Ron said to John: I am not a detractor of Platt, I just dislike his tactic of transferal from a relevant discussion of David Bohm and how system theory functions in relation to physics into demonizing him as a purveyor of evil. Convolutedly drawing a parallel from systems theory to Bolshevism. Just to bait for an irrelevant arguement to incite yet another pointless degeneration into an Arlo/Krimel/Platt ad hominem flame war.
dmb says: The irony in Platt's convoluted nonsense is that systems theory is used quite extensively to support and explain free market economics, social darwinism and Adam Smith's invisible hand. It is used to justify Platt's ideology. It says humans act out of rationally calculated self-interest so that each individual is the "part" while the economy is the "whole". All these individual selfish acts add up to a functioning structure, they say. Thus you get slogans like, "greed is good" and selfishness is seen as a virtue. Sadly, guys like Richard Dawkins are pushing genes and memes as parallel notions in biology and culture. As I see it, this is exactly what Pirsig was talking about in his complaints about rational and scientific amorality. The free market system caters to any desire and when you look around it seems to be all about Doritos and Coke. Mostly, it just leads to a kind of gasoline powered hedonism. Not that I'm above that sort of thing. My friends and I recently enjoyed champaign and caviar while camping in the desert. That ice-cold coke I drank after our trek through a canyon was pure pleasure and later, around the campfire, those roasted marshmallows really hit the spot. But that's probably how the dog felt when he ate that lizard but I'm sure he doesn't know anything about Adam Smith or Social Darwinism. My point? There is nothing noble about catering to such desires. These are just biological values, creature comforts. And to the extent that we put these values above social and intellectual values, we are just pigs with jobs, as Ron so aptly put it. In that sense, Platt's position always strikes me as rather low-brow and degenerate. What I like best about camping is the conversation. Campfire philosophy is far more delicious than any corn chip and often warms me better than the fire does. I like to believe that campfire philosophers go all the way back to the beginning of human history, that it's the second oldest tradition we have. Why not the oldest tradition? Because cooking meat is just a little older. Or so I imagine. Naturally, we did that too. _________________________________________________________________ Insert movie times and more without leaving Hotmail®. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_QuickAdd_062009 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/
