Posted on 04/07/2003 12:52:20 PM PDT by kimoajax
Mon April 7, 2003
THE ANTIDOTE TO LIBERAL ENVY-APPEASEMENT Jack Wheeler
I began to realize how Liberal Envy-Appeasement is The Root of the Problem when I was speaking at colleges back in the 1980s about anti-Soviet resistance movements in Soviet colonies such as Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique, and Afghanistan. Students would invariably turn a discussion of Soviet imperialism into an assertion of moral equivalence between the USA and the USSR: "How can you criticize the Soviets when we're just as bad? What about what we did to the Indians?" I would be asked.
"I haven't done anything to the Indians," I replied. "What have you done to them?"
"But we stole their land!"
"OK -- let's give it back. And let's start with your property. To what tribe do you want your family's home to go? What tribe gets your stereo?"
Once I couldn't stand being heckled by a particularly loud and petulant student leftist any longer. I lost my temper and said to him: "Look, man, if you're into masochism, find some chick with long black hair who's into whips and chains and have her beat the hell out of you. Just don't take it out on your country."
The future of our economy, our culture, and our civilization depend on an antidote to the corrosive social poisons of envy and envy-appeasement. That antidote was first provided by Aristotle in the 4th century BC.
The antidote to envy is emulation. In the Rhetoric (ca. 350 B.C.), Aristotle distinguishes the two:
"Zelos, emulation, is a good thing and characteristic of good people, while phthonos, envy, is bad and characteristic of the bad; for the former, through emulation, are making an effort to attain good things for themselves, while the latter, through envy, try to prevent their neighbors from having them." (Rhet. 2.10.1)
Aristotle invokes the ancient wisdom of his 8th century predecessor Hesiod:
"There is not one kind of Eris (Strife), but all over the earth there are two. One fosters evil war and battle, being cruel. The other is the elder daughter of dark Night, and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil. For a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbor, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order. Thus neighbor vies with neighbor to hurry after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men." (Works and Days, 11-24)
Aristotle concludes that:
"Whereas phthonos, envy, is censured because it seeks to harm another, zelos, emulation, is praised because it encourages a person to attain excellence on his own merits." (Rhet. 2.11.1).
Fear of envy is very deep-seated in the human psyche. It can prevent a culture from progressing for thousands of years. Only a youthful culture full of vigor and confidence can shrug it off, enabling that culture to flourish. The road to cultural ruin lies in the fear of envy reasserting itself from the primordial depths.
Today, America's most elite universities have degenerated into fascist cesspools of envy-appeasement. They are surviving only on the inertia of their prestige.
Our airlines compromise passenger security by harassing people at random, rather than racially profiling Arab and other Moslem men.
Indeed, the entire phenomenon of Political Correctness -- perhaps best exemplified by the New York Times editorial page -- is nothing but a massive exercise in envy-appeasement.
One of the most positive results of Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's terrorism that it has made the American people mad enough to reject envy. They now could care less if Moslems or the French or whomever are envious of them.
That rejection must now be applied to the envy-panderers and envy-appeasers within America herself.
Rejecting envy is the key to preventing the Death of America, the key for America to continue to prosper. I suggest that this rejection begin with you. Fear of the Evil Eye is the only thing that gives the Evil Eye any power. Without fear of it, the Evil Eye is impotent. So the next time Evil Eyes are directed at you and demand you apologize for your existence, you might suggest that they indulge in S&M by themselves and leave you out of it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Jack Wheeler Founder, Editor-in-Chief To The Point™ www.ToThePointNews.com
Now that Iraq will need more than one political party, I suggest the Aristotle Party to counter the Socialist Party.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.