I have written many posts about how to recognize a Leftist in the wild or whom I mean by the word ‘Leftist’, but I will give a brief summation here. Because it is a brief summation, it is sadly inaccurate.
The Left is a coalition rather than an organization, by which I mean, there is no one center, no single guiding principle except their opposition God, to reason, to reality, most particularly to the realities of economics.
No one Leftist believes all parts of the Leftist doctrine because no one can or would. They pick and choose. What they are picking and choosing is which part of reality they want to deny.
Second, they are emotional rather than logical, a rude collection of feelings and moods rather than a coherent philosophy which makes statements against which one can argue. Like a squid, their thought has no shape, and, like a squid, defends itself by belching out ink clouds of obscuration.
Theologically, they are atheist and agnostic, or at least laiacist. They deny God.
In Metaphysics, they are nihilist. They deny the truth that truth exists.
In Epistemology, they are subjectivists and (ironically) empiricists. They will at the same time say that all truth is determined by scientific method and only by that, and that all truth is what you make of it.
In Ontology, they are materialists. They think the mind is an epiphenomenon, and the spirit a fairy tale.
In Logic, they are polylogists. They believe each race and level of evolution has its own logical rules, and that they rules are optional or subjective. “A is A” for you and not for me.
In Aesthetics, they are devoted to destroying the idea and ideal of beauty wheresoever found. They are both subjectivists, saying beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and vandals, saying that the purpose of art is to shock and disturb and make the world uglier, so that man will have no more taste or eye for beauty.
In Ethics, they are Gnostics. Whatever we call good, they call evil, and whatever we call evil, they call good. A bewildering variety of excuses, none of which they actually can believe, are used to explain or explain away this inversion, including the idea that men have no free will therefore no one can blame or judge another’s actions (when discussing homosex, for example) and including the idea that men are responsible not only for their actions but for symbolic and remote repercussions of their actions (when discussing racism, for example). Freud is particularly useful here, for the guilty can be declared innocent by reason of their inability to control their unconscious mind (when discussing homosex, for example) and the innocent can be declared guilty by reason of the ungood thoughts and motives of which the accused is himself unaware, albeit responsible (when discussing racism, for example).
This principle of inversion reaches every aspect of their moral code: women are most liberated when they are infertile and masculine; men when they are asexual or feminine; animals when they are given human rights; humans when they are treated like animals; children should be treated like adults; adults like children. The traditional notion of freedom as a liberation from whatever prevents you from achieving your own inner nature is overturned. Traditionally, freedom fulfills nature. In its place is the notion that freedom is liberation from your nature. For the Left, freedom destroys nature.
In Politics, they are totalitarian, recognizing no real or defined limits on legitimate government power. Some play greater or lesser lip service to certain civil rights, but these are regarded as granted by and protected by the government, revocable in the name of the greater good when convenient.
In Economics, they are socialist. Even those who are not openly communist, tacitly or actively accept the axioms and basic themes of the Marxist analysis of history as an endless Darwinian struggle between oppressor and oppressed.
In Semantics, they are Politically Correct. Words have no meaning, only utility. For them there is no difference between a right word and a wrong word, a truth or a lie, merely the authenticity (by which they mean emotional impact) of a word or phrase, and how well it serves the party.
In they psychological stance, they are sadists. Their rhetoric and the emotional images used to appeal to their base are all images of retaliation, of inflicting pain, and their argument consists of nothing but ad hominem and character assassination. They do not love ideas, like philosophers, they hate people, like misanthropists. This is all the more ironic since they claim to love people.
Even the most kindhearted Leftist I have ever met has this streak of sadism in her: she speaks of Reagan as a devil, and sneers at Palin, and I have never heard her speak a harsh word about anyone else, ever, ever.
In their psychopathology, they are suicidal. In any conflict, they side with whoever or whatever will inflict harm on their true enemy, which includes any father figure or authority figure placed over them. Where man conflicts with the environment, they side against man, and daydream about a world denuded of mankind. Where civilization confronts barbarism, they side with the barbarians, either Soviet or Jihadist.
This is a side effect of a simple strategy they have for achieving an appearance of moral righteousness without the substance: they merely side with the wrong. Why they think this makes them morally superior rather than morally retarded is a topic for another day. Sufficient for now to say this is a recurring theme.
Emotionally, they are sophomoric and infantile. They hate with a self righteous and condescending hatred anyone opposes them. The idea of chivalry, of an honest admiration for a rival, is alien to them. Everything is a crisis. Everything is a crusade.
They do not disagree. They abhor. They do not argue against. They shriek. When not shrieking, they sneer. Condescension is their central leitmotif.
In sum, the Left has toppled God from His throne and erected Caesar in His place. They are state-worshipers.
Again, not every Leftist believes all these points for no one could. Each accepts several and is at least neutral toward the rest.
The title. Is that a play on Roger Tory Peterson’s series of Field Guides or an homage to William Carlos Williams sad little epic, Paterson?
Tory Peterson. Except I spelled it wrong.
It’s been my observation that many who are avowed, committed Leftists are actually deeply and intrinsically unhappy people. Since most of them don’t believe in God or any form of salvation or divine justice, they elevate government into God’s place and demand that government right all the perceived wrongs, and build for them a paradise on Earth. Anything less is unacceptable. Anyone who questions or opposes this plan is not just wrong, but evil. Pure, absolute evil. That the plan (looks great on paper!) can never really work in actuality, is of no consequence. Leftists are too enamored of the dream. It’s been passed down as secular gospel since Marx. They are zealots. And the scary thing about zealots is that they’d often rather see the world burn, upon discovering that it cannot live up to their expectations.
“That the plan (looks great on paper!) can never really work in actuality, is of no consequence.”
They are to some extent victimized by a logical loophole and their own stubbornness here: because it’s impossible to prove a negative, it is always possible to say, in principle at least, that people just didn’t try hard enough before, and to honestly believe that This Time It’ll Be Different.
People often like to say that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result,” but it is true that sometimes you have to do the same thing for a long time without apparent result before you accomplish what you really want.
In some cases, I suspect an unwillingness to nail their flag to the mast and so face the actual sins and flaws of a real and concrete system.
While I don’t deny what has been said here, I have met a lot of unhappy, illogical right wing people as well. I wish the left had a lock on cant and hatred, but they don’t.
The modern leftist was dissected cogently by Aurel Kolnai.
And how would you classify the Secular Right, the Menckenites that deny the Equality of Man?
Now they go around calling themselves philosophers of the Dark Enlightenment.
They regard themselves as belonging to the Right.
Note this carefully–all those that deny the Equality of Man call themselves as being on Right.
Note this carefully–all those that deny the Equality of Man call themselves as being on Right.
As soon as you put the word ‘all’ into that sentence, you turned it from a plausible but contentious statement into a damned lie.
The Left is committed to the French Revolution and its ideals, practically by definition.
No one can deny the idea of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity and call himself a member of the Left.
You should go lie down until you are feeling better.
You are feeling better when you want to apologize for such a blatant and vicious lie.
Apologize to whom and for what?
For uttering a damned lie. All who deny the equality of man are on the Right?
Unless you have been visiting another planet outside radio range for the last 150 years, there is no way you can be unaware of the events which have taken place on Earth.
When Marx announced that anyone who invests in goods, that is, Capitalists, should be slaughtered like dogs, or when Mao carried out exactly slaughters on a scale without precedent in history, were they professing themselves to be followers of Edmund Burke?
When the National Socialists of Germany decreed it scientifically proven, a matter of socialist and revolutionary science, for the sake of the glory of the people (volk) and in the name of science and progress to administer contraception, abortion, eugenics, euthanasia, and slaughter undesirables, homosexuals, gypsies, Jews and Catholics, and they dehumanized their victims by calling them ‘undermenschen’ (subhumans) do you consider them to be have been upholding the ideals of equality?
Or perhaps you consider socialist progressives busily overthrowing tradition and Christianity in the name of science and the will of the people to be men of the Right?
You should apologize to us and to your God; to us for lying to us, and to Him for breaking His commandment against bearing false witness.
Then apologize for yourself for allowing your hatred and rage to overthrow your powers of reason.
And Burke was for political Equality?
The Right has mostly opposed Political Equality. They opposed widening of the franchise in 19C England, they opposed Elections and Self-Rule in 20C British India.
I am not saying that they were wrong to do so.
The Political Equality should not be a dogma (unlike the spiritual equality of man) but depends upon particular circumstances. A people may not be ready for self-rule. Unfortunately the modern American Right are dogmatic on this point –they want self-rule and democracy for each person on the whole planet and they want it NOW.
Thus the modern American Right is the true heir to the French revolutionaries and not of Burke.
Do you know what lying means?
Lying is saying contrary to one’s mind.
You forget that one could be in error but error is not a lie.
One could not make an error of this magnitude innocently. Had you said ‘some’ of those who promote the inequality of man were on the Right, that is defensible. You said ‘all’.
We live in a world where every totalitarian movement from the rise of Napoleon onward was of the Left. There is no way you can be aware of that. So, you are uttering a damned lie.
Yes, I know what lying means. It means you are breaking God’s law and man’s. On your knees, worm, and beg Him for forgiveness.
And how to explain the fact that a great many of the dynamic entreprenuers are socially on the Left?.
There is a disconnect between economic Left and cultural Left. One who is for Unions may be very socially conservative and one who is very economically on Right may be socially very Left.
Because, having got theirs, they want to pull up the ladder behind them and ensure they do not have to go on being dynamic. They can, for instance, structure their incomes to avoid high income taxes, which hits hard at those who are rising and can’t thus structure their money because it’s salary. They can also, through economies of scale, manage regulations that strangle their smaller rivals.
I have a simpler explanation. I think that inventors, like movie stars, are more or less insulated from reality by their handlers. A guy like Mark Zuckerberg can invent a hit service like Facebook and pretty quickly gets lawyers and accountants to manage “reality”. All he knows is that he’s rich and happy. You don’t see so many social leftists when you look at small businesspeople, farmers, bankers, real estate agents and so forth, who have to deal with revenue and costs in order to break even.
Dear Gian,
What do you mean by “equality”?
By all means let us have equality before the law. If A accuses B of robbing him, let their case be decided entirely on its merits. The judge must not be swayed by such considerations as these – (1) B is now much wealthier than A, and so he is a more respectable member of society, (2) B will put the money to much more socially desirable ends, (3) A is an evil corporation and B is a movie star, (4) B’s religion and cultural norms tell him that A must pay a tribute to him etc. etc.
But the tendency of the modern left is to reduce all social relations to this one paradigm. If B has something that A does not have, then there is a certain presumption that B has defrauded A and society, through its agent, the government, must judge whether or not “equality” is to be restored.
It is interesting to inquire how this odd presumption has become so widespread.
After all, it is natural for people to differ in their social roles and to differ in their inclinations, abilities and accomplishments. Husbands are different from their wives, and both are different from their children. There are natural, objective standards by which people differ – are “unequal”, if you will. The ancient pagans strove to display their skill and worth; glory is a desirable end, in itself.
Now the original error of the modern left is to deny this truism – to deny that there are any objective standards of value. Therefore, it must come to deny any special merit in exceptional achievement. A new sort of ideal arises, the “common man”, a human devoid of any particular excellences or distinctions, even of sexual differentiation.
In practice, no society can be built out of identical units, all devoid of any abilities at all. Just so, no organism is built of identical undifferentiated cells – that is a description of a cancer. But this false ideal of “equality” gives any distinction of person a bad conscience. If one is wealthy, well, one is an “advocate” for social justice, if one is influential, the influence must be used for the cause, if one has power, the power is to be used to redistribute goods. Since there are no objective values, the only moral cause is to further equalize all.
This explains the left’s penchant for “education” as a cure-all. If all are the same in potential, then any exceptional skills that are required to serve that undifferentiated mass, “the common man”, can be elicited with enough teachers and enough funding for more schools. Although, the phrase,”the common man” is a bit out of date. Nowadays, we say, “the community” – the word “man” must never be used, since men must not be distinguished from women, or heterosexual from homosexual. All are equal, so children are adults, able to choose abortion without parental notification and adults are children, to be told what to eat and drink and how to comport themselves.
You are right to mention the French Revolution. There is a quasi-religious root to the leftist idealization of the common man. They have no objective standard of merit, so cannot idealize any positive virtue, good or distinction. So the new god is a sort of mental image of those without any particular distinction. Sieyes’s formula – “What is the Third Estate? Nothing; What ought it to be? Everything.”
(1) The spiritual equality of man–this is what the Church teaches–and that is partly denied only by Hindus with their caste system that assumes spiritual superiority in upper castes.
(2) The political equality of man- that was the the dogma of the French and American Revolutions- no special privilages for nobility or clergy or different races-same laws for all religions and races in a given State.
(2) is what is denied by the Dark Enlightenment and they call themselves as belonging to the Right.
The (2)-the political equality of the man is never denied by the Left and mainstream Right.
(2) is so much assumed now that the moderns can not easily conceive of the alternative. But it is quite new and dates only from World War 2. In colonial empires, it never ruled–they had different rules for Europeans and natives and different laws for different classes of natives.
Eg in South Africa, they had one assembly for Whites, another for colored (i.e. mixed race), another for Indians and nothing for the majority blacks.
The British India had a class of Criminal Tribes-with special laws for them.
The dark Enlightenment prefers this sort of affairs.
(3) Equality of Outcome–this is the quarrel of Modern Left and Mainstream Right.
Who call themselves belonging to the Right?
You must read carefully and be not in haste to impute hatred to others.
What I said was Those that deny Equality of Man call themselves as belonging to the Right. They call themselves the Dark Enlightenment and believe themselves to be utterly opposed to the Left and Political Correctness.
You can easily google Dark Enlightenment.
The Communist etc believe in the formal political equality of man.
Nazis did not believe in the Political Equality of Man and thus were not heir to the French Revolution.
You have this dogma that Nazis were of Left but this is seriously inadequate.
Hi, Gian:
Most times, because of the disagreement I have for you and puzzlement over what exactly you MEAN, I pass over what you say. But I absolutely object to you denying the National Socialists of Adolf Hitler were not men of the left. Hitler himself always considered himself a left wing radical. And this has been convincingly demonstrated by Jonah Goldberg from Hitler’s own words in Goldberg’s book LIBERAL FASCISM. The differences “national” socialists of Hitler’s type had from the Soviet “international” socialists are trivial compared to how much they had in common.
Sean M. Brooks
The only proper answer to this is the back of my hand. All the dead Kulaks, merely the smallest part of the millions of people slain by Communism in this century put a lie to those words. A theory which says men have equal rights is not one where the totalitarian government can command the deaths of myriads by fiat, by declaring them to be subhuman.
There is no way on earth you or any sane man can actually believe that crap.
Apologize for your stupid lies. Stop digging yourself in deeper and deeper into the sewer of shit you are spewing from your mouth.
Stop digging yourself into Hell.
Aren’t you lying yourself?
When did any Communist Govt ever declare anybody to be a sub-human?
You have no idea that I learned my anti-Communism from reading and re-reading Solzeneitsyn. I am probably far more staunch anti-Communist than you are.
Maoist rebels sit not 50 miles from my home. It is not as academic to me as to you. That’s why I insist on precise definitions and not crowd-pleasing delusions.
I have to argue daily with people that Socialism is deadly.
You question cannot possibly be serious. The idea of exterminating capitalists like vermin is built into the primary Marxist doctrine. Marx divides mankind into classes (actually economic categories) and both commands and expects everyone opposing the Great Revolution to be liquidated.
I learned my anticommunism from reading Marx and from other writers. And from the fact that my daughter escaped alive from the Communist hellhole of China, where she was abandoned on the street to fend for herself not once but three times because her father, who wanted his One Child to be a boy, did not drive her far enough away from home so she could not get back.
If you are as staunch an anticommunist as I, then why tell damned lies about the Right, and why recite commie propaganda talking points?
To say that Mao is the heir of the French Revolution and what he really stands for is Fraternity Equality and Liberty, and to say that ONLY the Rightwinger do not believe in the equality of the Rights of Man is a damned lie, and you are a damned liar for saying so. The idea of the Rights of Man come from the Right and only from the Right. There are no limited government advocates of totalitarianism. All totalitarians advocate the rule by the inferior masses by the elite because that is what totalitarianism is.
You are not foolish enough to believe Socialist word-games, are you? When they talk about ‘rights’ they mean ‘slavery.’ They just call things by the exact opposite of what they mean.
How you reconcile being an anticommunist with such a lie, I do not know. How you both dismiss me for being academic while at the same time insist on a point which, if proved true, can only be proven true by a hairsplitting ergo highly academic definition, I do not know.
Just testing. I seem to be having trouble uploading comments.
Sean M. Brooks
Would that the Gian entity could be smart enough to discover a similar difficulty.
Hi, vanderleun:
With any luck, Gian will go away and stay away.
Sean M. Brooks