Here follows a reprint of a column from 2014, which I thought pertinent to the tumults preoccupying current headlines.
To see how a whole people can fail to discriminate between police and criminals, to pull down statues of abolitionists, or wear the neck-cloths of African tribes notorious for being slavers, all in the name of fighting imaginary neonazism, or how people can call both for gun confiscation and, without a blush or stammer, for defunding the police, read on.
Universal Field Theory of Leftism
Do not be deceived: Leftism is an enigma. We need a theorem that explains not one or two aspects of Leftism, but all their traits.
The theory must explain, first, the honest decency of the modern liberals combined with their astonishing indifference, nay, hostility to facts, common sense, and evidence; second, it must explain their high self-esteem (or, to be blunt, their pathological narcissism) combined not merely with an utter lack of accomplishment, but with their utter devotion to destructiveness, a yearning to ruin everything they touch; third, it must explain their sanctimoniousness combined with their applause, praise, support, and tireless efforts to spread all perversions (especially sexual), moral decay, vulgarity, and every form of desecration; fourth, their pretense of intellectual superiority combined with their notorious mental fecklessness; fifth, it must explain both their violence and their pacifism; sixth, the theory must explain why they hate the very things they should love most; seventh, the theory must explain why they are incapable of comprehending an honest disagreement or any honorable foe.
And, while we are at it, if we could also explain why the Rich, who are routinely vilified by the Left number among its most ardent supporters, or the secular Jews, our theory would be very potent in its explanatory power.
There is such an explanation. I make no claim to have discovered this theory. It was discovered by Alan Bloom, back in the 1980’s, in his book THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND, which he wrote to explain why the generation of the 1970’s was suddenly and remarkably stupider than any previous decade of his students.
The theory was popularized recently by Evan Sayet in his book KINDER GARDEN OF EDEN. Roots of this theory go back further yet: you will find an early articulation by C.S. Lewis in his seminal THE ABOLITION OF MAN, written a generation prior. And no doubt he learned his ideas from G.K. Chesterton in his ORTHODOXY, who wrote a generation prior again, and first diagnosed the error involved in Freethinkers (as they were called then) doubting one’s own ability to think.
Let us examine each one in order.
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