[MD] Politics

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt to Ron]
Communism and fascism are alike because they place the interests of 
the state (social pattern) above the individual (intellectual 
pattern). Thus, communism, fascism and all political philosophies 
exalting the state (the collective) are immoral.

[Arlo]
No. According to the MOQ, socialism is immoral because it "closes the 
door to Dynamic Quality". "But what the socialists left out and what 
has all but killed their whole undertaking is an absence of 
indefinite Dynamic Quality."

So the problem with communism/socialism is NOT the valuing of the 
"state" over the "individual", but the closing within the system to 
DQ. Fascism, on the other hand, IS the anti-intellectual subversion 
of intellect to society.

"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." (LILA)

Both of these were immoral, but immoral for different reasons. The 
former for closing off evolution to DQ, the latter for subverting 
intellectual patterns to social patterns.

Pirsig continues, "Nowhere were the intellectuals more intense in 
their determination to overthrow the old order (socialism). Nowhere 
did the old order become more intent on finding ways to destroy the 
excesses of the new intellectualism (fascism)."

Thus, for Pirsig, the primary qualifiers of fascism are 
anti-intellectualism and an adherence to "the old order". Socialism, 
on the other hand, embraces "intellectualism", but its problem has 
been the embracing of a S/O intellectualism, and intellectualism that 
left "no provision for morals".

And if we are truly to understand the conflicts we face in the coming 
years, it is this understanding of the tensions between 
anti-intellectual, regressive fascism that seeks to cling to the "old 
order" and a socialism that is moving forward guided by a valueless 
metaphysics.