Getting Liberalism out of government

Self | April 8, 2002 | Doug Loss

[Doug Loss]

This may sound a bit strange, but bear with me. About a year ago Stanley Kurtz wrote The Church of the Left in the National Review. In this very perceptive essay he points out that Liberalism has changed from a (let's give it the benefit of the doubt) rational political point of view to a dogmatic religious one. I don't think this is remotely disputable.

As I was driving home this evening, I was thinking about that when it occurred to me that a major tenet of the Liberal faith is the Separation of Church and State. They even go so far as to claim that points of view they disagree with are religious, so they can get them out of public life, when the holders of those viewpoints aren't espousing religious viewpoints at all. Why can't we turn this tactic against them?

If Liberalism has the position in the lives of the true believers that any other religion has in the hearts of its adherents, then by the Separation of Church and State it shouldn't be allowed to influence political debate! After all, promoting Liberal causes and politically correct speech is making laws "respecting an establishment of religion." So how do we force Liberalism to be recognized as the false religion it is?

[seenenuf]

POLITICS: The Art of Compromise RELIGION: The Rejection of Compromise. Could this be the definition of the impass in the current War? Religion certainly seems to be the 'third rail' with the talking heads on my TV. Also, as usual the libs are just confussed.

[supercat]

So how do we force Liberalism to be recognized as the false religion it is?

Liberals will refuse to acknowledge that liberalism is a religion, in part because (1) the leaders know its tenets to be false, and (2) they want it to be the exclusive national religion of the U.S., so they want all the 'separation of church and state' laws to apply to all religions except theirs.

[ClassicConservative]

I'd be interested in seeing an objective definition of religion first. Same argument for calling "secular humanism" a religion. Sorry, but I belong to one, and those aren't religions...

[Doug Loss]

I belong to a religion too, and I think that Liberalism displays all the aspects of a religious belief. Read Kurtz's essay from the link I posted and see if you still disagree.

[Khepera]

Just for fun I bring you this

The Church of the Left
Finding meaning in liberalism.

By Stanley Kurtz, fellow, the Hudson Institute
May 31, 2001 9:10 a.m.

ometime during the past thirty years, liberalism stopped being a mere political perspective and turned into a religion. I

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mean that literally. Liberalism now functions for substantial numbers of its adherents as a religion: an encompassing worldview that answers the big questions about life, lends significance to our daily exertions, and provides a rationale for meaningful collective action.

It wasn't supposed to be that way. Liberalism arose as a solution to the destructive religious wars of Europe's past, and succeeded because it allowed people of differing religious perspectives to live peacefully and productively in the same society. Designed to make the world safe for adherents of differing faiths, liberalism itself was never supposed to be a faith. But that is exactly what liberalism has become. And this transformation of liberalism into a de facto religion explains a lot about what we call "political correctness."

Have you ever wondered why conservatives nowadays are so often demonized, even by mainstream liberals? No matter how balanced, well-reasoned, or rooted in long-established principle conservative objections to, say, affirmative action or gay marriage may be, conservatives are still likely to find themselves stigmatized as racist homophobes. By the same token, reasonable conservative ideas are regularly deemed unfit for reasoned debate. This preference for ostracism over engagement amounts to a brilliant strategy on the part of the Left, but the demonization of conservatives can't be explained as a mere conscious tactical maneuver. The stigmatization of conservatives only works because so many people are primed to respond to it in the first place.

So why have conservatives been demonized? Maybe it's because the religion that liberalism has become is so badly in need of demons. Traditional liberalism simply laid out ground rules for reasoned debate and the peaceful adjudication of political differences. One of the main reasons why politics in a liberal society could be peaceful was that people sought direction about life's ultimate purpose outside of politics itself. But once traditional religion ceased to provide modern liberals with either an ultimate life purpose or a pattern of virtue, liberalism itself was the only belief system remaining that could supply these essential elements of life.

So how does liberalism grant meaning to life? How does liberalism do what religion used to do? So long as it serves as a mere set of ground rules for adjudicating day-to-day political differences, liberalism remains too "boring" to serve as a religion. But what if liberals were engaged at every moment in a dire, almost revolutionary, struggle for the very principles of liberalism itself? What if liberals were at war on a daily basis with King George III? With Hitler? With Bull Connor? Now that would supply a purpose to life — a purpose capable of endowing even our daily exertions with a larger significance, and certainly a purpose that would provide a rationale for meaningful collective action.

Consider two standard features of political correctness: the continual expansion in meaning of terms like "racism," "sexism," and "homophobia" and the tendency to invent or exaggerate instances of "oppression." Whereas racism once meant the hatred of someone of another race, the term is now freely applied to anyone who opposes affirmative discrimination, or even to anyone who opposes reparations for slavery. Again, this stigmatization of mainstream conservative positions makes a certain amount of tactical sense (although it badly backfired in the case of the Horowitz ad), but the tactics don't really explain the phenomenon.

The young students who now live in "multicultural" theme houses, or who join (or ally themselves with) multicultural campus political organizations are looking for a home, in the deepest sense of that word. In an earlier time, the always difficult and isolating transition from home to college was eased by membership in a fraternity, or by religious fellowship. Nowadays, multicultural theme houses, political action, and related coursework supply what religion and fraternities once did. But if the multicultural venture is truly to take the place of religion, it must invite a student to insert himself into a battle of profound significance. The fight for slave reparations, and the unceasing effort to ferret out examples of "subtle" racism in contemporary society, are techniques for sustaining a crusading spirit by creating the feeling that Simon Legree and Bull Conner are lurking just around the next corner. Conservative opponents of affirmative action or slave reparations simply have to be imagined as monsters. Otherwise the religious flavor of the multiculturalist enterprise falls flat, and the war of good against evil is converted into difficult balancing of competing political principles and goods in which no one is a saint or a devil.

And what about the tendency of political correctness to invent oppression-as in those wildly exaggerated feminist claims about campus rape or economic discrimination? The recent flap over the Independent Women's Forum ad that exposed unreliable feminist claims of oppression hit a nerve because false statistics are not incidental, but are critical to the feminist cause. So many of the young women who affiliate themselves with campus women's centers are looking for a world view, a moral-social home, and a meaningful crusade in which to take part. That is why the horrifying (if false) statistics of female oppression purveyed by these centers conjure up-and are meant to conjure up — images of slavery and the Holocaust. Betty Friedan's, The Feminine Mystique, was a powerful a book because it characterized the suburban home as a "comfortable concentration camp" for women. Friedan's repeated use of Holocaust metaphors for the alleged oppression of women is of a piece with the contemporary feminist practice of making absurdly exaggerated or downright false statistical claims. The Holocaust imagery and the frightening statistics are meant to endow the feminist crusade with an almost apocalyptic sense of urgency and significance. That is why, no matter how many times Christina Hoff Sommers and her compatriots at the Independent Women's Forum expose the errors in feminist claims of oppression, feminists just keep repeating them. It's not about the pursuit of truth; it's about the creation of a cause, a fellowship, a reason for being.

Of course to say that liberalism has ceased to be a political perspective and has become a religion is another way of saying that liberalism has betrayed itself and become illiberal. This point is made very nicely in an excellent article entitled, "Illiberal Liberalism," by Brian C. Anderson in the current issue of City Journal. Anderson shows how the persistent attempts to silence and stigmatize conservative views by even mainstream liberal voices betray the commitment to rational and civil debate at the core of genuine liberalism. Once liberalism became a religion, the principles that made liberalism what it was — principles like free speech, reasoned debate, and judicial restraint in the face of democratic decision-making — went by the wayside. The secular religion of the educated elite is still recognizable as a distorted version of classic liberalism. But underneath all the talk about "oppression" and "rights," what we're really looking at is a modern way of reproducing good versus evil, and us against them.

The hidden religious character of modern liberalism explains a lot about contemporary political life. I've already alluded to it in previous pieces on the Horowitz ad and on the president's faith-based initiative. Once you catch on, you'll see it around.

From de Tocqueville to Allan Bloom and Frances Fukuyama, we've heard the story of America's growing and dangerous tendency toward individual isolation. That story is largely true; but it is also incomplete. We cannot bear our isolation. So in ways sometimes hidden even from ourselves, we strive to overcome it. Liberalism as religion is one solution to the problem of life in a lonely secular world. It allows us to appear to fight for individual freedom, without quite acknowledging to ourselves that we've enlisted in a grand, collective, and almost classically intolerant, religious crusade.

[ClassicConservative]

an encompassing worldview that answers the big questions about life, lends significance to our daily exertions, and provides a rationale for meaningful collective action.

That's a definition of religion?

Try this one: "a specific system of belief about deity, often involving rituals, a code of ethics, and a philosophy of life".

What "big questions of life" are addressed by liberals, especially that are different from the same questions addressed by conservatives? Everything from Pokemon on up (oops, some people do see religious connotations there; let's make it baseball... nope, won't work there either; how about quilt-making... nope, too zen-like) "lends significance to our daily exertions". "Providing a rationale for collective action" can include the PTA. In fact, everything in his definition can equally be applied to the PTA; is that a religion too?

[AzJP]

I read it too.
I don't think liberalism (either the classic "freedom" type, or the contemporary socialists) involve acknowledgment of the devine.
Perhaps as a coincidence, but not as a prerequisite.
In the context of religion as a secular infatuation, well maybe. "Micro-management of others is Hillary's religion."

Hey, thinking during a long commute sure beats the alternatives, right?

Amy

[Khepera]

I'm pretty sure that it has its own Tenents. Personally I dont believe in PTA as is presented in the Governmental Educational Environment. I would not waste my time attending one of their revivals.

[ClassicConservative]

Begging the argument. The main point, to state it explicitly is: What is in Kurtz's argument that makes liberalism a religion, that can't be equally made for just about any organized group that has interaction with the community in the country? (If you don't like the PTA, then go with the Elks, the local Chamber of Commerce, your local militia group, the NRA, whatever...) And where would one go to join up with the liberals, let alone get kicked out? Or is it like the Knights Templar...?

[Khepera]

All of those organizations you mentioned the Elks, your local militia group, the NRA, Knights Templar are not sponsored by the Government so are not germain to this topic. Even if they where a religion proper. The local Chamber of Commerce is one I had not thought of but I don't think they push either a Conservative or Liberal agenda and just advertise local businesses.

[ClassicConservative]

Still not getting it. Again, using Kurtz's definition and logic, how does liberalism/the Democratic party differ, then, from conservativism/the Republican party? Or is it, as I'd argue, a flabby balloon of an argument with stale hot air?

[Khepera]

The difference between Conservative and Liberal is the difference between the truth and a lie.

[AzJP]

Surely you're describing metaphorically, rather than defining, right?

I'd offer that if you took two conservatives and two liberals (however defined) you'd average sixteen different outlooks of everything.

As a crude example, ever noticed the bitchy fighting for the conservative and for the liberal Presidential candidates? They can't agree on who, and often can't agree on when to meet!

Whatever, back to the front, deity is a prerequisite for religion, IMHO, but the gent, the FIRST gent, with this article has apparently gone.

Amy

[Fraulein]

Excellent Kurtz article. I've been saying the same thing for years, and yes, I think he is right to say that liberalism today is very different from the liberalism of, say, even the 1960s. Oh how I love to anger the liberals by pointing out just how moralizing and intolerant they are! And if you disagree with them, then you are necessarily deemed "evil." (They use moral language but without there being anything upon which it is grounded. Perhaps it stems from Marx, who rejected religion and instead espoused the possibility of achieving a socialist paradise on earth?).

[Khepera]

deity is a prerequisite for religion

Liberals worship multiple deities. Molech is one they worship and the sacrament is Abortion. They worship a deity called tolerance and its name is invoked in reference to Homosexuals and other perverts, aberrant behaviors like pedophilia (Dr Joclyn Elders was just on Fox News promoting the acceptance of the sexulization of Children.) They continue to push the god of diversity on us which tears down social traditions that hold our society together. Your failure to recognize these deities is no indication that they are not real and worshipped by the left.

[Khepera]

Note post 16 for a list of liberal deities. Can you think of any more?

[AzJP]

Well, we sure have a difference of definition of deity.

You keep pluckin'.

[AzJP]

P.S.
Didn't Jesus Christ preach tolerance?

[Khepera]

Whats your definition of deity?