Final thoughts from me on this... [Platt] Say what? Are you claiming the Founding Fathers rejected religion?
[Arlo] I'm saying the ideas of liberty and freedom as articulated by these people came to us from secular enlightenment, not from religion. That the "founders" pandered to religion, does not surprise me, any more than it surprises me that modern leaders pander to religion. But what we have seen in the past few hundred years in an enlightenment philosophy being usurped by the very malicious dogma it neutered. [Platt] Makes perfect sense in response to your claim that "it's far from true" that those who advocate state supremacy are atheists. [Arlo] There were more advocates of state supremacy historically that we not atheists than the few you list here. Again, you keep pointing to the last hundred years, and again I say "wise of you", since that's the period following religion's neutering. [Platt] Recent history has seen the consequences of replacing the supremacy of God with the supremacy of the state. [Arlo] One should reject dictatorial regimes whether they be "in the name of God" or "in the name of the nation". [Platt] Who are these secular enlightened people you keep talking about? [Arlo] You need for me to list for you the enlightenment philosophers? Consider what Pirsig had to say. "And yet, although Jefferson called this doctrine of social equality "self-evident," it is not at all self-evident. Scientific evidence and the social evidence of history indicate the opposite is self-evident. There is no "self-evidence" in European history that all men are created equal. There's no nation in Europe that doesn't trace its history to a time when it was "self-evident" that all men are created unequal. Jean Jacques Rousseau, who is sometimes given credit for this doctrine, certainly didn't get it from the history of Europe or Asia or Africa. He got it from the impact of the New World upon Europe and from contemplation of one particular kind of individual who lived in the New World, the person he called the "Noble Savage." (LILA) [Platt] Are they the same intellectuals Pirsig says have led us to PARADISE . . .PARADISE . . .PARADISE? [Arlo] No, these are the intellectuals who followed the materialistic, individualistic doctrine of consumerism and mass production. The same people who advocated, as Pirsig explains a few sentences later, the following. "Everyone seemed to be guided by an "objective," "scientific" view of life that told each person that his essential self is his evolved material body." (LILA) In direct parallel, Pirsig tells us in ZMM, "Along the streets that lead away from the apartment he can never see anything through the concrete and brick and neon but he knows that buried within it are grotesque, twisted souls forever trying the manners that will convince themselves they possess Quality, learning strange poses of style and glamour vended by dream magazines and other mass media, and paid for by the vendors of substance." (ZMM) Yes, it is a lonely dark night. As Pirsig bemoans, "I know what it is! We've arrived at the West Coast! We're all strangers again! Folks, I just forgot the biggest gumption trap of all. The funeral procession! The one everybody's in, this hyped-up, fuck-you, supermodern, ego style of life that thinks it owns this country. We've been out of it for so long I'd forgotten all about it." (ZMM) "People arrive at a factory and perform a totally meaningless task from eight to five without question because the structure demands that it be that way. There's no villain, no "mean guy" who wants them to live meaningless lives, it's just that the structure, the system demands it and no one is willing to take on the formidable task of changing the structure just because it is meaningless." (ZMM) As for Pirsig, I consider him an astounding secular philosopher carrying the beacon of secular enlightenment. 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/
