[MD] Intellectual isms

[Christoffer Ivarsson]

As you say DMB. And I fail to understand how some people can miss the simple 
logic presented by Pirsig.


I mean just look at the words: "Communism and socialism, programs for 
intellectual control of society"  - It's simple isn't it?

You quite correctly state that "And if money is a measure of social quality, 
which is what Pirsig says, then capitalism and the so-called "free market" 
is an ideology that rejects intellectual control of social level values."  - 
a simple enough point one would say, and since this isn't hard to follow one 
would think that everyone thinking in terms of the MOQ would see the Good in 
intellectual patterns wanting to create social patterns that serve 
intellectual ones.

We could invent a new "ism" if need be and emphasise the need for individual 
freedom - even though that's exactly what Marx wanted - freedom for the 
people, freedom from the slavery it means to have to dedicate the better 
part of your life to earn enough social credit to be able to survive, 
freedom from having to worried about being able to afford medical treatment, 
schooling for your children - all of those things that tie peoples minds 
down.  - We could invent a new name for it, but the idea would at it's base 
be the same - to free people from their slavery under social level patterns 
and thus serve evolution and Quality.

[original message:]

> Pirsig wrote:
> Communism and socialism, programs for intellectual control of society, 
> were confronted by the reactionary forces of fascism, a program for the 
> social control of intellect.

> Craigerb replied:
> International socialism/national socialism--not a lot to choose from.

> dmb says:
> Craig's comment is a fine example of the kind of ideological distortions I 
> was just complaining about. Pirsig has made a clear and simple statement 
> contrasting intellectual level "isms" and social level "isms" using 
> concrete historical examples. By referring to fascism as "national 
> socialism" he has distorted and confused Pirsig's simple point, as if that 
> label accurately characterized Hitler, Franco and Mussolini, the founder 
> of fascism. By that logic the People's Republic of China is run by the 
> Republican party. By that logic, the choice between FDR's New Deal and 
> Hitler's NAZI policies doesn't give us "a lot to choose from". One saved 
> the Western Democracies and the other murdered tens of millions, but hey, 
> why quibble over little details like that, eh? See, this is what keeps us 
> from getting anywhere. Pirsig's explanations about the difference between 
> social and intellectual values are in large part centered around the 
> historical conflict between these various "isms" but
> with nonsense like this going on we can never have an intelligent 
> conversation about the differences between them. I guess that's bound to 
> happen when we're talking about values, ranking values. By definition, 
> this is what people care about and fight about. Wars have been fought over 
> it and these political conflicts continue up to this moment....
>
> dmb said:
> ...the New Deal is classic American liberalism and the conservative 
> movement - along with the boys from the Chicago school of ecomonics - has 
> been taking it apart bit by bit for decades.

> Craig replied:
> Thankfully.  The challenge for us at MD is to present the intellectual 
> backing for the 2 systems & to evaluate which has the higher value.

> dmb says:
> Well, you can probably defend fascism intellectually (if you can overcome 
> the moral qualms) but that would only mean your defense is intellectual. 
> The thing you'd be defending would still be a glorification of social 
> authority. And if money is a measure of social quality, which is what 
> Pirsig says, then capitalism and the so-called "free market" is an 
> ideology that rejects intellectual control of social level values. And 
> this is only consistent with fascism as it was understood by its founder, 
> who said, "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it 
> is the merger of state and corporate power". I mean, if one understands 
> the differences between the various ideologies discussed by Pirsig then 
> the difference between the two top static levels is quite clear.