The Windrose of Political Heresy
I once proposed a two dimensional political spectrum with orthodox Christianity, otherwise known as the truth, at the center of the x-axis and y-axis like a lighthouse, and concentric rings issuing outward to show the distance from orthodox thought. In each direction the dominant thought of that direction eventually displaces Christian thought, and ends in nihilism, the philosophical posture that there is no truth known or knowable to man.
- South is chivalry. In that direction is nationalist monarchy and Protestantism, the hierarchy of the old order of throne and altar, national churches and the divine right of kings, and far south the sultan or caliph who is both church and state together, and Caesar is worshiped as divine, not Christ;
- North is the pragmatic and individualistic ‘classical liberalism’ of the conservative which severs church from state, and far north is deism, cynicism, libertarianism and selfishness, where individualism and human rights are worshiped as divine, not Christ;
- East is ideology, which is the attempt to replace religion with a secular philosophy. Here is the zealous spirit of the reformer, and far to the east is the communist, and Christ is hated as a rival to the Utopia;
- West is mysticism, which is the attempt to divorce reason from religion and leave only an esoteric sentiment. The theosophists who would do away with government altogether are here, mystics and New Age spiritualists, and far west is the Gnostics who deny Christ in favor of their own personal claim to divinity.
Each one is an reaction to (or an overreaction to) the abuses or lapses of the previous. The abuses (real or not) of the Medieval Church led to a rise of national monarchs, as in England and Germany, who assumed clerical and spiritual powers, leading to Puritanism; the overreach of the national churches led to the classical liberalism and separation of church and state embodied in the Enlightenment, which is pragmatism and worldly practicality, devolving to cynicism; those weary of cynics wanted something deeper in life, but sought it in pursuit of secular utopias, and sought mystical union not with God but with the collective spirit of Marxism; the bloody failures and broken promises of Marxism led next to a rejection of worldliness, but not back to any true faith, but just to a vague and directionless paganism, bogus copies of eastern faiths, and a fashionable belief in theosophy and claptrap. This mysticism at its core is antinomian, and seeks to undermine whatever is the norm in law or morality.
The cynical pragmatism which makes a deal with the zealous and crusading spirit of the socialist, and marries economy and state into an incestuous corruption is rightly called Fascism. It is placed to the Northeast.
The slothful pragmatism willing to cooperate with alien cultures and erode one’s own rather than make any judgments or uphold any traditions is called Multiculturalism. Fascism banishes Christ because the Fuhrer cannot co-opt Him to serve the state; Multiculturalism banishes Christ in the name of Diversity. It is Northwest.
The halfway vector between Protestant monarchy, which rebels against the international order of the Church in the name of national identity and individual conscience, are those who take national identity to an extreme, that is totalitarians, and those who take individual conscience to an extreme, and rebel against morality in the name of morality that is, antinomians.
The only totalitarians worthy of note in the modern world are Political Marxists, placed to the Southeast, albeit in older days, this spot would have been called The Puritans.
The only antinomians worthy of note in the modern word are the Femininsts, Race-baiters, and Pervertarians known as Social Justice Warriors or Morlocks, what might rightly be called the Impuritans. Place them to the Southwest.
The outer ring of darkness is one that a lost and wandering soul can reach merely by following any of the directions far enough away from the central light of faith. A chivalrous man wandering too far south become a Grand Inquisitor or a Mohammedan; a rational man cynically seeking his own self interest wandering too far in the direction of cynicism becomes a Machiavellian; an idealist wandering too far in the direction of the ideologues becomes either a gormless idiot or a bloodthirsty beast fit only for a swift death; the mystic drifting like thistledown from one bit of spiritual bric-a-brac to the next becomes empty.
They all get to the point where life is meaningless. I do not mean they do not have hobbies and loved ones: I mean they tacitly support the idea that the only meaning in life is manmade, the only morality what you legislate for yourself, and that all explanations, theories, philosophies and faiths are nothing more than word-drugs to addict you, or word-prisons to entrap you. This stance is known as Nihilism, the idolatry of nothing at all.
Protestants who are offended at being the neighbors of these disreputable factions have my sympathy, but history tells that Puritanism in America dying out in prior centuries re-emerged as Unitarianism, and wholeheartedly embraced the antinomian and anti-authoritarian spirit of Social Marxism. The Puritan spirit of reform which sought to create the New Jerusalem, when this spirit is directed toward purely secular goals, offers the same refreshingly Spartan ethos and aesthetic as a monastery, or a communal Massachusetts Bay colony. Note the similarity of look between a Mao jacket and Puritan broadcloth, the same contempt for luxuries and good living.
And, again the parallels between Puritanism, with his teetotaling absence of hierarchy and distaste for ritual, its iconoclasm, and Mohammedanism are too obvious to miss. Politically, this is a rule by the spiritual class, a theocracy.
While awkward and unlikely to replace the simple but misleading language of Right v Left, it does allow for certain insights: one such insight is that the whenever Political Correctness moves the barycenter of society one step eastward toward dystopia, the classical liberalism of the conservative moves it not in the other direction, but one step into a more pragmatic direction, toward libertarianism, with the sad result that the resulting vector sum, one step north and one step east, takes us closer to fascism, rule by the elite, where General Motors and the banks are all run by the government, and the government is all run by General Motors and the banks… which is where we are today.
One major difference between Utopian Left and Pragmatic Right is that Leftist live in the moment, doing or saying whatever will produce the immediate gratification of a feeling of moral superiority.
Ironically, this is their strength as well as their weakness. They do not keep score, they do not look at results, they do not expect results, and so they can eat away at the keel of the ship for generations, always keeping in the same direction (straight down) without regard for what they are doing… and over generations and decades can bring about social change (and collapse) in a fashion the pragmatic and results-oriented victims cannot imagine.
The pragmatic men (think of an establishment Republican) look in wonder about the dry aqueducts, collapsed coliseums, burned temples and broken walls of the city, mouths hanging open, wondering wanly what happened.
The Leftist whose eye never leaves utopia to see the evils streaming like sewage in his wake has the same strength as does the faithful Christian whose eye never leaves heaven and who never sees the good he does.
And THAT is why the pragmatic republicans and worldly men, conservatives and libertarians, are helpless in the face of the zombie mob of men stupider and wickeder than they. The zombies don’t look at results, and so they work without worldly reward. Zombies keep trying after they have lost. Pragmatic men surrender and promise to do something once they win the White House.
Pragmatism, in short, is impractical.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
