SPIEGEL editor Jan Fleischhauer describes how, after much soul searching, and making sure no one was looking, he went and ate a McDonald’s hamburger. How the first time he watched a Disney movie it was as a grown up with his own children. He lived in a world where ordinary oranges were regarded with deep suspicion because they might come from South America and where movies were screened for political content. It was universe in which people kept their secret thoughts to themselves; not confiding even with their wives. Presiding over the surface of this planet were two deities, one of darkness and the other of light. “The earlier you decided which side you wanted to be on, the better.” He wasn’t living inside of some cult, unless you call the only world-religion ever indigenous to Europe a cult. He was living inside the Left.
I am part of a generation in Germany that knows no other reality than the dominance of the left. Everyone was a liberal where I grew up. … The way we were supposed to feel about conservatives was obvious. They were either deeply reactionary, because they refused to accept progress, or dangerously narrow-minded. In other words, they were either despicable or pitiful characters. … I don’t remember when it first dawned on me that not all families were like mine. … In Germany, leftists are never truly called upon to justify their views. In fact, their views have become the dominant views, not within the population, which stubbornly adheres to its prejudices, but among those who set the tone and in circles where they prefer to congregate.
Fleischhauer’s essay “Breaking Ranks” reads like the stereotypical story of a gay man coming out the proverbial closet, except that a gay man had a greater chance of acceptance within his old circle than a man who thought differently from the herd.
Liberals in Germany rave about Obama, fear climate change and the surveillance state, do their best to eat organically acceptable food … Their children attend exclusive schools, even though they are fundamentally in favor of public schools. They like to spend their weekends visiting friends in the country who have been renovating a stone cottage for years — with attention to historical authenticity, of course — and in Italian restaurants they always order in Italian, no matter how well they actually speak the language. …
I don’t know when it happened. There wasn’t a specific day or incident that turned me off to the left. I cannot even claim that I consciously distanced myself. It just happened. Suddenly I no longer found it amusing to listen to constant jokes about the physiognomy of (former Chancellor Helmut) Kohl. I realized that I was relieved when my sons converted the puppet theater my father-in-law and I had built for them into a parking garage. When the discussion turned to the uselessness of marriage and family, I was the one who was secretly rooting for every married couple, hoping it would last as long as possible. Once, at a party, I even dared to put in a good word for nuclear energy during a conversation about climate change. It immediately put a damper on the evening.
Fleischhauer perfectly captures the attraction and curse of living with the herd; it gave you warmth, comfort and support, but at the price of strict loyalty to the tribe, not in any deep intellectual sense, but socially. To step out of the hive meant you were on your own, without a flag, a foreigner in your own country. There might be dramatic scenes of excommunication, even a public shaming, but if you had good friends there would be polite handshakes at the leave-taking and the quiet of retreating footsteps before the silence descended like a blanket.
There were early signs of my tendency, and in retrospect they were clearly recognizable. Fontessa, a friend of mine from school, even claims that she has always known about it. When we talked about our younger days at a class reunion three years ago and I mentioned switching sides politically, she looked at me with pity in her eyes and said: “Jan, you were never truly liberal. It was always just a pose for you.” I felt as if I’d been caught in the act, and yet she didn’t mean it in a bad way. …
We recently invited a couple we have known for a long time, but with whom we had fallen somewhat out of touch, over to our house. He became a law professor at a university in eastern Germany not too long ago, and she promotes golf courses. The conversation quickly turned to the last Michael Moore film, and our friend suddenly claimed that the film could not be shown throughout the entire Midwest of the United States. He made it sound as if Moore were some French auteur filmmaker who was finally holding up a mirror to the Americans, which they couldn’t abide.
I had a pretty clear idea of how the conversation would continue, and I knew that I would be upset with myself afterwards, once again, because I hadn’t challenged him decisively enough. “To make it brief, because we’ll get to this point anyway,” I heard myself saying: “No, I don’t believe that the CIA was behind the Sept. 11 attacks, and yes, we liked living in America.” He was quiet, we drank our tea, and the two said their goodbyes before long. I was shocked by what I had said, but also a little proud of myself.
Maybe at the end of their lives most people find they are one two types: those who never leave home, and those who having once left, return to make it, but a little differently. In some incomprehensible way the long-term survival of the herd depends upon those who wander from it and stare into the edge of the night with wonder and with wariness; with a glance backward in pity and in love at the dancers amid the oranges and flowers.
Secrets of your life
I never wanted for myself
But you guarded them like a lie
Placed up on the highest shelf …
But I, I will never be the same
Oh I, I will never be the same
Caught in your eyes
Lost in your name
I will never be the same
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Sounds like my town in MA. Ugh.
“The only world religion ever indiginous to Europe”
So no PC, anti-nuclear not eating oranges from politicaly dubious countries people in the USA then?
That’s increasingly true of large parts of the United States today.
Isn’t there something contradictory in raving about Obama and fearing the surveillance state?
Poignant. But not surprising. Orthodoxy exacts a price no matter what name it carries. I have long believed America’s strength is our freedom to aspire to individuality. The frontier hypothesis applied not just to the great geographical space we eventually covered, but to social, economic and political ideas we developed and either allowed to flower or passed by. Think, for example, William James’ pragmatism or Mario Savio’s Free Speech Movement. Think mass production in Detroit or mass suicide in Jonestown.
Now we have a political class who would encourage us to aspire not to individuality, but to the village it takes to raise a child. I for one will not be convinced. I can only pray a majority of my compatriots will not be convinced either, but I frankly worry that there is an inexorable movement (slide?) of the entire nation in that direction, as Mariner says in #3. Where’s John Wayne when we need him? F
I have the opposite experience. I am a Red Diaper Baby turned Conservative. My training in mathematics (the way I put it is that mathematics is just learning to think) would not allow the Leftists worldview to work any longer – it just did not make sense.
Dang, I always wanted a puppet theater, but the folks wouldn’t let me sell my Harley!
The political class largely buys into this mindset, no matter which label they wear. Hence the insistence of Colin Powell that he’s a Republican, and the news reporting that implies that Republicans must admit anyone to participation, without any consideration for their principles, and without even any consideration of what positions separate R from D.
Observe the shock among the punditry, when Dick Cheney clearly articulates some opinions without the customary buzzwords and waffling which are supposed to conceal principles from the ‘undecided voter’.
Sounds like one of Neo-Neocon’s “Change” narratives. I think I’ll email that link to her.
We “lost” a thirty-year friendship with a German-born protestant theologian after I innocently forwarded a Charles Krauthammer article defending Christmas celebrations. How was I to know the religious left (see Council of Churches) had rejected Krauthammer on political grounds?
Interesting is the Spiegel interview with Obama’s uncle who was asked about Germans:
Payne: I am puzzled by intelligent people who stand by and allow their country to be taken over and run by extreme radical types. I’m still somewhat puzzled by that. And I am fully aware that it could happen and has almost happened in this country. You know, I lived through the McCarthy era in the 1950s, when it was getting dangerously close to that sort of thing.
I live in that bubble. I’m a libertarian who works in a federally funded grant center. Everybody here but me is somewhat to the left of Mao Tse Tung. Talk about your hostile work environments.
Bill
http://willstuff.wordpress.com
In “The Emperor’s New Clothes” the masses really did know the Emperor was naked, but were pressured (i.e,. psychology and sociology’s definition of “socialization”) into believing otherwise. Who would dare to unmask the lie? Such would be uncouth. Living the lie means our very eyes are deceiving.
When reality doesn’t fit one’s ideology, it’s better to jettison reality and believe a lie for the truth.
It doesn’t take a village. It takes a child – “The Emperor is naked!”
I think the problem is not with those that go along. There will always be sheep. There are even many Republicans, who still have conservative values, who refuse to confront the Establishment long after it has turned first to socialism and next to Fascism, just because it’s still the Establishment.
I think the problem is the ones who want to enforce the orthodoxy of the left. They are truly evil. In the land that brought the world the concept of ” freedom of speech”, they want to deny any freedom of expression that does not conform to authoritarian beliefs.
When confronted with one of these pond scum, I challenge them as to whether they are still truly “liberal”, and not just a closet Fascist. Because to be a “liberal” in this country, one must believe in free speech, our bill of rights and democracy, and these haters clearly do not.
The evil hater’s reaction is normally extremely hostile and angry, but it is also quite fun to watch the fear and inner revulsion wash across their face, for they know deep down they are fascist. Their inner recognition always strikes to the heart.
I wonder what German conservativism really looks like. Right of huh? Some of the most conservative people I have known were older German expats. Some of the leftiest people I have know were young Germans born in the 70′s or later.
I wonder in the end who will amass the more success and happiness in life. The individual that thinks for himself or the queen bees of the hive. It is almost an allegory of capitalism and collectivism.
The lesson here is to not repeat the mistakes of the Left.
Don’t turn the right into a ghetto.
The left would rather hide behind their narratives than be exposed to facts. What does that say about their supposed “intelligence”? Imo, Somewhat like parrots, they are not smart enough to think for themselves, thus at serious risk whenever their “beliefs” are challenged.
The best ploy I’ve found to use against liberals is to constantly question, “Why do you hate (the subject matter)”? They will, of course, deny that base motive, sputtering all types of disingenuous homilies. But by frequently going back to that question one will bunch up their panties something awful. Lots of fun.
The unintentional irony in this comments section…
The notion of an ideologue like Wretch talking up “breaking ranks” or “leaving home” is a…trip. As I’ve noted before, in the past Wretch has placed this blog in the tradition of Whittaker Chambers’ WITNESS – Chambers, of course, had a history of rejecting conventional political wisdom. And not just when he broke with the CP and its fellow travelers on the left. In the 50′s Chambers damned Ayn Rand – he would’ve been appalled by the tea partiers aiming to “go Galt” nowdays. He spoke out against the Military Industrial complex, defended Paul Robeson, offered “academic freedom as a reason to fight the Cold War” (at a moment when his young McCarthyite friend William Buckley was dismissing such freedom as a “superstition.” Chambers managed to sustain certain faiths but he cultivated a truly oppositional self/mind. Wretch, on the other hand…- “Stuck to the rump of G.O.P., Fenandez never takes on stars in the Fox News/Limbaugh orbit or the right-wing blogosphere. Muy macho he may be, but whenever actual arguments jump off on the Right, Fernandez is M.I.A.”
Third rate exhausting bore.
Reply #17 – Yeah, darn that Fernandez! He won’t do the honorable thing (aka, liberal thing) and perform a Colin Powell against Rush and Company!
Bummer…ain’t it Libs?
I recommend Rich Lowry’s novel “Banquo’s Ghosts” as an incredibly compelling picture of one man’s odyssey from left wing cynical liar to conservative patriot. It is a fantastic novel I hated to reach the end of.
I was liberal by upbringing, radicalized by the age I lived in and ultimately transformed by a Christian conversion. Suddenly I realized the things that really matter; faith, family,community, history of a free people. The left is the coward’s choice, a cynical dance with the devils where no one is held accountable. It walks, it talks, it breathes, but it’s death.
“Muy macho he may be, but whenever actual arguments jump off on the Right, Fernandez is M.I.A.”
your argument rings very hollow when you can’t be bothered to mention WHAT he’s supposed to be attacking Fox/Limbaugh for.
from the tenor or your post, i get the idea that many of the things you would want the right criticized for, we are proud of.
19 – The recent arguments about Rush & Sarah & Joe the P. on the Right (which Wretch has assiduously avoided as he concentrates on the pathos of Obama’s ongoing/coming/future/WhenEver implosion)were sparked by comments/critiques made by David Frum — author of Bush’s Axis of Evil speech. Try as you may, you’ll have a hard time convincing anyone on the left that David Frum is on our side…
19 – maybe you need to meet 16….
21 – If you want the full monty mando you can have it here – but the immediate example of Wretch’s evasiveness was his refusal to take a stand on the torture issue – Lots of ofollks on the right were willing to come down one way or another – Wretch ran…
http://www.firstofthemonth.org/archives/2009/05/history_in_the.html
I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that the biggest threat to this country comes not from NK or Iran, but from Europe.
Our country can defend itself from overt acts, but the slow rotting of our values is a danger we may not realize until it’s too late.
If there’s one good thing that’s come from the second Iraqi war, it’s that Europe has amply demonstrated that they’re not our “friends”, but rather a collection of countries with interests, just like all others. We need to start taking our interests into account, as all other countries do.
The days when we could afford, or had the will, to be the worlds policeman are rapidly coming to an end. The sooner we realize that, the better.
Well, few random thoughts come to mind: yes, the Soviets were way ahead of their time, and yes, they succeeded beyond their imagination in making new man even outside of their immediate reach. Especially outside of their immediate reach.
Re. 23 “I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that the biggest threat to this country comes not from NK or Iran, but from Europe.”
Rather from the same puppeteers behind both European and our chattering class. The entire world is on a secular trajectory toward fascism and we are in the forefront of it since FDR (may be even earlier) with minor occasional warnings and slow-downs (Goldwater, Reagan).
Benj,
Why don’t you get a blog of your own instead of posting here. Then you will have as much of an audience for your wisdom as the quality of your writing commands.
Bravo Wretchard!
Whenever I see Benj’s name, I just skip to the next post. I suggest that the rest of the BCers do the same.
Benj, listen to Wretchard! Please!!!
For twenty years now I’ve held that although we out spent Russia on weapons systems and watched their collapse, they ultimatly won the war because they got our universities and our chlidren for sixty some odd years and it’s now paying off for them.
Liberals of a hard-left bent are incredibly boring and predictable. They bracket off wide swaths of discussion, even if the conversation is just for the sake of thinking through both sides of an issue. Most of these people, in my experience, have a boring inner life: their religion and their politics are the same.
On the other hand, I guess the same liberals would reply that religious people are just as boring in their way and just as predictably intolerant in their politics.
Whoever has gotten control of politics is usally pretty insufferable. Right now, the liberals are insufferable.
Some balance and genuine respect of others would be a good thing.
I’m only commenting here in that it seems to be the proper thing to do given that you have insulted our host. I’m only sorry that he had to address you first, rather than one of his other guests.
My experience in reading Wretchard is that he is the furthest thing from a self-promoter, yet you seem to want to measure him based on that view. I assess him as a very thoughtful person who is a great catalytical stimulus for discussion. This is not a site where he lays out his positions and tries to convince one of their correctness. So what if he doesn’t take a stand on any issue, but just generates a debate? At least he seems to have the humility to acknowledge that he is not all-knowing, unlike certain figures in American politics.
I would say, given what he has seen and experienced, that I would defer to him on whether he needs to define his position on torture or whatever you want to call it.
Sorry to say that we won’t miss you here.
28 — I sometimes think you’re right.
The Cold War was largely fought with social, political and psychological weapons. Of course there was a military arms race and some confrontations, but the vast majority of the protagonists’ military strength was held in reserve as a threat.
Much of the real struggle was psychological in nature. The Russians, no fools, worked hard on undermining and destroying Western confidence and the foundations of their enemies’ civilisation. They created a weapon that was self-replicating and would keep on working even if its originators were destroyed.
And so, even though we “won” the Cold War, some of the weapons that were launched against us are still doing damage.
The question people are avoiding here is WHY?
WHY are the elite so Hard Left? Why do they disdain military action? Why do they hate the US and love Obama? Why do they hold the Green orthodoxy? WHY do they have a hatred for the nuclear family? WHY do they have a self-reinforcing mechanism for Hard Left Dogma?
I think, if you look at the statements in the post, it becomes clear. Hard Leftism is the inevitable feature of female-domination in a society. Look at all the arrows pointing: hatred of military action (diminishes female power), hatred of the nuclear family (diminishes female sexual options), dislike of America (a masculine, achievement rather than female status oriented society), and so on.
After all, diagnosing a problem of Leftism does no good if you cannot understand the process by which a society becomes Left, and maintains it’s cohesion into leftism.
After all, there is money to be made in nuclear power. Lots of construction, well paying union jobs, cheap electricity to voters. The classic “New Deal” type of cheap electrification to get votes/social support would be going nuclear big time.
But if the primary driver is “Curb Your Enthusiasm” like status displays (such as the episode where David’s TV wife fights battles over trees and power lines to get a better view than the neighbors) … well then it’s different. As is the female-oriented “correct way of thinking” social mechanism.
Men enforce orthodoxy like Saddam. Brutally. Women do it, well ala “old friends who no longer come to dinner.”
I think it’s telling that Spengler’s analysis of fertility and female literacy (inversely and linearily correlated) applies also to the degree of PC. The more women are totally independent and the gatekeepers for what is “correct” thinking, the more hard-Left a society becomes.
I will certainly say this: female orthodoxy does not produce mass graves like Saddam’s. There is no knock on the door at midnight. But it leaves a society totally unprepared for violent challenges, like a woman with a thug who can no longer influence him.
Comparing the Left in Western Europe (female social consensus and orthodoxy driven, “soft” social pressures) and that of Eastern Europe (male dominated power-patronage brutalism) I don’t see what other conclusion can be drawn. [The Lives of Others nailed it, right down the Secret Police boss wanting the other guy's girlfriend.]
The biggest threat and has been for a long time is liberalism. I always thought that liberalism is very paternalistic like father knows best. Though many will say it is the feminazis.
Liberal are mild socialist and communists. They believe that for the better good it is moral to take from the individual. That is wrong because it does not suit human nature, which is evolved to first protect the individual and then his family and then his community. When the individual over produces he sales the excess and the community profits. But when the individual is required to give up his labor and goods he chooses not to over produce and there is no excess. Or going John Galt. Classic Adam Smith.
Liberals hate capitalism and do not agree with its moral nature. That is why Joe the Plumber manage to get that critical phrase from Obama that Obama wanted to share the wealth it showed the real nature of Obama’s economic model. With the bubble in real estate bursting he had his chance of taking the factors of capitalism. The capital markets and the production factors in auto and now he is aiming on cap and trade for the energy markets and then the health markets.
The problem with the right is that they can go toward the authoritarian right, which exhibits the dictatorial control mechanisms. I believe in individualism and so am a conservative. Small and limited government. No unnecessary laws. No nanny state laws like helmet and seat belt laws. I am tired of the government saying I must be for my good. That is my choice not theirs.
I am glad that this person was able to free himself from groupthink and decide for himself. I wonder did he change because he was opposed to other ideas in the States versus the sameness in Germany? What made him change? Many had that epiphany on 9/11 since the emotional surety was that there are evil people who do want to kill us was blatantly made clear. It often takes a severe emotional shock to break from a cherished thought pattern and belief system. But those who got convinced of the conservative opinion of that there is evil and we must fight it before it attacks us, still have not accepted the morality of self-interest.
There is an old saying that when young you are a liberal or you had no heart and when older you are conservative or you have no head. Youth are more susceptible to emotional arguments and when older to more rational arguments.
The Soviets accomplished a quick and violent overthrow of the status quo. They fought hard to sell their point of view to their own populace and murdered when ideological ends could not be mended.
The Western Left has been pitching an ideology hard for several decades now and they have to believe it to be true to their revolution.
Western democracy couched in individual freedoms and individual feats of economic greatness, whether Getty or Gates, does not opt to bore the masses with it image. It just is and stands as its own beacon of achievement.
and Benj, piss off.
This gradual “shunning” this fellow describes is exactly what happened to me over my 20 years at a large university in a small town. It’s not enough for leftists that they dominate the institution and community; it’s necessary that no one disagree with them. Others, including this fellow, have written more eloquently than I can on this issue. But I can attest it’s very true.
The sooner this blog sees the last of Benj, the better. I’ve yet to read anything of his that was worth the time/effort spent. His comments are much better simply ignored.
Bye, Benj. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. I’m sure the DU will be glad you can spend more time with them.
Wretch, you’ve been far more patient with this guy than he deserves. I’d recommend that if he refuses to recognize your politely stated request to go elsewhere, you ban him. He won’t be missed.
I lived in W. Germany (Goettingen) as an American expatriate from 1984-1987. The Iron Curtain collapsed shortly after I left so my experiences there are now out-of-date.
It was my observation that W. Germany had been exposed to considerable Soviet Agitprop in prepartion for a land war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. It was my impression that most of the W. German population would have immediately capitulated to a Warsaw Pact invasion had it occurred. The basic message “Better Red than Dead” had been fully absorbed and accepted as canon by the general population.
IMHO, the real reason why the West (United States) was victorious in the Cold War was due to the Soviet Empire imploding from its own internal contradictions before being able to destablize Western Europe and the Developing World. I believe the Soviet Union’s Agitprop programs of Green Socialism in Western Europe and Liberation Theology in the Developing World were well conceived and would have eventually yielded victory to the Soviets. We were lucky that the KGB cooked up these concepts fairly late in the game and persisted with a straight Marxist-Leninist approach rather than Gramscian for as long as they did.
In essence, the Soviets expired from their own poison before we succumbed from it. Unfortunately, we were indeed poisoned and the poison was of a persistent sort (think of it as cultural arsenic or mercury poisoning). It’s quite possible that the dose we received was indeed fatal and slow acting before finally killing us off.
Personally I like various points of view. I think that conservatives need a few liberals otherwise it is an echo chamber and liberals often make us check our assumptions.
However few liberals really discuss principle just demeans and ridicule. Conservatives have for decades refused suit but Coulter and others now take up the tactics. It works but it does not convince.
Repetition does work and so does logic But we need to vaccinate the young early with conservative thought. I did that with my children and then sent them to Catholic schools and they constantly challenged the assumptions of their classmates. The teachers loved it because it made interesting discussions. Thankfully the school was very open-minded even if they did not agree with their viewpoint.
Funny that the Catholics who have definite strong principles were open to challenge and discussion where secular public schools are not.
That influenced me not to be afraid of the religious right though I was not inclined to scared of the religious right since I understood that they wanted society to let them live their values and bring up their children in their values.
Benj,
I started a blog for you.
http://benjbenjbenj.blogspot.com/
Let me know when you want to take control.
Seconded (@26), wretchard. Benj is our resident troll. Burns bandwidth and adds nothing of substance to the conversation, thread or site. Personally, I just scroll on past most of the time.
dtmack @ 23: “I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that the biggest threat to this country comes not from NK or Iran, but from Europe. . . . Our country can defend itself from overt acts, but the slow rotting of our values is a danger we may not realize until it’s too late.”
dtmack – Not so much that place or those places but the insidious attitudes picked up by guys like Benj. They see nothing that stirs their hearts to know this is one of the better places on the planet. Having traveled a bunch over the last 12-13 years, I think I have seen a good slice. There are many things to recommend old Europistan, the Far East & Japan and the Americas but the balance makes all of the good features tend to aggregate here.
What the Blame America First crowd misses is simple. Which direction are the rafts going? (To paraphrase Bill Whittle from Eject!Eject!Eject!) You don’t see workers from LA trying to sneak over the border to find work in Chihuahua, do you? Though before The 0bamanation is done and he has established his workers paradise, we may.
49erDweet understands the power of post-modernist thought and dedication to the almighty narrative in this. Classical thought and enlightenment analysis techniques demand that ALL facts be considered, followed by a dispassionate assessment and conclusion that is based on logic rather than some desired outcome. Postmodernism requires that cherry-picked facts be the only ones considered, in light of the goal of validating the outcome demanded by one’s desired narrative. This is where the parroting comes in.
Many of the NPR left aren’t all that bright, but believe that by repeating (without assessing critically) the mantras of the ‘cool kids’ on the left, they magically gain the right to go about their business thinking they’re really, really smart because, hey, all those smart Ivy-leaguers who listen to NPR think that way, too.
It is useful to assess the underpinnings of the transformation to an increasingly hard left in term of Whiskey’s analysis.
For those who doubt this, I present exhibit A.
A few days ago, a small circle of people with whom I share e-mail was sent by one of the members, one of those youtube videos describing the demographics of Islam vs native born Europeans and North Americans. The video was fairly dispassionate and really just a description of the facts.
A wife of one of the circle members, a public school teacher who is the archetypal not-very-bright NPR high-disinformation leftist (who believes, in her own mind, that she is MENSA material) responded thusly:
“This kind of thing can seem scary when presented in this manner. However, change is inevitable. Look at the transformation over the last 30 years in the types of foods we eat with the increase in the Latino population. Who doesn’t like a good breakfast burrito?
Certainly we have seen an increase in the Muslim population; it is a growing demographic due to both birth and conversion. My very good friend, XXXX, converted from Catholicism to Islam when she married a man from Pakistan, and she has had more than 1.9 children. Three of her four sons are Harvard graduates. Her oldest, who graduated two years ago, took my son under his wing when he was struggling with wrestling. The youngest is a former student and a sophomore at the university. They are wonderful people. XXXX does not wear a burqa, just capris and cardigans like the rest of us. Extremists are scary– no doubt about it, but as an agnostic, I fear Muslims no more than Christian or Jews.
I don’t care so much what god people worship or language they speak as long as we remain free and democratic. As Americans we need to work tirelessly to preserve the rights our forefathers outlined in the Constitution. Whether combating foreign terrorists or battling economic disaster, we have to remain diligent in fighting for our liberties and preventing policies that would undermine them. In that way, we will preserve the most important aspects of our culture.
Plus, I refuse to have any more children!”
I can’t add to that, although others (Whiskey especially) might like to comment.
If you have not read David Gelernter’s 1997 essay, How the Intellectuals Took Over, I highly recommend it.
The thing to remember about intellectuals is that there is a great temptation to pride and vanity. When you actually are smarter than 98 or 99 percent of the population, you can deceive yourself into the belief that because you can “think better” than most others, you *are* better than most others.
Gelernter’s essay tracks back to the 1960s to mark the cultural coup of the intellectual class, but I suspect that you could go much further back than that with regard to when the seeds were sown.
The traditional obstacle to overweening pride in the intellectual has been, IMO, theism, in particular Judeo-Christian belief … the acknowledgment of a personal Creator whose mind is exponentially, unfathomably, immeasurably greater than the greatest human genius that ever lived. Humility before and submission to God made possible charity and graciousness towards one’s fellow man.
If faith was the great restraint upon intellectuals’ pride, then it is logical that the spread of secularism, and the elevation of man’s mind to the position of The Greatest Thing There Is, would eventually unleash all the consequential harm that pride of any sort gives birth to: unwillingness to submit to authority (since pride declares that I know better than “they” do and am therefore more capable of determining what ought or ought not be), resentment of anyone stronger and contempt for anyone weaker, a dogmatic belief in the rightness of one’s own way of doing or thinking, and intolerance of opposition. The political expression of pride in its most extreme, pathological form would be totalitarianism.
Why can’t the leftist intellectual elite tolerate dissent? Simply put, it is not in their nature. They can’t fathom anything greater than themselves (i.e. their minds, and the works thereof), and they are, as it turns out, jealous gods. We shall have no other gods before them.
The trouble with the grubby bourgeois has always been, we traditionally HAVE had all sorts of other gods before the eggheads. Sometimes it was God, sometimes it was Mammon, sometimes it was just beer and a dance. (How.Dare.Those.Kulaks!) Rejection … resentment … rage.
Returning to Gelernter:
Let us say there was a coup at the top: that, after the [World War II], intellectuals took the helm at the prestige colleges; that a new breed of intellectualized graduates duly emerged to claim (as these graduates always had) a large share of the nation’s elite positions; that the character of the elite changed radically in consequence. Today’s elite is intellectualized, the old elite was not. Why should that matter? What differences does it make?
The difference is this: the old elite used to get on fairly well with the country it was set over. Members of the old social upper-crust elite were richer and better educated than the public at large, but approached life on basically the same terms. The public went to church and so did they. The public went into the army and so did they. The public staged simpler weddings and the elite put on fancier ones, but they mostly all used the same dignified words and no one self-expressed. They agreed (this being America) that art was a waste, scientists were questionable, engineering and machines and progress and nature were good. Some of the old-time attitudes made sense, some did not; but the staff and their bosses basically concurred. (George Bush was elected in part, Brookhiser suggests, because of public interest in restoring these arrangements.)
Relations between the elite and the nation are very different today. … When intellectuals were outsiders, their loves and hates never mattered much. Today they are the bosses and their tastes matter greatly. The essay in “The New Class?” that went deepest into basic cultural questions was Norman Podhoretz’s; he expanded on Lionel Trilling’s idea of the intellectuals as an “adversary culture.” During the 1960′s and early 70′s, the intelligentsia’s hatred for middle-class society was something fierce. The ferocity could partly be explained, Podhoretz wrote, by the fact that “despite all the concessions” the middle class had made, “it still refused to be ruled by the intellectuals.” [Intelligentsia's hatred for class enemies] used to be aimed at least partly upward, at the “establishment.” Now that intellectuals are the establishment, it is aimed entirely downward, at the public at large.
Today’s elite loathes the nation it rules.
Loathes. Despises. Ergo, seeks to destroy.
Interesting how the meaning of words can change, and the consequences that can have for the quality of our public discourse.
This widespread use of “liberal” in its current European sense, as synonymous with pacifist, anti-patriotic,collectivist and PC does a great disservice to the honorable tradition of liberalism, and to those who remain authentically liberal.
Better to drive a wedge between liberals and leftists.
Bogie Wheel #43:
I have always thought it odd, to say the least, that so often when a senior politician says “We are going to do such and such with Industry X.” that the rank and file of the workers all go “Oh, geeze, what a freakin’ terrible idea.” And the senior management of the company almost invariably says in response “Excellent idea! We will support that 100%!”
I have assumed it’s because the rank and file and executives move in two different circles. The politicians and the executives are Elites. They tend to agree. The taxpayers and the workers are not. They tend to hold their heads and moan.
“Loathes. Despises. Ergo, seeks to destroy.”
As in referring to the private sector as “the enemy”, in the manner of our President.
I grew up being at least aware of politics and while not hard conservative I was definitely conservative. I graduated from high school went to college and lurched left. At the end of my college career I drifted back to my conservatism. It was pro-life, the second amendment that were the anchors the forces of leftism were unable to cut and it was William F. Buckley Jr. who coaxed me back.
I think back to those days and wonder if I really believed the leftist stuff or was also a poseur. I suspect the later because at a “symposium” a professor (I was still a purported lefty) said we still need affirmative action and I recall finding that a repulsive comment.
Knock on wood. You’ve heard the phrase–do you know where it comes from? A distant pagan past in which people would knock on trees to summon spirits that lived within them to do them some sort of a favor. Few people that utter that now believe that trees harbor spirits–but you will hear it quite often. The behavior persists long after the reason behind it has been forgotten or has been shown to be ridiculous.
And the same dynamic is behind much of the “progressive” attitudes today. Originally, as some of the commenters above have said or intimated, a lot of “progressive” ideas were originally propaganda tactics meant to weaken the West by the USSR during the Cold War. The propaganda was spread by active agents of the USSR and their cadres of over-educated useful idiots. It was agitprop as a tool of the USSR, intended to undermine the West prior to the coming war in which the West would be defeated.
But the USSR has ceased to be. But still the legions of useful idiots persist in patterns of behavior that serve no rational purpose. Even they have forgotten why they are supposed to take such attitudes or exhibit such patterns of behavior. Its just a habit now, the reasons behind it have been forgotten. Trying to tear down your own society in order to make it ripe for a military defeat by another power that will “liberate” it might be considered a legitimate goal by some people, but when the “liberator” has ceased to exist how can you describe such behavior as anything other than unadulterated nihilism?
Perhaps the West will survive. . .Knock on wood.
There’s a good article by Fred Siegel over at City Journal on H. G. Wells as “The Godfather of American Liberalism” (Siegel’s title) in the 1920s.
“Modern American liberalism, as it emerged in the 1920s, was animated by a revolt against the masses. Liberal thinkers accused the great unwashed of smothering creative individuals in a blanket of materialist, spiritually empty cultural conformity. The liberal project was, so to speak, to refound America by replacing its business civilization—a ‘dictatorship of the middle class,’ as Vernon Parrington put it— with a new, more highly evolved leadership. But along with the ideal of the spontaneous, creative individual, liberals also embraced government economic planning, which depended on making people more predictable. The tension between the two aspirations was resolved, rhetorically at least, by proposing to place power in the hands of scientists, academics, artists, and professionals, a new and truly worthy aristocracy that could govern based on what was good for both leaders and the led.
“These antidemocratic and elitist assumptions were nowhere better illustrated than in the extraordinary career of a Briton, H. G. Wells. Wells is best remembered today as the author of such late-nineteenth-century socio-scientific fantasies as The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and The Invisible Man. But he was much more than that. His political writing achieved extraordinary influence in America, not just through his defense of liberal freedoms such as free speech but through his hostility to population growth, capitalism, and democracy itself.”
http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_2_HG-wells.html
So the “revolt of the elites,” to borrow Christopher Lasch’s phrase, has been under way for almost a century. (Lasch’s 1995 book by that title is well worth reading, for BCers who haven’t come across it yet.)
Uro @46: Did Obama actually use that phrase to describe the private sector? Got any details?
Interesting how the meaning of words can change, and the consequences that can have for the quality of our public discourse.
In another of my favorite political essays, “Politics and the English Language,” which most here have probably read, Orwell says that not only can thought corrupt language, but language can corrupt thought.
The left appears to understand very well the importance of seizing the terms of debate as a means to control and win the debate. I can specifically think of three “Newspeak” words that have been injected into common cultural and political parlance over the past forty years and become the dominant terms of reference in their respective arenas. What a coinkeedink, each one of them was launched by the left:
gay
fetus
insurgent
#1 hijacked and ruined a perfectly good word that was useful in rhymes and which decks the lyrics of classic popular songs. (in addition to being in the last line of The Flintstones theme)
#2 and #3 were blatant dishonest evasion and obfuscation. Straightforward and useful terms like “unborn baby” and “terrorist” already existed, but did not service the left’s agenda. So off the intellectuals went to the Closet of Obscure Words That Nobody Thinks About And Therefore Have No Well-Known Definition and grabbed these two pale stinkers. By introducing “new” words, the left could define them as desired, i.e. in a way that advanced the agenda.
I’m saddened, though not surprised, this reprehensible tactic of polluting our language has not been decried more often and more loudly. As a writer I find it akin to p*ssing in the community well.
RWE @ 45:
As a current example of your observation, consider the different reactions of the AMA towards Obama’s proposed health care overhaul, versus the reactions of everyday doctors, nurses, and other HC professionals working in the trenches.
To paraphrase Chesterton, it’s an idea so terrible that only a pencil-pushing bureaucrat could support it.
#28 jak
You have it exactly right. The Communists have probably won the war against our civilization. They got our institutions and they got the seed corn of the nation.
Bet there are a lot of old Communists retired to their dachas east of Moscow or on the Black Sea who are now upset that the Soviet Union could not have survived for another thirty years. Because they won where it really mattered.
Any of you watched the videos of Yuri Bezmenov?
Interesting how the meaning of words can change….”
If you read the article in the original German, you will see “liberal” replaced with “links” which is German for “left”.
SF
In his first book, Barack described his time in a private firm as being behind enemy lines!
For ten years of my life (1977-1987)I was a Marxist with a Catholic Christian bent. In other words, I was a Pelagian heretic given over to the better works of Liberation Theology. I was no poseur of collectivism. I was drawn into a vision, not a crowd to belong to. I followed it out of moral concerns and not for any desire for anything for myself. That’s the truth. But all along, in the back of my mind, I was always probing and testing the ideas against its critics. I think that is what saved me, intellectually. Spiritually, what saved me was a dogged pursuit of the truth about humanity and about Jesus Christ. And the truth about myself as well, under a spiritual director and through some psychotherapy.
In the end I found that there is a darkness everywhere that no social construct can dispel. Only a decision to face the truth and enter the Light. And so I passed from being a heretic to being a more realistic mind.
At this time in this country if you even mention the issue of persons residing within the country without legal documents, you are automatically designated a racist, bigoted, vicious reactionary.
Interesting that NO OTHER COUNTRY ON THE FACE OF THE GLOBE tolerates uncontrolled entry of illegal aliens. Outside this certifiable loony bin, other sovereign nations – oops, except for ISRAEL – are allowed ROUTINELY and VIGOROUSLY to enforce their borders without criticism from the world community. Everyone figures its okay to criticize Israel for anything except abject surrender.
With respect to the cost of health care, you will no longer hear a single breath wasted by any delusional liberal (I apologize for the redundancy) referring to the hemorrhage of wealth being spent on the medical, housing, educational, and transportation needs of illegal aliens. I do not suggest that deporting every last one would solve our health or welfare problems. What is inarguable is that we are spending an enormous portion of our national treasure on people who have entered this country and are staying here illegally.
In California I had a years-long relationship with a lady who was a professional firefighter. Some weeks her duty assignment was ambulance driver, and I learned that frequently the station would get a call from a poor neighborhood, pick up a resident who showed no symptoms or distress but stated they were experiencing the standard list of CI symptoms. They were required to transport anyone who stated they were experiencing such symptoms, even if their exam did not show clinical findings to support. Ambulance crew included an EMT *AND* a paramedic, but no M.D.
What happened on many occasions was that the patient would tell the driver to stop at some street corner, and let them off. The Crew were required to accede to this instruction, and let the lowlife out, having used the ambulance as a taxi. The Ambulance then returned to station, where the interior had to be wiped, scrubbed, dis-infected, and readied for the next call. Taxpayers are required to subsidize the costs of transport of indigents, even when they abuse the system. The crew are not allowed to refuse, in case someone actually does have a medical problem and files suit (arguably a legitimate point.) But neither are they allowed to refuse to let the “patient” stop and leave the vehicle. The costs can mount up quickly, sometimes to over a thousand dollars for a single call.
A thousand dollars to use an ambulance and its highly-trained crew as a God Damned taxi. And the legislators and bureaucrats besides refusing to put a stop to this, compound the clusterf**k by designating anyone who objects as a Racist Bigot.
You might think that at some point, the people who are legitimate citizens might awake and realize that the benefits they have come to take for granted are being jeopardized by sharing with people who have “broken into the line.”
The absurdity of the liberal position doesn’t stand up to any logical scrutiny. Twenty years ago, Liberals were arguing that illegal aliens had every right to be here and enjoy the full benefits of citizenship, without learning the language, swearing allegiance to their host country, acknowledging the laws and customs of the land, et cetera. Then, with the era of the so-called War on Terror, the Liberal thinkers have given full rights and protections of U.S. citizenship to any person the U.S. finds placing explosive devices in a marketplace, incendiary liquids in an orphanage, knives in the throats of bound hostages, grenade fragments in young girls defying the Prophet’s will by going to school, or bullets into the U.S. soldiers attempting to frustrate all those activities,
Insanity.
The US Constitution, the US Codes criminal and civil, and all our case law are desirable PRECISELY because we have created, cultivated, nourished and maintained a haven separate and identifiably different other territories, where laws and their enforcement have been ill-defined, badly enforced, and over-ruled by despots.
What Liberals are doing – and they are utterly blind to the glaring logic of this – is throwing that away, every time a judge “makes policy” from the bench of an appellate court instead of following the law. Every time a judge rules that a citizen of another country has the same rights as a citizen of the United States, even outside the territorial boundaries of the US, this stands International Law on its head, perverts U.S. law, and diminishes the rights and privileges of ALL legitimate citizens.
Bogie would you equally insist on the use of the term terrorist to describe those insurgents we support. Thinking in particular of the KLA whom the US government (albeiy Clinton) went to war to assist in their open campaugn of racial genocide?
In less strong terms the same could apply to the Contras, the Chechens & indeed the afghan Mujahaddin, that is back when they were our allies against the Russians? I agree with you that redefinition of language is, as Orwell pointed out, a major threat to freedom. I even agree that it is more a “left” problem than a “right” one (terms which themselves have lost meaning) but bvlame is not entirely so one sided – as your assertion that “fetus” is a newly invented term shows.
#50 SF
In “Audacity of Hope”, BHO referred to his brief time working in the private sector as a period spent ‘behind enemy lines’.
That should be enough proof for any honest, logical, intelligent person.
From PACat’s link:
“Wells said. “I am asking for a Liberal Fascisti.” It was also to Communism that “we shall have to turn—we outsiders, that is, the young people with foresight for enlightened Nazis; I am proposing that you consider the formation for a greater Communist Party; a western response to Russia.”
Those who scoff at Jonah Goldberg’s book ‘Liberal Fascism’ would do well to study history.
The ‘efforts’ f the current administration to ‘fix’ the economic mess we’re in will clearly fail–most of them are timed to take effect just in time to strangle the natural swing back toward economic recovery!–but this isn’t, I think, because the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is foolish, stupid, or misinformed.
I suspect that it is deliberate, following the lead of FDR, who tripled the economic woes that he inherited from Hoover–8% unemployment in March, 1933, 25% in 1936, for instance–but got away with blaming it all on Herbert! (Not that he–or at least the Republican Party–bares no responsibility for the problems, but FDR clearly made them far worse, and yet is given a total ‘pass’ by most ‘historians’….) Thus, no matter that Mr. O’s tripling of the deficit in his first 100 days in office–well, it won’t happen in an instant, but if he gets what he’s already proposed, that’ll be the end result–will destroy the economy, possibly forever, but–no worries! It’s /all/ Bush’s fault! Which will mean that we’ll see failed Democrats in office for the rest of the short life-span remaining to the Republic, since the misery caused by the Left’s own policies will be used as an excuse to implement even more bad ideas.
I spent a long time in the American college/university system, and in most of the departments of most of the schools I knew, George McGovern was viewed with suspicion, because of his right-wing leanings. That includes Math and Science departments–I was formally told not to go into one branch of science because I’d expressed a view–that what happened in an experiment had happened, and the fact that it didn’t match with then-current political correctness didn’t alter that fact–that was ‘unprofessional and unscientific’! (I /still/ haven’t been able to figure out what Marx has to do with low-pressure, high temperature chemistry, but that’s another story….)
So I went into biology, where I found that the laws of ecology dictate a capitalist economic model, much to the chagrin of my leftist comrades who were suddenly flooding into the system, having discovered the ‘ecological crisis’ when the Santa Barbara Oil Spill suddenly despoiled all those Malibu homes….(evil grin). (Until that happened, it was mainly the Left that was dismissing such concerns as unimportant; the people complaining about California smog ware often dismissed as rednecks or the like….)
pgf
Personally I like various points of view. I think that conservatives need a few liberals otherwise it is an echo chamber and liberals often make us check our assumptions.
However few liberals really discuss principles they just demean and ridicule. Conservatives have for decades refused suit but Coulter and others now take up the same tactics. It works but it does not convince.
Repetition does work and so does logic But we need to vaccinate the young early with conservative thought. I did that with my children and then sent them to Catholic schools and they constantly challenged the assumptions of their classmates. The teachers loved it because it made interesting discussions. Thankfully the school was very open-minded even if they did not agree with their viewpoint.
Funny that the Catholics who have definite strong principles were open to challenge and discussion where secular public schools are not.
That influenced me not to be afraid of the religious right though I was not inclined to scared of the religious right since I understood that they wanted society to let them live their values and bring up their children in their values.
Neil -
I think you have only to go back to the recent Tamil Tigers thread (the one discussing the death of Prabhakaran) to get the general consensus that (a) the LTTE were de facto terrorists, and (b) the West made a gross mistake in treating (even temporarily) the LTTE as a legitimate political actor.
My point was not who supports whom doing what or even what rationale they give for that support. My point was how specific words are artificially and successfully introduced into common parlance as a means to shape and control political debate, and that the left has been the overwhelmingly successful practitioner of this in America.
The term “insurgent” was deliberately dredged up from arcane academic & military usage and applied virtually non-stop in MSM reports as a one-size-fits-all word to describe what even that neanderthal word-strangler, President Bush, allowed for a little more nuance as “a combination of rejectionists, Saddamists, and terrorists.”
So I will admit an error in my last post in suggesting that “terrorist” was the only other term that could have applied where “insurgent” was used. But again, my point was that where people were committing terrorism, the term “terrorist” should have been used. Unfortunately, the media (even Fox News to my recollection) fell into the disingenuous and lazy habit of calling just about every anti-American-effort actor in Iraq an “insurgent.” And a lot of news organizations and pundits did this deliberately to paper over the moral horror of the de facto terrorism that was taking place.
You may recall that, right around the same time that “insurgent” was being injected into our common language, the term “freedom fries” (as a substitute for French fries, after the French govt stabbed us in the back at the UN) was attempted by the right.
“Freedom fries” was rightfully ridiculed, pretty much ignored, and flopped. The same fate *should* have befallen the term “insurgent.” Both were articifial language impositions of a political nature. But one succeeded while the other failed. The successful one had the backing of the left and the majority of the American media.
Hmmmm…..
articifial > artificial
Obviously the 5 mins of editing time didn’t help me there. Not like I’m dysxelic or anything like that!
Bogie I don’t hold any sort of brief for the Tamil Tigers my point was more that this sort of loaded language is not exclusive to the “left”. Indeed the “left” themselves have been fooled by this tactic – throughout the Yugoslav mess our media repeatedly described Milosevic as “another Hitler” or a “Nazi” while the Croat & “Bosniak” leaders, who were in fact, though it went unmentioned, former members of Hitler’s armed forces were described as democrats/moderates/the legitimate governmemt etc (in fact the term “Bosniak” itself was invented by US propagandists to imply that the Bosnian Moslems were the true population – their leader had to have the reason for this new name carefully explained to him).
Another example of the “left” being fooled is the way the eco-fascist movement, which is the most anti-technology, anti-progress literally conservative & reactionery movement seen in centuries has managed to position itself on the “left”.
Because we think in words everybody is susceptible to being lied to by such redefinition of words.
The interesting thing about the “freedom fries” was how silly it was – it was not an attempt to hide reality – nobody was really trying to make people hate fried potatoes & therefore wasn’t really the same thing. On the other hand during WW1 we Brits renamed a sort of biscuit called “German biscuits” as “Empire biscuits”.
Having read this thread yesterday, I was cruising through the morning paper whilst drinking my coffee when I found this:
“Spy Fired Shot That Changed West Germany” by Nicholas Kulish in the NYTimes on May 27, 2009
“The killing in 1967 of an unarmed demonstrator by a police officer in West Berlin set off a left-wing protest movement and put conservative West Germany on course to evolve into the progressive country it has become today.
Now a discovery in the archives of the East German secret police, known as the Stasi, has upended Germany’s perception of its postwar history. The killer, Karl-Heinz Kurras, though working for the West Berlin police, was at the time also acting as a Stasi spy for East Germany.”
========================
So all those politically correct Germans were victims of dezinformatsiya. Fascinating.
It is an interesting story but one of the problems with many conspiracy theories is that they depend on the secret masters being all knowing & having perfect powers of prediction. Could the guys who faked the Moon landing really have known the Russians would choose not to blow it open or the CIA organisers of 9/11 really know that the passengers would take down the 4th plane before if hit Congress?
In the same way could the all knowing Stasi boss have really known that one shot (for which the guy was put on trial & found not guilty) would have lead to the hippies taking over Germany & if he had would he not have figured it would be safer to destroy the paperwork? Also seeing Germany’s role in breaking up Yugoslavia & setting up ethnicly cleansed states run by ex-Nazis they are not as hippy as all that.
I take the opposite lesson – that most, by no means all, spying & conspiracy doesn’t really achieve much & that the people doing it would have been as influential, at least in the direction they wanted to go, just by honestly trying to persuade people. At least that my excuse for being here rather than hanging around Davos with a rifle.
@66:
Uh, I don’t think that the conclusion is that the Sassi /intended/ to offer up one of their pawns to bring down the enemy–not that they wouldn’t have, mind you, if they saw the chance–but that they were, in fact, /everywhere/, and were willing to, and to be quite ruthless about using the death of one of their own to further their goals. It turned out that Willi Brandt’s government was just riddled with Stassi & KGB agents; indeed, it was the discovery of one such that brought it down–another weak spot in spying and such; the more you have, the more exposure you have.
Oh, and this sort of thing is like all human endeavors; sometimes you get the bear, sometimes he gets you. Somewhere on the Web there is, I’m sure, a summery of the KGB agent identities we got in the first month or so after the fall of CCCP; it seems that, over-all, Joe McCarthy was more right than wrong….
You should not over-estimate the effectiveness of such things–but neither should you underestimate it.
pgf
ben quoi ? where is my post ?