Last Crusade 29: Wolves in Wool
Five accusations are used by the Devil’s Party to silence opposition unheard: the accusation of defying settled authority (which was discussed in a previous column); the accusation of bad faith; the accusation that an honest argument is merely subjective opinion; the accusation that current danger is too immediate to permit any dissent; the accusation that any dissent defies the inevitable. This column and those to follow will discuss each in turn.
The accusation of bad faith requires one attack the speaker rather than the speech.
But he cannot be attacked with nothing. The good man cannot be attacked as a bad man unless the attacker first convinces the audience that there is something bad about being good.
But herein lies the first great weakness of the Devil’s position: No real evil exists on its own. Evil is always a corruption of something that was originally good. Evil is a vacuum, a nothingness. To defeat a good, one must use something which was once good, but which is now distorted.
A parasite takes its strength from its host and cannot live without its host. The evils proposed are never proposed openly. In each and every case, one good thing is elevated above other goods equal to it, and asserted to be in conflict with them, and the others goods are sacrificed for the sake of this first good thing.
In the case of socialism, compassion for the poor is the buzzword used to excuse the mass theft, mass fraud, and mass murder inevitably involved in totalitarian control of the economy. But the moral rule prohibiting theft cannot, by any logic, be said to be inferior to or dependent on the moral rule promoting compassion to the poor.
In the case of feminism, equality is said to overrule chastity and mother love and the sanctity of life, and even the real nature of reality itself, so that anyone who wishes to protect the moral purity of maidenhood, marriage, and motherhood can be shouted down as being a male chauvinist and an oppressor.
But feminism is not the proposal that women should have the right to vote, for that matter has been settled in the law since 1920. It is the proposal that women should be unchaste, and copulate for personal pleasure-seeking only, not as part of building a family and reproducing the race. This libertine liberty of copulation is impossible because of the byproducts of the sex act known as babies. Babies must be done away with in order to promote equality between the sexes.
Hence, feminism, no matter what it once stood for, now is the proposal that you, the taxpayer, should fund the anti-medical procedure called abortion, so that a mother should kill her own child in the womb. Otherwise the women cannot whore around.
The moral and theological question of whether one should live unchastely is never raised. The question of whether one should defend the life of the innocent unborn child is never raised. Instead, those of the Devil’s party merely scream that any who voice such scruples are secretly motivated by a psychopathological hatred of women, a bigotry akin to racism called sexism.
In the case of racism or communism or tribalism any other form of collectivism, the race or class, tribe or group is said to be suffering some threat by evil outsiders (in the modern day, Jews are almost always selected as the scapegoat) and whatever individual rights wished to be trampled are merely said to be a threat preventing group unity and group self-defense. Or it is blandly denied that the individual rights ever existed in the first place. This is all done in the name of some form of brotherhood: patriotism, or class-solidarity, or race-loyalty.
Now, compassion for the poor is a moral imperative in the Christian religion; as is the equality of all men made in the image and likeness of God; as is the brotherhood which spring out of the commandment to honor one’s father and mother, and the patriotism which springs out of imperatives to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, or out of warnings that the magistrate bears not the sword in vain. All brotherhood and patriotism springs out of the core of Christian teaching no less than the radically individualistic teaching that God is no respecter of persons, and that each man’s soul is saved or damned based on his own acts alone, not his membership or loyalty to bloodline, tribe, class, nation, race.
None of these things being used to promote evil ends are evil in their own nature. Indeed, they are good and very good when kept in their proper place and when kept in balance with other goods with which they may come in conflict. Who can be against charity? Who can be against equality? Who can be against love of one’s own home and flag and people?
The sheep’s clothing in which the wolf garbs itself is always white and fluffy, and is indeed authentic wool to the touch. Likewise, the good things used as inflated tools in whose name all other goods are to be sacrificed are indeed good things: otherwise the trick would not work.
So, once a single co-equal good, such as compassion, equality, or brotherhood, is elevated above its peers, and propped up in the seat of the sovereign throne of supremacy, it can be used to trample all other goods as insignificant. The question of why compassion, equality, or brotherhood has more claim on the conscience than honesty, chastity, or justice is never raised nor answered.
Anyone who raises the question can just be shouted down as meanspirited, bigoted, or treasonous. Conveniently, this means anyone who raises any questions can be dismissed as asking the questions in bad faith, for he is prompted by bad motives. Who cares what a meanspirited man thinks? Or a bigot? Or a traitor?
No comparison is made. The communist only praises compassion to the poor; he never talks about the sanctity of private property. The feminist only praises equality between the sexes; she never talks about chastity and marriage and the sanctity of innocent life. The racists or the collectivists only praise loyalty to one’s race, one’s fatherland, or one’s class; never is the justice due strangers and sojourners discussed.
And never forget that Devil sends his error to earth in pairs, so that the fool fleeing the first falls into the arms of the second. The communist can accuse the capitalist of lacking compassion, but then again anyone voicing Christian compassion for the poor can be accused of being a communist; the feminist can accuse the heterosexual of being a bigot, but then again anyone voicing Christian chivalry toward the weaker sex can be accused of being a feminist and mocked as a would-be “white knight”; the racist or collectivist can accuse the free man of disloyalty to his race or class, but then the honest patriot can be accused of racism.
That is the overwhelming advantage of dressing all ravening wolves in sheep’s wool before sneaking them into the fold to prey on the lambs. Anyone sheepdog who kills a wolf looks like he is attacking a sheep. Any who sheepdog who attacks no one looks like he is cooperating with the wolves, and shirking his duty. No matter what he does or does not do, he can be accused of acting in bad faith.
By this means, any witness for the honest side is impeached before he is given a chance to testify. No honest hearing, no honest forum, no honest discussion of the merits of the case need ever be risked.
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.
