Hi Ham, Not to worry about being labelled a "right-wing extremist." Accept it with the same sense of pride that Washington, Jefferson and Franklin would embrace it were they alive today. The people in charge of the government today are diminutive dolts compared to these intellectual giants, founders of the greatest nation in the history of mankind.
Warm regards, Platt On 18 May 2010 at 13:23, Ham Priday wrote: Hi Platt, Andre, Marsha and All -- [Platt on 5/18]: > These quotes from ZAMM suggest that Quality is a > strictly individual event, solely dependent on an individual's > life experiences. It's like breathing. > Everyone knows what breathing is, but each individual > has a different breathing experience, especially the > experience of the first and last breaths. > > Individual uniqueness is a dominant theme of the MOQ, > demonstrated by the author's attention to the differences > that mark the personalities of Phaedrus, Rigel, Lila, > Dusenberry, John Wooden Leg, and other individuals > whose understanding of Quality varies mightily. > That such disparity gives ammunition to Pirsig's critics > goes without saying. Yes! Life is an individual experience. It makes no sense any other way. Thank you for pointing this out, Platt. It's one epistemological truth that you and I agree on, and I only wish RMP was as explicit about "individual uniqueness" as you seem to think he was. Andre has already dragged out the "Qualigod" label, criticizing you for not understanding that "the Lila 'personalities' represent different evolutionary levels of value." He would have us believe that the only differences between individuals are their evolutionary "quality levels". By reducing "selfness" to a quality pattern, Pirsig invites the notion of a "collective individual" -- universal subjectivity differentiated only by the arrangement of these patterns. The suggestion that Quality is the cognizant agent of experiential awareness makes a mockery of epistemology. And then there's dear Marsha, who has just been praised for musing that "We are all children of Quality." It's a pretty phrase, particularly considering today's emphasis on egalitarianism, but it's intended to disabuse us of the fact that each and every individual is a unique world unto itself. [Says Marsha]: > Somewhere RMP states that the only way to change society > is one individual at a time. ...I agree with Platt's insistence > on the importance of the individual, and often I want to agree > with many statements Ham makes too, for the same reason, > but with Ham self/individual seem to get confused. I find no > independent controlling self, only a flow of patterns. I have no idea how she distinguishes her proprietary 'self' from the individual identity she knows as Marsha, but it's another example of the conflated reasoning that the Quality hierarchy has fostered. How can we restore the "individualism" that made this nation great without being accused of "right-wing extremism"? How do we preserve the values of individual freedom and personal responsibility that our Founders fought for in a culture that has become increasingly collectivist in its worldview? If you can find an answer to that problem, you've got my full support. Thanks, Platt. --Ham 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/md/archives.html 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/md/archives.html
