luck.

[IG] That shouldn't take long. Here's one "Freedom". You next. My
point if you are interested (explicit in the post you responded to) is
that making lists of "what" and organizing them in MoQ value-pattern
terms (like an ontology) is easy but of much less value than the "how"
question - how to act (including debate) and how to govern our
actions.

Regards
Ian