Are Horrific Means Justified by Utopia? (TROP™, Nazis, Communists and the like)

Town Hall ^ | September 29, 2004 | Daniel J. Flynn

[quidnunc]

If you believe the fulfillment of your cause will create Heaven on Earth, anything done in its name is justified. Grasping this basic concept helps one to better understand the present-day beheadings by backward fundamentalists hoping to create Allah’s Kingdom in the temporal world. It also helps one understand the mass killings of the past in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union supported by cultured intellectuals promising to make men perfect.

This is why utopianism is so dangerous. It rationalizes horrible crimes done to attain the unattainable.

The intellectual morons discussed in my book by the same name get blinded to reality by the causes that they serve. The loftier the ideal, the baser their actions become in its name. Examples abound.

Idealism unchecked by reality fueled the worldwide eugenics movement of the first half of the twentieth century. English intellectual Herbert Spencer articulated the lofty goal of eugenics by announcing that “all imperfection must disappear.” Toward this end, Margaret Sanger called for forced sterilization, concentration camps, and birth control for the “creation of a new race.” In America, the ideals of Planned Parenthood’s founder were partially realized through the sterilization by state governments of nearly 70,000 people. In Germany, these same ideals — “a new race” — resulted in something far more horrible.

W.E.B. Du Bois, a founder of the NAACP, believed Karl Marx a “colossal genius.” Du Bois’s fanatical devotion to Communism’s triumph made a liar out of him. To the esteemed professor, Stalin was a “great” and “courageous” man, while the “sinister” Churchhill was the primary leader bringing the “death and destruction of human civilization.” … America, fresh from victory over Nazism and immersed in a cold war against the Soviet Union, was to him “the greatest warmonger of all history.”…

-snip-

[atomicpossum]

It's worth noting that Christianity, often pointed to by these other movements as a focus of evil or delusion, says that there is no such thing as Earthly perfection because Man is imperfectable (on his own). Which, of course, to the Utopian, means Christianity has got to go. Kind of explains the Liberal (Utopian) hostility toward it, doesn't it?

[SilentServiceCPOWife]

The author of this article may not like Ayn Rand, but one of the best books I've ever read is "The Fountainhead". It's a frighteningly accurate portrayal of what is going on in this country right now and it was written 60 years ago.

[Commander8]

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[Unknowing]

No person or group can be assured of any perfection of result in any endeavor. Since we all lack complete information, the use of horrific means to attain any anticipated perfect social order would represent an antisocial method of thinking. The insantity of radical Islam is their profound self-assurance that their beliefs are correct, and for which horrific means are justified. Their lack of critical thinking, combined with their fanatical faith in violence, make them vermin.