[Andre]
Platt (indirectly, because he does not want to expose himself but,
unfortunately, has nowhere else to hide but behind other people's
quotes, the intelligence behind which he could not even phathom)
[Arlo]
Well, again, you didn't seriously think Platt had any interest in an
honest discussion of Marxist Philosophy? Platt's quotes serves two
purposes. (1) They get him out of having to actually think, (2) they
present the ironic statement that "if Pirsig said it, it must be
true" (the irony comes from Platt's willful blindness to things
Pirsig says apart from the one or two quotes he reproduces endlessly).
What Pirsig actually points to in this quote is, nearly entirely,
irrelevant to our present discussion, but the singular points
actually support Marxist notions of social activity. Absolutely, in
"pre-social" times, "man" was a brute. Like apes and other primates,
before the emergence of social activity, man was no better and no
worse than the other animals, all living within the biological strata
of experience.
But Marx was critical of social patterns that reified a power-norm,
namely a capistocracy that elevated power over the many into the
hands of the few. I think Marx would find the notion that we "need"
despotic rule to prevent us from behaving animalistically highly
insulting, and evidence of the normative rhetoric of the despot's
power structure. That is, you can't turn "social patterns are needed
to prevent biological agression" into "despotic social patterns are
needed to prevent biological aggression", which is precisely what
Platt's use of this quote tends towards.
[Andre]
And I am absolutely positively convinced, one hundred percent, that
he was talking to you and the likes of you Platt.
[Arlo]
Yeah, I'd tend to agree. There are no shortage of apologists for the
power structure that feeds of portraying "post-social" man (keep that
distinction in mind) as normatively selfish, power-hungry, greedy,
etc. Where Pirsig points out that the social patterns emerged (in
part) as a way to control or repress such biological behavior, Platt
sees instead a social level that not only should accept these as
normal, but encourages them, fosters them and celebrates them.
Marx certainly did not envision crime ending, for example, upon the
enactment of local self-governing communes. But "what is criminal?"
is often a question with much of its answer derived from the
power-structure at hand. Although this has no basis in anything I've
read in Marx, I would imagine Marx may agree with the sentiment that
its "criminal" to watch your neighbors go hungry and not offer
assistance. Indeed, he would likely argue that its only a power
structure that feeds off greed and selfishness that reinforces the
notion that such behavior is acceptable, and once freed from this
power structure, without the need for greed (as it were), social
patterns reflecting cooperation and community would "naturally" (due
to the collective nature of the commune's activity) emerge.
[Andre]
Unfortunately you are many and the struggle will continue.
[Arlo]
The pendulum swings back and forth, people can't make up their minds,
one election we throw all the conservatives out and vote liberals in,
next its out with the liberals and in with the conservatives, but it
won't be long until they are in turn outsted once again and replaced
with liberals. "American" centricity is defined mostly as a general
disdain for whatever happens to be "in power" at the moment. But you
see the same pendulum swing pretty much around the Western world.
(One reason for this is the "nightmare politics" (shout out to
Khaled) that the Western world has embraced since the late 1960's.)
But is this pendulum in actuality a prison? That's the question.
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