On 10 May 2009 at 9:59, John Carl wrote:
> > <Platt> > > Then the intellectuals took control with their amoral > > scientific worldview (SOM) and its been pretty much downhill ever since. > > Our "slouching toward Gomorrah" is well documented in Pirsig's "Lila," an > > original philosophy which has been met by intellectuals with a predictable > > lack of enthusiasm because it challenges their faith in politically correct > > thinking. > > > </Platt> > This is a very interesting viewpoint Platt - that intellectuals took > control. I'd love to take credit for it but it's Pirsig's viewpoint, described in detail in Chapter 22 of Lila. Naturally some intellectuals contributing to this site tend to deny that Pirsig ever said what he actually said -- like capitalism being superior to socialism. They go into a catatonic state of denial when Pirsig says something they find "offensive." Of course, being such sensitive souls, they are offended rather easily. > I would like to examine this more closely but I find the term > "intellectual" to be either too broad or too narrow. Obviously, we're all > "intellectuals" in that we use our intellects, to differing degrees, to make > sense of our place in the cosmos. So what form of intellectualism is it that > bothers you? I'll answer for you, the same for me, it was an intellectual > unfolding of certain defects in reason itself. Right. It was the intellectualism of academicians, identified as such by Pirsig. From their ivory towers came the flowering of Subject/Object Metaphysics (SOM) which "has no provision for morals." That's the major defect. That's the intellectualism that bothers Pirsig. And now, me. > But I would go further than you here. Those defects were not in themselves > evil or bad. Any more than polar co-ordinates can be "bad". They contained > a weakness that could be exploited by those of intellect who wanted to gain > control - for it's own sake. I'd rather call them something besides > "intellectuals". For now, let's just consider them "the enemy". Or how about calling them "statists?" They want to use the physical force of the state to dominate society. They consider conservatives enemies because conservatives object to their schemes to spread "caring and compassion" at the point of a gun. > Pirsig mentions something about a death force? And it manifests usually in > social systems. Nazis, corrupt dictators, greedy capitalists or whatever > form they take, it's always about power and control over other people. There is a huge difference between dictators and capitalists. Capitalists can't round up dissidents and send them to death camps. > And they suppress good ideas that threaten their system. The goal then is > to earn their outright hostility and not just their feigned indifference. Note a problem. Note the hostility to conservative views on this site. > I want to say more. Especially about loyalty as defined by another ignored > philosopher, Josiah Royce, because there is such a rich comparison between > loyalty as defined by Royce and caring as defined by Pirsig. But it's > mother's day and I'm off to cook brunch and stew in my juices. Can you tell us a bit more about your attraction to Josiah Royce's philosophy? Are you familiar with the philosopher David Stove? Regards, Platt 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/
