[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Platt Holden]

{Arlo}
> Not to mention that I am tired of this idiotic and asinine "individual
> versus collective" nonsense. It may serve the Party, but does little
> else. The self-congratulatory attempts to paint yourselves as Grand
> Warriors of Individualism and everyone else as Evil Little Marxists
> Collectivists are not only moronic, but wholly propagandistic. And don't
> even get me started on the idiotic proclamation that SQ is
> "totalitarianism".

Evil raises its ugly head. Arlo uses "idiotic," "asinine" and "moronic" 
to describe comments he disagrees with.  From Pirsig:

"To say that a comment is "stupid" is to imply that the person who 
makes it is stupid. This is the "ad hominem" argument: meaning,  "to 
the person."  Logically it is irrelevant.  If Joe says the sun is 
shining and you argue that Joe is insane, or Joe is a Nazi or Joe is 
stupid, what does this tell us about the condition of the sun?  
That the ad hominem argument is irrelevant is usually all the logic 
texts say about it, but the MOQ allows one to go deeper and make what 
may be an original contribution.  It says the ad hominem argument is a 
form of evil.

"The MOQ divides the hominem, or "individual" into four parts: 
inorganic, biological, social and intellectual.  Once this analysis is 
made, the ad hominem argument can be defined more clearly: It is an 
attempt destroy the intellectual  patterns of an individual by 
attacking his social status.  In other words, a lower form of evolution 
is being used to destroy a higher form.  That is evil." 
(Lila's Child, No. 140)

Platt