dmb,
Within the nine quoted paragraphs you presented, what RMP actually wrote was
that money, or fortune, was one of the "... dynamic parameters that give
society its shape and meaning." He also wrote "We have whole departments of
universities, in fact, whole colleges, devoted to the study of economics" and
noted that there was not a similar discipline devoted to fame. That was it,
and that was all stated in the first quote. The remaining quotes made no
reference to money or economics at all. Your participation, your two
sentences, reminded me of your last discussion with Ron in the 'The Art of
Philosophy' thread. You wrote nothing significant and then disappeared.
Marsha
On Nov 13, 2012, at 11:34 AM, david buchanan wrote:
>
> Lucy (Marsha) said:
> I decided to avoid the 'Economics' thread to give dmb the opportunity to
> actually participate in a discussion on the topic. That is if he isn't many
> miles away hiding amongst the zebra.
>
>
> Ron replied to Lucy:
> Because you are just known for your iron clad reasoning and keen sense of
> philosophical clarity as well as your vastly superior use of rhetorical
> prose. Dave just has to be shakin in his bootz. ...same ole crap, really, do
> you blame the guy?
>
>
>
> dmb says:
> I'm not hiding from anything and honestly have no idea what Marsha is talking
> about. I made a point specifically aimed against Jan's claim and I'd be happy
> to discuss it further but nobody seems to understand the point. So I let it
> go. This saddens me but there is nothing about this that would make anyone
> afraid of anything. (Except for the fear of wasting time, perhaps.)
> To suggest that I'm hiding from something is just more meaningless posturing.
>
> Summary of the "economics" thread:
>
> Jan Anders Andersson said:
> "Economics is not about values" and "Economics is a way to AVOID values".
>
> dmb replied:
> According to the MOQ, fame and fortune are social level values. According to
> the MOQ, our recent history is a clash of values, namely social level values
> as opposed to intellectual values.
>
> Jan's big comeback:
> ...Therefore: Economics without value is nothing.
>
> dmb says:
> Apparently, Jan just doesn't care to be consistent and he doesn't care what
> Pirsig actually says about economics either. What would be the point in
> continuing such a conversation? Since there has been zero comprehension of
> the only point made, I really don't see any reason to bother.
>
>
>
dmb quotes Pirsig:
“Money and celebrity are fame and fortune, traditionally paired as twin forces
in the dynamic generation of social values. Both fame and fortune are huge
dynamic parameters that give society its shape and meaning. We have whole
departments of universities, in fact, whole colleges, devoted to the study of
economics, that is fortune, but what do we have that is similarly devoted to
the study of fame?” (Lila 258)
According to the MOQ, fame and fortune are social level values.
Economists certainly use numbers and other quantitative forms of analysis but
economics is a social science, which is to say that the subject matter is a
certain, limited range of human behavior. According to the MOQ, our recent
history is a clash of values, namely social level values as opposed to
intellectual values.
“The hurricane of social forces released by the overthrow of society by
intellect [during the Victorian period] was most strongly felt in Europe,
particularly Germany, where the effects of World War I were the most
devastating. Communism and socialism, programs for intellectual control over
society, were confronted by the reactionary forces of fascism, a program for
the social control of intellect. Nowhere were the intellectuals more intense in
their determination to overthrow the old order. Nowhere did the old order
become more intent on finding ways to destroy the excesses of the new
intellectualism."
"The gigantic power of socialism and fascism, which have overwhelmed this
century, is explained by a conflict of levels of evolution. This conflict
explains the driving force behind Hitler not as an insane search for power but
as an all-consuming glorification of social authority and hatred of
intellectualism. His anti-Semitism was fueled by anti-intellectualism. His
exaltation of the German volk was fueled by it. His fanatic persecution of any
kind of intellectual freedom was driven by it.”
"Intellect has its own patterns and goals that are as independent of society as
society is independent of biology. A value metaphysics makes it possible to see
that there’s a conflict between intellect and society that’s just as fierce as
the conflict between society and biology or the conflict between biology and
death. Biology beat death billions of years ago. Society beat biology thousands
of years ago. But intellect and society are still fighting it out, and that is
the key to an understanding of both the Victorians and the twentieth century.
What distinguishes the Victorian culture from the culture of today is that the
Victorians were the last people to believe that patterns of intellect are
subordinate to patterns of society. What held the Victorian pattern together
was a social code, not an intellectual one. They called it morals, but really
it was just a social code. As a code it was just like their ornamental
cast-iron furniture: expensive looking, cheaply made, brittle, cold, and
uncomfortable."
"The new culture that has emerged is the first in history to believe that
patterns of society must be subordinate to patterns of intellect. The one
dominating question of this century has been, “Are the social patterns of our
world going to run our intellectual life, or is our intellectual life going to
run the social patterns?” And in that battle, the intellectual patterns have
won."
"If one realizes that the essence of the Victorian value pattern was an
elevation of society above everything else, then all sorts of things fall into
place. What we today call Victorian hypocrisy was not regarded as hypocrisy. It
was a virtuous effort to keep one’s thoughts within the limits of social
propriety. In the Victorian’s mind quality and intellectuality were not related
to one another in such a way that quality had to stand the test of intellectual
meaning. The test of anything in the Victorian mind was, “Does society approve?”
"To put social forms to the test of intellectual value was “ungracious,” and
those Victorians really did believe in the social graces. They valued them as
the highest attributes of civilization. “Grace” is an interesting word with an
important history, and the fact that they used it the way they did makes it
even more interesting. A “state of grace” as defined by the Calvinists was a
state of religious “enlightenment.” But by the time the Victorians were through
with it, “grace” had changed from “godliness” to mean something close to
“social polish.”
"To the early Calvinists and to ourselves too this debasement of the word seems
outrageous, but it becomes understandable when one sees that within the
Victorian pattern of values society was God. As Edith Wharton said, Victorians
feared scandal worse than they feared disease. They had lost their faith in the
religious values of their ancestors and put their faith in society instead. It
was only by wearing the corset of society that one kept oneself from lapsing
back into a condition of evil. Formalism and prudery were attempts to suppress
evil by denying it a place in one’s “higher” thoughts, and for the Victorian,
higher spiritually meant higher socially. There was no distinction between the
two. “God is a gentleman through and through, and in all probability, Episcopal
too.” To be a gentleman was as close as you would ever get, while on earth, to
God."
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