The Stark Bipolarity of the Sociopolitical Divide

The current sociopolitical divide in the United States has attained an alarmingly high degree of bipolarity. This stark landscape confronts us in every human contact, every news report, and every visible aspect of the social environment. For any given individual, a simple question suffices: Is he under the spell of the dominant collectivist ideology, or is he not. Therein lies the great divide.

During calmer times, people can get away with being non-commital, or mixing their positions on various issues. Someone might say, for example, “I tend to be a social conservative, but then again I’m usually pro-choice, and on the economic plane I generally favor the free market, but having some good protection in place for the working man as well as strict regulation in the financial realm is beneficial,” etc.

This kind of thinking is generally healthy, reflective of a reasoned mind and a discerning view of human behavior. It is suited to a society in which value is placed on such an approach; indeed, nuanced analysis is a luxury afforded by a complex, open society that functions more or less smoothly.

With each passing day, however, our society is increasingly dysfunctional. That old bedrock feeling of security is evaporating, and with it the viability of the nuanced position. These positions still exist, of course, but as a practical matter the extent of their application is shrinking drastically.

The dysfunction applies across the board: in the political sphere, in economics, art, education, sexuality, immigration, whatever. Almost everything that occurs today in the public square appears as if it were designed to assist in the suicide of the culture. It is enough to observe the Obama regime on any given day to see the collapse of every norm of healthy public administration. One can argue whether these policies and directives are applied with the express purpose of destruction, but the result is the same: rampaging dysfunction.

This spectacle exposes the bankruptcy of a world view that has reigned supreme in the West for the last century and perhaps longer. This world view includes the following key elements:

* Everyone is equal, and in every conceivable way * If one man reaps a profit, then another is being exploited * Those on the exploited end of the bargain have the right to extract unlimited compensation for damages, up to and including the death of the “oppressor” * God, in the classic sense of an omnipotent and morally autonomous being, does not exist * All belief systems have equal validity, except the European, because it is founded on Reason, which arrogantly presumes to rise above the sectarian * European culture is corrupt, evil, and deserving of obliteration * Man exists in a condition of Original Sin vis-à-vis the earth and its other occupants * “Democracy” means universal imposition, by whatever means necessary, of the above points

The contemporary distillation of political reality into a stark bipolarity is primarily due to the fanatical ideology and practice of the dominant Leftist establishment. They have eliminated nuance, compromise, and stock-taking. It is becoming almost impossible to find a Democratic official (elected or bureaucratic) who does not adhere blindly and ferociously to the above bulleted list in every utterance, every vote, every breath he takes.

The non-Leftist clings bitterly to the nuances of bygone days. Yes, some of us still indulge in reasoned debate and self-criticism. This clinging is reflected in the behavior of most of the early Republican candidates for president. A little of this and a little of that. Cut a little here, cut a little there; add here add there, etc. Some frustrated observers see this as RINO-ism or “the party of stupid.” Perhaps, but it can also be at least partially explained as an anachronism. The Republicans by and large are conducting business as usual—as usual, that is, for 1950.

Such behavior in the contemporary setting is futile. Whenever the non-Left proposes some course of action, it is greeted immediately by a reflexive response that forces the discussion to the opposite pole. The situation is akin to walking down the street and having your path blocked by a pedestrian coming the other way. You say excuse me, or you step aside, but your counterpart pulls a knife. Compromise, manners, and nuance suddenly become irrelevant. The relationship has become adversarial to the highest degree. In these circumstances, to insist on one’s earlier methods is to beg for disaster.

It is quite possible that in the not-so-distant future, our “stock” Republican candidates will be swept aside in favor of those who fully comprehend the starkness of the bipolarity. The arrival of the new type of leader will undoubtedly be hastened by the coming seismic shocks in various spheres, notably the economic.

These leaders will understand and explain to others that we are faced with a choice between (1) final surrender to the neo-Marxist cabal; or (2) unrelenting political warfare aimed at its removal, root and branch, from the soil of our country. When the latter is accomplished, we can return to our nuanced ways.

The current sociopolitical divide in the United States has attained an alarmingly high degree of bipolarity ..... is he under the spell of the dominant collectivist ideology, or is he not. Therein lies the great divide.

I've seen more astute essays on FR but this one is in the ballgame:

1) There is certainly a profound, well defined, bipolarity in the social, psychological, political world view, endemic now in the United States, but less contemporaneously, the world over.

2) The sides are those who are fully conscious of, and practice, the individual responsibilities of high civilized behavior; versus those who, in denial of those responsibilities, degenerate to human commerce as a mass top-down mandated organization.

3) There is no new insight here, as this dichotomy has been explicitly expressed in many many masterworks, a current example being Roddenberry's Star Trek, where the Federation operates on the Prime Directive of recognizing and not interfering in the individual decisions of an intelligence, while the Borg operate as the soulless organization of centrally controlled collectivism. (My Wife says Roddenberry must have been from the future to see what he did). Older examples being the prime one of Christ, who taught the consciousness of the individual soul in the face of the Semitic command centered weltanschaung of the Pharisees, Kings, and Moses' Commandments. (Buddha incidentally is almost like the precursor of Christ.) And my recommended favorite, Jaynes' The Origins of Consciousness in the Downfall of the Bicameral Mind, which just about explains it all.

4) The founding, and foundation, of the United States was clearly an historical corollary of this individual consciousness, i.e. freedom. Indeed this is one of the unspoken reasons that the US was said to be Christian based, which apparently today is being both actively and passively denied.

5) Until the majority of the electorate of the United States today re-elevates its dialogue to this level of the consciousness of individual responsibility, there is no hope of escaping the sad abyss of leftism (authoritarian collectivism). There are of course damn few politicians willing to lead this.

We maintain for example that in the current issue of the US "debt" virtually all of it is due to personal irresponsibility, and that if every citizen did indeed exercise their civilized individual responsibilities, for example, producing only the offspring they can afford, producing some product that other human beings will willingly pay (trade) for, planning and saving for one's own retirement (rather than wait for centralized government), pursuing an education that will make one productive, eschewing crime and drugs and imposition on citizen peers, in other words being conservative, then there would be no US "debt," with federal revenues only allocated to those operations which fairly obviously require collective funding, for example national defense.

This is why we support the Tea Party, it challenges the entire hegemony, including so-called Republican politicians, of centralized government dependence, when the alternative of individual consciousness and responsibility exists. And furthermore that contemporary telecommunications make this alternative, the conservative alternative, all the more practical, while being all the more personally fulfilling.

There is NO question that Barack Obama, as the front man for the leftist degeneracy, is one of the most profound changes in the US historical psyche; although in no way anything more novel than multiple other global and historical regimes of centralized dependence and thus authoritarianism.

It's just that it could have been all different. And like Beethoven, we believe human beings, even US citizens, are worthy of freedom.

Sad.

Johnny Suntrade, the Suntrade Institute

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