John said: ...Well Dave, I did say, "If that's not reactionary, then I don't know the meaning of the term" and then you said reactionary meant a right winger type of person. So I conclude that I really didn't know the meaning of the term. So I do what any self-respecting dotcommie netizen does, I look it up: *Reactionary* (also *reactionist*) refers to any political or social movement or ideology that seeks a return to a previous state and opposes changes in society it deems harmful. The term originated in the French Revolution to denote the counter revolutionaries who wanted to restore the real or imagined conditions of the monarchical *Ancient Régime. In the nineteenth century, the term *reactionism* denoted those who wished to preserve feudalism and aristocratic privilege against industrialism, republicanism,liberalism and socialism. Today the term is largely used pejoratively to refer to ideas that are considered backwards, outdated and opposed to progress. ...So you were wrong about it having a right-wing meaning. Was I wrong about Pirsig? In ZAMM Does Pirsig oppose changes in society he deems harmful? Does Pirsig seek a return to a previous state (good old American gumption)? Perhaps the point I made was debatable, but it wasn't quite so easily dismissable.
dmb says:Well no, I wasn't wrong to call reactionaries "right-wingers". In fact, the right-left designation comes from the French revolution. The counter-revolutionaries (Monarchists) literally sat on the right side of the representative's chamber and those supported the revolution sat on the left side. Simply wanting social reform is not reactionary and it entirely depends on what social changes are deemed harmful. If progressive policies are deemed harmful, that is reactionary. If reactionary policies are deemed harmful and you want to undo them, you're probably a progressive. I guess the trick would be to understand history well enough to spot the difference between forward and backward. Pirsig uses Hitler as an example of the most extreme kind of reactionary. He was not a monarchist, of course, but he certainly was an authoritarian and a dictator. He hated the idea of democracy and international law. Thought it was degenerate. He was also wildly anti-intellectual. There are right-wingers around these days who will try to tell you that Hitler was a socialist but they're just Republican party shills and/or ignorant of politics and history. I'd be surprized if there were more that a few political scientists who would simply laugh at such an assertion. The following is from chapter 22 of Lila.... "Communism and socialism, programs for the intellectual control over society, were confronted by the reactionary forces of fascism, a program for the social control of intellect. ...Phaedrus thought that no other historical or political analysis explains the enormity of these forces as clearly as does the MOQ. The gigantic power of socialism and fascism, which have overwhelmed this [20th] century, is explained by a conflict of levels of evolution. This conflict explains the driving force behind Hitler not as an insane search for power but as an all-consuming glorification of social authority and hatred of intellectualism. His anti-Semitism was fueled by anti-intellectualism. His hatred of communism was fueled by anti-intellectualism. His exaltation of the German volk was fueled by it. His fanatic persecution of any kind of intellectual freedom was driven by it." While I'm at it, this is from chapter 17 of Lila.... "That's what neither the socialists nor the capitalists ever got figured out. From a static point of view socialism is more moral than capitalism. It's a higher form of evolution. It is an intellectually guided society, not just a society that is guided by mindless traditions. That's what gives socialism its drive. But what the socialists left out and what has all but killed their whole undertaking is an absence of a concept of indefinite DQ. On the other hand the conservatives who keep trumpeting about the virtues of free enterprise are normally just supporting their own self-interest. They are just doing the usual cover-up for the rich in their age-old exploitation of the poor. Some of them seem to sense there is also something mysteriously virtuous in a free enterprise system and you can see them struggling to put it into words but they don't have the metaphysical vocabulary for it any more than the socialists do." These are among the passages that Platt does not want you to notice. He has turned Pirsig's critique of SOM into a form of anti-intellectual, anti-socialist, free market advocacy. He doesn't want you to notice that this absence of a concept of DQ applies to both the capitalists and the socialist. He says that is what "neither" of them "ever got figured out". He says the free enterprisers "don't have the metaphysical vocabulary for it any more than the socialist do". Platt doesn't want you or anybody else to notice Pirsig saying, "it is not that Victorian social economic patterns are more moral than socialist intellectual economic patterns. Quite the opposite. They are LESS moral as far as static patterns go." (emphasis is Pirsig's) I watch the news and generally assess American politics according to the MOQ's depiction of the conflict between social and intellectual values and it really works for me. I was history major during my undergrad days, did my senior thesis on Hitler and I've never encountered anything that works so well to clarify and make sense of things. It has tuned my ears to hear what's going on under the public debates and it seems that this conflict doesn't just still continue to this day, we see it right here in this forum with guys like Platt, Craig, MK, Ham and the other conservatives. They are less extreme versions of what Pirsig describes here as social level reaction to intellectualism. And it's no accident that Platt in particular likes to quote the narrator, who is also dominated by social values. According to these passages, this stance is not just an incorrect reading of Pirsig's books, it is also an immoral stance. _________________________________________________________________ Lauren found her dream laptop. Find the PC that’s right for you. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/choosepc/?ocid=ftp_val_wl_290 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/
