"Cultures can be graded and judged morally according to their contribution to
the evolution of life." (Lila, 24) It really bothers me when Platt quotes
Pirsig to support his reactionary, talk-radio nonsense. This is just one of the
most recent examples. He dished it up as a response to accusations of cultural
chauvinism, as if moral judgments and chauvinism were the same thing, or rather
as if we can't tell the difference. If we are to judge cultures according to
the evolution of life, then we have to identify what does and does not
contribute to that ongoing process. There are at least two crucial factors that
will determine the soundness of any such judgement; an adequate understanding
of the situation in question and an understanding of the MOQ's moral hierarchy.
Basically, Platt has neither of these. He seems to get his news from Fox and
constantly demonstrates confusion about what is social and what is intellectual
and apparently this confusion has everything to do with his chauvinism. He
simply puts all the stuff he likes into the intellectual category and the
things he does not like are characterized as social or biological. Most often
it is only HIS ranking of things, not Pirsig's. In my opinion, Platt is the
least helpful MOQer of all time. He's incorrigible. I'm astonished that anyone
could hang around here for so long without learning anything at all. And he
doesn't seem to grade or morally judge other cultures so much as he denigrates
them in ditto-head, parrot-like fashion. Can you, dear MOQer, tell the
different between a cultural analysis based on an evolutionary moral principle
and one based on low-brow patriotism? I can. It's one of the reasons I delete
Platt's posts without even reading them. If nobody responded I would see even
less of them, which would be fine with me.
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