Excellent. Bravo, and keep it coming. It's worth pondering the very SOMish nature of this Free Market legacy, right down to Descartes himself. That's what kills me about Platt. I mean, the battle against amoral, value-free rationality should extend to economics and politics most of all but that's right where he abandons it. dmb
Andre wrote: > '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 _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail® has a new way to see what's up with your friends. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/WhatsNew?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_WhatsNew1_052009 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/
