Ham: Love is indeed an expression of value, but so is the power of wealth.
John: But to a Pirsigian, Ham, Love is a term for highest value, indefinable Quality, where wealth is an expression of lower-patterened values - social value. Putting social values above Quality is a MoQ no-no. Of course I realize that this doesn't make sense to you, because you place all value at the subjective level and see no conflict. Good is simply "whatever Ham likes at the moment" Ham: To call love of money "an immorality" is not only unwarranted but expresses the jaundiced biblical view of usury and exploitation by the rich. John: "Unwarranted" doesn't make sense in this example because its biblical and thus to the majority of American citizens, very warranted indeed. Ham: Anyway, we don't love dollars and cents; we love the power that money as a symbol of wealth brings. What is immoral about earning wealth or making a proft in the marketplace? Take away monetary rewards for labor or service, and you eliminate the incentive to create or produce anything of value. John: Social power is the great inducement and it gives Pragmatism a concrete focus, but this view is that which is one of the most common and cogent criticisms of bald Pragmatism - that its just about cold-hearted efficiency. And I could show you countless examples of labor or service done without monetary reward, but that nevertheless has high value to society - the open source software movement, heck, even this mailing list! How much money is Horse making off his endeavors? Do you think he's produced "anything of value"? 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/
