You know, I was not wholly unprepared for this ideological predicament. Since I first became interested in Fascist-like ideas and the history of political conflict surrounding them (during high school), I've always had a hunch that "the enemy" is far wiser, more attractive and more insidious than most people who pretend to "common sense" believe. It is the radical Right themselves and the radical Left who oppose both them and mainstream liberalism (which is "common sense" to our age) that have a more realistic estimate of this conflict's importance. Even in spite of the fact that said Right has been hounded and suppressed since 1940, including, in a gentler way, by moderate conservatives eager to attain a more enlightened image. To quote again from Orwell's review of Mein Kampf:

Suppose that Hitler’s programme could be put into effect. What he envisages, a hundred years hence, is a continuous state of 250 million Germans with plenty of “living room” (i.e. stretching to Afghanistan or thereabouts), a horrible brainless empire in which, essentially, nothing ever happens except the training of young men for war and the endless breeding of fresh cannon-fodder. How was it that he was able to put this monstrous decision across? It is easy to say that at one stage of his career he was financed by the heavy industrialists, who saw in him the man who would smash the Socialists and Communists. They would not have backed him, however, if he had not talked a great movement into existence already. Again, the situation in Germany, with its seven million unemployed, was obviously favourable for demagogues. But Hitler could not have succeeded against his many rivals if it had not been for the attraction of his own personality, which one can feel even in the clumsy writing of Mein Kampf, and which is no doubt overwhelming when one hears his speeches. I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler. Ever since he came to power — till then, like nearly everyone, I had been deceived into thinking that he did not matter — I have reflected that I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him, but that I could feel no personal animosity. The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him. One feels it again when one sees his photographs — and I recommend especially the photograph at the beginning of Hurst and Blackett’s edition, which shows Hitler in his early Brownshirt days. It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself. The initial personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is there. He is the martyr, the victim. Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon. One feels, as with Napoleon, that he is fighting against destiny, that he can’t win, and yet that he somehow deserves to. The attraction of such a pose is of course enormous; half the films that one sees turn upon some such theme.

Of course, the above can't be applied to all such right-wing radicals without adjusting for their personal differences - e.g. Mencius criticizing idealism as the root of all evil both on the right and on the left, while himself possessing a less-than-obvious but very distinct sort of idealism [1] - but still. If exposed to today's political blogosphere, Orwell could undoubtedly have constructed similar respectful warnings for all his radical opponents he'd find solid. The people who dreaded and obsessed over "Fascism", and continue to do so to this day - as well as the contrarians who actually walk that path - have clearer vision than the complacent masses. That the idea is in retreat and on the decline does not affect its strict consistency, decent compatibility with human nature and inherent potential.

Still, when all's said and done I view the situation as half a rational investigation and half a holy war (for a down-to-earth definition of "holy"); I don't currently feel any erosion in my values or see myself reneging at the end of it. Yet - and thank you for your compliment - I'm certainly eager to familiarize myself with as much of the other side's intellectual weaponry as it's possible to without getting significantly Sapir-Whorfed.

-[1] (I'm not going to describe in detail here Moldbug's many similarities and differences with classical thought that has been called fascist; I'll only mention that he himself admitted that calling his vision a "fascist technocracy" has "a grain of truth" - and, of course, I'm rather skeptical of his pretensions to exceptional pragmatism and non-mindkilledness)