[MD] Positive and Negative Quality

[Stephen Hannon]

Hello All,

Recent posts have mentioned nazism, fascism, communism, social level
as "bad"/intellectual level as "good", collective as "bad"/individual
as "good", good v. evil in other various forms.  There seems to be no
general ideas as to where "good" or "evil" belong in the MOQ or if
they belong at all.  I'm not counting Platt's individual level because
everyone else in this group, including me, disagrees with it.
Therefore, I propose my own solution.

I have said in other posts that "potential" increases throughout the
levels of the MOQ, from inorganic to intellectual.  It follows that
the intellectual level has the potential for the most Quality of the
four levels.  Now, I suggest distinguishing between Positive and
Negative Quality.  Positive Intellectual Quality has the potential to
do the most good, and Negative Intellectual Quality has the potential
to do the most evil.  A murderer (biological person) can kill a few
people, a government (social) can support mass murder, an idea of
fascism (intellectual) can spread to multiple countries.

[Platt in the 'Social Ants? post:]
We have seen Nazi and Communist societies in the 20th century commit
the most horrendous biological savagery ever recorded. So to say social
institutions have repressed such savagery is wrong on its face. In fact
certain social institutions still promote biological savagery today
such as Hamas and Al Qaeda...

What makes the individual level superior to the social level is the
recognition by individuals of society's role in keeping criminal
biological elements at bay...

[Steve H]
Many people in the Bush administration have referred to the terrorists
as having an "ideology of hate."  Rather than classify the terrorists
as biologically-based people, I would refer to their actions as
Negative Intellectual Quality, with the worst potential of anything
else, capable of spreading to other countries and costing thousands of
lives.

Similarly the Bush administrations ideology of neoconservatism is NIQ,
capable of shaping public policy and costing the lives of innocent
Iraqis, Afghans, and Americans, even if it does result in defeating
some terrorists.  I won't elaborate since we already had an entire
thread on neoconservatism.

Hopefully this provides a better explanation as to how "good" and
"evil" fit in the MOQ.

Regards,
Steve H