[Platt] Pirsig, however, makes the point that when it comes to changing social values, "someone has to be first." (Lila, 9) In the case of introducing democracy, that "someone," a lone individual, is lost in the veil of the past.
[Arlo] Pirsig makes the following point as well. "The moral values that were replacing the old European Victorian ones were the moral values of American Indians: kindness to children, maximum freedom, openness of speech, love of simplicity, affinity for nature. ... The twentieth century intellectuals were claiming scientific sanction for what they were doing, but the changes that were actually taking place in America were changes toward the values of the Indian." (LILA) And on the topic of the "origins" of our self-evident truths, Pirsig makes this point as well. "The idea that "all men are created equal" is a gift to the world from the American Indian. Europeans who settled here only transmitted it as a doctrine that they sometimes followed and sometimes did not. The real source was someone for whom social equality was no mere doctrine, who had equality built into his bones. To him it was inconceivable that the world could be any other way. For him there was no other way of life." (LILA) And this on. "And as Phaedrus' studies got deeper and deeper he saw that it was to this conflict between European and Indian values, between freedom and order, that his study should be directed." (LILA) And you prove this point he makes. "The experience of William James Sidis had shown that you can't just tell people about Indians and expect them to listen. They already know about Indians. Their cup of tea is full. The cultural immune system will keep them from hearing anything else. Phaedrus hoped this Quality metaphysics was something that would get past the immune system and show that American Indian mysticism is not something alien from American culture. It's a deep submerged hidden root of it." And if Pirsig was "wrong" about all this, we should consider that he also ends LILA with a brief exchange with an Indian, leading to the final central thesis "Good is a noun". "The Indians didn't see man as an object to whom the adjective "good" may or may not be applied." (LILA) Its amazing that ALL this Pirsig was wrong about, but when he says anything derogatory or negative about them, how correct he suddenly becomes. Ignore the paragraphs and paragraphs supporting and discussing the Indian values, these patterns as the origins of much of modern American culture, the peyote ceremony as a key catalyst in his thinking, the final summation referring back the Indian... ignore all this. But the few comments he does make that is slightly derogatory, repeat those over and over and over ad nauseum as evidence that somehow those disprove, or are far more important, to the lengthy ideas developed throughout LILA. Why? Because God Forbid anything Good out American Culture is credited to anyone except White Europeans. Now we get the tired distraction back to the "individual", as if this too somehow disproves all the things Pirsig says above. It doesn't. But to Platt it has to. And you watch, this post too will either get (1) Pirsig to disprove Pirsig, (2) Arlo the Big Bad Collectivist. Misinterpreted, Ron? Hardly. 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/
