DMB >[dmb] > The socialism that Pirsig is talking about is the kind of thing you find in > Norway, Canada, France and the UK. In the United States, socialism can be seen > in things like FDR's New Deal, Johnson's Great Society. Social Security, > Medicare and Medicaid, the post office, public schools and the interstate > highway system are the products of socialism. Does that resemble the killing > fields or the gas chambers in any way? No, of course not. [Dave] I find 5 instances in Lila and none in ZaMM where Pirsig uses the word socialism. In none of those five instances does he mention anything even vaguely like you claim. I'm aware that conservatives in the US like to portray those programs you mention as "socialism" or "creeping socialism" but that's mostly political rhetoric. I know you like to think you channel Pirsig, but, one he not dead yet and two I'm not a believer of Cayce.
So we're on the same page, if Pirsig is using plain English and I think he is, this is the socialism that he is referring to: "Socialism refers to the various theories of economic organization advocating public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a method of compensation based on the amount of labor expended" [Wikipedia definition] The mainstream introduction and use of the word started in the 1830's. It was a reaction to the extreme social changes fomented by the growth of the Industrial Revolution. And there's that word "revolution" that is always, logically, tied to socialism. Why? Because by the 1800's, regardless of their political structures, all of the nation states in the world had some forms of private property and capitalism. However bad or inequitable these systems were, to expect that most or all of the "haves" would voluntarily buy into this idea defines the term idealist. So who's attracted to this idea? Ideologues who don't understand people and intelligent thugs who do. >[dmb] > It gets so warped around here that some people (John) can see mass murder and > the deliberate collapse of a civilization as an intellectual act. Man, that's > really mixed up. Ideas can do nothing without social constituents. If an intellectual construct appeals only to "have nots", ideologues, and intelligent self interested thugs the consequences to be expected is exactly those the world has experienced. So when Pirsig says: [Lila pg 170] "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 Dynamic Quality. You go to any socialist city and it's always a dull place because there's little Dynamic Quality." RMP, like you, either misspoke, miss-thought, is blind, intellectually dishonest, or naïve because socialism and revolution are siamese twins. And there is nothing as Dynamic as revolution. So when you asked Marsha, > When did intellectual competence become a form of oppression? When the one conferring the "intellectual" rating is oneself? When people like Mao (who was one of the best read "intellectuals" in his country at the time) answered the question, "How do we change China?" '...the country must be destroyed...and then re-formed....this applies to the country, to the nation, to mankind?" Oh, for the record he was raised as a Buddhist. How does this tie back to the understanding of MoQ's intellectual and social levels? The illusion that an intellectual, particularly a self appointed one, somehow is immune from either bad ideas or evil actions is just plain Pollyannaish. Ideas have no legs. They live and die by the constitutes they attract. To presuppose that all intellectual ideas or concepts are good or true or even if they are, that they will be applied for THE GOOD of all of society is stuff of the tooth-fairy. Conceiving of the intellectual level similarly is beyond fairyland. While the intellectual level maybe the most dynamic it is also the most unstable. That does not automatically make it the most good. Twinkle, twinkle Dave 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/
