Posted on 09/01/2014 11:42:12 AM PDT by walford
The toxic thinking and horrible consequences of Leftist ideology put into practice and, as explained in the video below this piece, Why the Left Hates America by Daniel J Flynn
The foundational epistemological position of all #Leftist thought is Marxist dialectical materialism. Most of them may not have studied #Marx, but that is the basis of everything they stand for. It is a form of secular monist philosophy, maintaining that a Heglian World Spirit is guiding history along in an upward progression [hence they call themselves “#progressives.”]
Under that paradigm, an existing order continues until its “internal contradictions” come to a critical mass and collapses. Then, inevitably according to them, new flowers grow from the ashes and a new, improved paradigm emerges. Eventually this new Order also deteriorates and falls, continuing a process of ever-greater improvement.
Those who would arrest or even slow down this inevitable progression are called #conservatives. Those who would dismantle it are called #reactionaries; they are standing in the way of history. That is why they are fond of saying that those who would repeal any of their policies are trying to “turn back the clock.”
There are only a very few who are Gifted with the ability to read the tea leaves of history to know exactly what the characteristics of this progression is. This process is neither amenable to logic, reason nor evidence -- which they consider lower forms of thought and even superstition.
They are also subjectivists who maintain that “our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience.” So they hold that those who do not agree with [viz. believe in] their interpretation of the direction of history are a threat to the continuing progression, because the very existence of contrary thoughts cause their ideas to not work when put into practice.
[Compare this to the religious version of subjectivist theological exclusivism in which non-adherents of their particular sect actually hurt God and thus must be converted or wiped out. That, in turn, makes their religion effectively a violent, expansionist political ideology -- e.g. #Islamism.]
Marx originally believed that civilization would on its own evolve toward the ideal of From Each According to Ability, to Each According to Need. But when his predictions proved false, Lenin decided that a Vanguard Party was needed to take down the existing order by force and use the coercive power of government to attack what was in the population’s minds and replace it with a willingness to accept the new paradigm. Those who could not be converted had to be eliminated.
Advocates of using violence to push dialectical progression along are called #Revolutionaries.
[Hence Pol Pot slaughtered 25% of his country’s population during the Killing Fields of ‘75-’79 -- including anyone who wore glasses because he wanted to start with clean slate sans anyone who may have been exposed to any other ideas. Then his Marxist Utopia would have a better chance of working.]
When you combine a political philosophy that is not amenable to reason and is threatened by opposing thought, you have a secular form of dogmatic faith. And thus we can see how hysterical Leftists become when confronted with opposing views. Trying to use logic, reason or evidence to prove that what they advocate is harmful only infuriates them further.
As Dan Flynn pointed out in the video linked, the Left hates America because its very existence, freedom and prosperity disproves their most cherished of ideals. What makes the #Left even more harmful is their faith that destroying the existing Order will inevitably lead to a better world. They don’t give much thought as to what happens after civilization collapses because they are sure that it will be an improved paradigm.
Regarding others who hate us [for whatever reason] some of them are disposed to believe that we brought it on ourselves, so if we heal the sins that we committed against them, they will stop killing us.
The most hard-core amongst them view groups such as the #Islamists as temporary allies, because they are seen as agents of Change -- which is always for the good. Hence #Obama’s original slogan. This is why many Leftists also embrace rioters. Anyone who would bring things down is their friend. That is why they have automatic sympathy for anyone who expresses hatred for the United States and automatic revulsion for expressions of patriotism.
They have faith that once the Constitutional Republic is destroyed, they will be able to win over those who helped them under force of arms. [In reality, they would be the first ones to go when the thugs amongst them take over.]
History has demonstrated quite the opposite. When a civilization collapses, there is a long period of darkness, characterized at first by utter chaos, then a period in which roving gangs are fighting each other over rags, bones and rubble. Eventually the faction with the most weapons and the most willingness to use them takes power and re-establishes order with an iron fist.
Only the founding of the United States broke that cycle by instituting a system in which leadership and policies are determined by popular will. It is no accident that the American Revolution coincided with the Industrial #Revolution. For the first time in history, people were able to gain economic success and political influence by means other than birth. The result was the creative forces of the entire population were released in which personal gain can be accomplished with mutual benefit.
To the Left, if popular will cannot be manipulated, it must be thwarted.
The Left today are the would-be medievalists of tomorrow. Their #Utopia would establish an aristocracy of the wealthy who have political connections in which neither political influence nor economic success can be attained w/o the other. All economic decisions are political decisions. All political decisions are economic decisions. The result is an arrogant and often cruel elite lording over a mass deliberately kept ignorant, impoverished and disenfranchised.
Leftists, when confronted with complaints of ever-growing government are fond of responding that, “we are the government.” The way it was previously put was “the State is the people and the people are the State,” so the more power the government has, the more empowered the people are. They firmly believe that private property should only be tolerated so long as it serves the State.
The name for that #collectivist ideology is #fascism. By all means review the history of that ideology -- particularly ideological support for Mussolini.He was a committed Leftist as was Adolph Hitler's National Socialist Workers Party.
Some Leftist academics will say that fascism is an extreme form of #capitalism, but neither of them were citing Adam Smith or John Locke.
"We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions." - Adolph Hitler
It is not possible to be a Leftist w/o being an elitist — and a dogmatist.
Bump
Thanks for the spelling corrections. They have been made in the Facebook version.
I disagree.
Not all Leftism is based on Marxism. Admittedly, varieties of Marxism are dominant, but it isn’t the sole foundation.
Marxism has its origins also, so there can be forms of Leftism from a common ancestor - Hegel being one of them, Kant being another. Leftist academics who studied Marx digested it and then passed it on to their students as progressivism.
Marx consolidated what later became what the Left holds dear.
Many Leftists, for example, may not have reasoned it out, but give evidence in their thought that they believe in the Labor Theory of Value. That holds that rather than supply-and-demand, the value of a product is based upon how much labor was put into it. So a chair that took 4 hours to build is worth twice as much as one that took 2 hours — even if they are exactly the same in every way. Absurd, I know, but it guides many Leftist policies.
“I’m better than you. I should control you.”
There. Leftism in eight words.
My point is that leftism is considerably older than Marxism, which is one of its branches, though dominant.
For example, many conservatives claim fascism and Nazism are socialist and leftist. I don’t entirely agree, as I think they’re a weird mixture of leftism and (European variety) blood and soil right-wingery.
But you can’t have a theory where all leftism is Marxism and at the same time claim that fascism is also leftism, since fascism is inherently opposed to Marxism.
Here’s decent article about the many variants.
http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_socialism.html#Types
Are you making the point that because you disagree about the roots of the modern Left that the rest of my observations/analysis are invalid?
It is true, Marx did not invent the Left, but he was the most influential in consolidating the previous thought into an integrated system, which carried forward from there to the present. There are few Leftists who bypassed Marx from the earlier roots.
There are some aspects of Modern Leftism that are even rooted in Calvinism — particularly the elitist aspects.
An over-simplification, perhaps, of Calvinism is that one is born Saved or damned. Aristocrats-by-birth in agrarian medievalist Europe justified their relative wealth in those terms. So those who are rich are so because they have been Chosen while the rest are rehearsing their fates in eternal damnation in their earthly poverty.
Calvinists saw the Enlightenment and the subsequent limited representative governments and the consequent Industrial Revolution as bordering on heretical; people who otherwise would be poor would be able to rise up through their own effort and ingenuity. In their eyes, this was thwarting Divine Will.
This developed in the Leftist elites in secularized form by continuing this distrust of ordinary people rising from poverty by hard work and invention. To a modern Leftist, anyone can invent something, it takes special talent to cultivate connections. And of course, anyone born into a prominent Leftist family is the equivalent of royalty [e.g. the Kennedys].
Those who attain economic success, w/o being vetted by the existing ruling class are derisively referred to as Noveau Riche. This is particularly so if the person created a business, invented something or otherwise bypassed the accepted means of rising up through the ranks. The process had to have been dishonest or criminal in some way in their eyes. Their means of success often entails climbing over bodies in political blood-sport, so an industrialist obviously climbed over the bodies of his workers.
The elites within the Left believe that the only legitimate means of attaining economic success is via the media, politics [and law] or the entertainment industry. In all of those cases, people are vetted by the creme of the elite. Being accepted only coincidentally is the result of hard work. What is more important is that they LIKE you.
The epitome of this are the various talent shows and reality programs wherein Our Betters are empaneled to judge if an aspiring member is good enough to be one of them — using entirely subjective and fleeting standards.
Somebody who builds a factory makes them uncomfortable. That is why they admire the celebrity tooling around in her pink Bentley, but begrudge the corporate CEO his Mercedes.
exactly, the 3 main worldviews of libtardism are marxism, secular humanism, and postmodernism.All 3 dispise Christianity.
Secular Humanism and post-modernism are arguably related if not derived from each other. Which came first is a chicken-or-egg question.
All are forms of subjectivist Utopianism — which are rooted as far back as Plato. They all deny objective truth and values, believing instead that people can be made to conform to an arbitrary ideal of how they think things should be, which will work if enough people believe in it — as I explain in the OP.
I am not disagreeing with a lot of what you say. Merely trying to point out that your lede sentence is simply not true.
Marx is the dominant root of modern Leftist thought. But he is most certainly not its only source. Which is what you said.
For instance, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries various anarchist ideologies competed strongly with Marxism. And many of them hated Marx, and Marxists returned the favor. But the anarchists were indisputably Leftist.
See the infighting in the Spanish Republic.
Leftism did not start with Marx. It preceded him by several thousand years since one cave man used force to suppress another cave man. Many “Utopian” movements existed around the world and in the US before Marx was around I think.
*Marxism, Secular Humanism and post-modernism
“Marx is the dominant root of modern Leftist thought. But he is most certainly not its only source. Which is what you said.”
It’s been a looonngg time since I studied Plato, but as I recall he believed in realities so objective we couldn’t even comprehend them directly.
I agree that secular humanism and post-modernism are essentially the same thing.
BTW, I always wondered what came after post-modernism. Post-post-modernism? The very name has always seemed to me to be a classic illustration of their self-absorption. Couldn’t even imagine that something might be around after they were gone.
For later.
My apologies. I didn’t realize this was your work. If I had, I would have tried to be a little less abrasive in my criticism. :)
The Leftist world prior to Stalin coming along was a wacky and wildly diverse place. Most people have forgotten about this, as the commies succeeded in taking over most leftist groups, in ideology if not in control. They succeeded in taking over the past of the leftist movement, as well as its present and future.
For instance, Sacco and Vanzetti were anarchists, not communists.
This is much the same way Saudi Arabia and its Wahabbis have taken over most of Islam in the last 50 years. Islam used to be a MUCH more diverse and interesting culture.
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