Hi All, 'The assumptions defining the idea of the good of the traditional Anglo-American culture of the United States...are: 1) the subjective egocentric religious doctrine of Protestantism and the individualistic political doctrine, grounded in Descartes,Malebranche, and Locke's conception of a person as a mental substance, and 2) the laissez-faire economic theory formulated by Adam Smith and Jevons, which rests in turn on Locke,Hume and Bentham.
'The Protestant factor tended to make the individual the sole cause of any unfortunate economic or social circumstances in which he found himself. Locke's political philosophy made the preservation of private property the sole justification for the existence of government, thereby rendering unconstitutional any majority legislation which curbed working conditions or business practices in the interests of human rights or social needs. Similarly, the laissez-faire economic theory prescribed it to be unsound to prevent in any way the free play of individualistic action regardless of the social consequences, and required that labourers be treated, not from the standpoint of their value as human beings, but from the standpoint of the exchange value of their labour in a competitive free market... . We need hardly wonder at the tremendous hold which this exceedingly philosophical and technically economic idea of the good has had upon us'. (Northrop, The Meeting of East and West' p136) It is sometimes useful to find out where 'your own' ideas come from. It seems to me that there has been hardly any original thought since Pirsig. And even Mr. Pirsig himself admitted that there wasn't anything very novel about the classification of his MoQ.nor even the arrival at Quality (it was 'the oldest idea known to man',Lila p390). We are all patterns out of patterns out of patterns.Some grow, some mutate, some re-combine some grow old, wither away and die. I do not think Platt is a fool. He carries convictions and opinions that have a long history. We all do. It takes gumption to sit at the front of the train of your awareness. (ZMM p296). Sometimes merely realising where your ideas and convictions come from can be liberating and start you on a different track. Some have more gumption than others, and some are more foolish than others. I still hold on to the idea that the extent to which one holds on to static patterns is an indication of the amount he/she stands to lose by them when letting go.Some people have more to lose than others. Conversely of course, many people stand to gain by letting go of old static patterns.This takes courage and honesty...to look deep into your own heart and head, realising what really is important...what is good, and to let that flow through your hands and mouth. The MoQ is quite radical in that sense. This is Mr Pirsig's gift to us. For what it is worth. Andre 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/
