Posted on 09/01/2014 11:42:12 AM PDT by walford
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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