[MD] The End of Faith - Spirituality

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Platt

On 23 February. you cited from the  "Communist Manifesto" (I guess it 
is)

> "Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means
> of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions
> of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear
> economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of
> the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon
> the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely
> revolutionizing the mode of production.

You obviously know much more about communism than I do and my 
errand is not to defend it, just analyze it in the light of the MOQ and I 
think the assertion that communism was an intellectually construction 
that fanatically followed its own narrow rationality holds water. Also that 
this narrowness was the cause for it notoriously ending up in the worst 
despotisms that history knows. 

This in turn is another result of "intellect as SOM" factor. By not 
knowing its place in a Quality hierarchy intellect suffered from the 
illusion of it being possible to construct a totally rational society 
(totalitarianism) with the known results. With the coming of MOQ and 
its taking over the metaphysical "M" (and leaving the residue S/O the 
role of its intellectual level) the moq-initiated see reality differently.

And the Q-reality will not permit an "intellectual dictatorship". The the 
level context demands a society that leaves room for free enterprises, 
yet holds the values of human rights and freedom high, thus 
preventing the "free entrepreneurs" to become so powerful as to 
create "social dictatorship". These subtle points are clear to me, but if 
they are to you ...??         


Platt:
> Very interesting -- nostalgia of a higher level for the lower, a
> "paradise lost element" at each level (except inorganic I presume).
> There's no doubt that Wilson and his intellectual cohorts played upon
> an innate desire for "social participation" and national social unity.
> But, small-town USA was consisted mostly of highly individualistic and
> independent entrepreneurs with the bare minimum of laws necessary
> enforce contracts and punish criminals. That changed, of course, when
> the intellectuals took over the national government. But, I certainly
> agree that nostalgia for the social pattern of "Can't we all get
> along?" is alive and well at the intellectual level. 

> Thanks for another fresh insight. I always look to you for high value 
> interpretations of the MOQ.

Thank YOU Platt, but the source of many difficulties is the "social" 
term, when you say "social participation" is not social value but 
socialism, while the freedom of good old days might as well be social 
VALUE like belov.  

On the nostalgia issue: If what's described as the coming of SOM in 
ZAMM is the coming of the intellectual level in the MOQ, then the 
Aretê that P. says is displayed by the old Homeric heroes must be 
social value. Thus we must conclude that young Pirsig, totally 
immersed in intellect's SOM reality, saw the past's non-SOM  Aretê 
reality as a "paradise lost" and something he identified with Quality 
itself. 

IMO

Bo