On 3 Jun 2010 at 10:03, Arlo Bensinger wrote: [Platt to Ron] You left out Einstein's final paragraph:
[Arlo] Actually. You did as well. "Clarity about the aims and problems of socialism is of greatest significance in our age of transition. Since, under present circumstances, free and unhindered discussion of these problems has come under a powerful taboo..." Yes, they certainly have (witness Glenn Beck's "nazi tourettes" (Lewis Black is awesome!)). [Platt] Speaking of Nazis, check this recent news item right out of the pages of Goebbels propaganda playbook: "Over thirty organizations want the Federal Communications Commission to open up a probe on "hate speech" and "misinformation" in media." Full story at: http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010/05/should-the-government-keep-tabs-on-hate- speech.ars "The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate." (Einstein) [Arlo] Sounds like Einstein had a time-travel device and was listening to 2010 talk radio. [Platt] Sounds like Einstein failed to understand the significance of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, although he beat a retreat from Europe to America when threatened by the National Socialist Workers party of Germany. He continues, "All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life." (Einstein) [Arlo] This is the same prison Pirsig describes in ZMM. "Along the streets that lead away from the apartment he can never see anything through the concrete and brick and neon but he knows that buried within it are grotesque, twisted souls forever trying the manners that will convince themselves they possess Quality, learning strange poses of style and glamour vended by dream magazines and other mass media, and paid for by the vendors of substance." (Pirsig) [Platt] In Lila Pirsig cites SOM as the cause of lost souls: "A scientific, intellectual culture had become a culture of millions of isolated people living and dying in little cells of psychic solitary confinement, unable to talk to one another, really, and unable to judge one another because scientifically speaking it is impossible to do so." (Lila,22) Note the phrase "scientific, intellectual culture" -- further support of Bo's interpretation of the intellectual level as SOL. "The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil." (Einstein) [Arlo] Pirsig describes the current modes of production in ZMM. "People arrive at a factory and perform a totally meaningless task from eight to five without question because the structure demands that it be that way. There's no villain, no "mean guy" who wants them to live meaningless lives, it's just that the structure, the system demands it and no one is willing to take on the formidable task of changing the structure just because it is meaningless." (ZMM) [Platt] A repeat -- needed to penetrate thick skulls: "What makes the free-enterprise system superior is that the socialists, reasoning intelligently and objectively, have inadvertently closed the door to Dynamic Quality in the buying and selling of things. They closed it because the metaphysical structure of their objectivity never told them Dynamic Quality exists" (Lila, 17). 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
