SA and Ron, I can see I have really irritated you both, and with my 'Bums don't know shit' statement I have humiliated myself. I got carried away with that post and lapsed into a certain vernacular that I now regret.
You want to paint me as someone condemning the poor from my comfortable armchair? go ahead if it makes you feel better. But there are bums out there who are the designers of their own downfall; they don't all drop out as a statement of their contempt at society. If we want to explore this disagreement more perhaps we need to say what kind of bums we are talking about. For instance I don't think of someone who wants to go and live in the wild for a while as a bum. I don't think the Brujo or the Indians in the teepee were bums either. On the other hand the meths drinker under the bridge fits the title better; he's probably had a very underprivileged life which has caused a downward spiral which is difficult to break out of but he still consistently makes the wrong choices and stays where he is. SA, so you say the bum knows Quality. What good is the quality he knows? He can still have the immediate experience of pain when sitting on a hot stove but on meths maybe he gets burnt a bit more before he reacts. Pirsig offered that intellect had the most potential for the valuation of quality. It's difficult to think when your on meths. SA, you said 'they might not be able to put quality into the exact words as Pirsig and go around saying quality, static patterns of value, etc..., but they do know quality - who doesn't?' Again I ask what's the use of this quality of yours? Surely the ultimate use of quality is to reduce your suffering? When Pirsig was staring into space while pissing his pants before the hospital he was at the same time experiencing a euphoria so profound that attending his physical circumstances was irrelevant but I don't think that is the case for most bums under the bridge. -Peter Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
