Arlo said to Platt: I've always had a problem with the imprecision of Pirsig's words you quoted. I certainly agree that in order to know love we must know loss, in order to feel joy we must also feel sadness. But a blanket statement about "suffering" being necessary for species to evolve leaves me wondering about the role of medicine and treating, or abolishing, diseases. Should a cancer patient not be given drugs or treatment to stop his/her suffering? Should we not seek to improve the ergonomics of our chairs so as to eliminate the suffering of sitting for long periods of time at work? So I just think we need to be a little more precise about what forms of suffering we don't want to eliminate or ease, or what forms (e.g. leprosy) we may want to eliminate.
dmb says: I don't think Pirsig's statements about the role of suffering can rightly be used to justify the attitudes of a social darwinist or anything like that. Its not even about politics, per se. I think the term is used as a very strong version of growth, development or "struggle". In that sense, suffering is the negative face of quality, the main motive for our desires of betterness. But having things the easy and painless way is only one kind of better and there is some truth to the idea that we get soft when things are too easy. As a student, for example, I can tell you there is reading and then there is really, really reading. It hurts a little, but that's what it takes. It's a cliche, but it's true. Without the pain there's no real gain. Sickness and disease is something else. And social justice would only eliminate the most unnecessary, pointless suffering and the impediments to full human potential. Then we could do the kind of suffering that matters. _________________________________________________________________ Need to know the score, the latest news, or you need your Hotmail®-get your "fix". http://www.msnmobilefix.com/Default.aspx 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/
