The Psychology of the Self-Hating Liberal

American Thinker ^ | January 21, 2007 | Graham Cunningham

[neverdem]

The good news is that, after a whole century of heading in the wrong direction, a moral and intellectual challenge to the bleeding-heart version of liberalism is finally welling up in the West. This is in no small part thanks to the liberating force of the Internet that has made freedom of expression possible again after decades of suffocating mass media orthodoxy.

There is however a tendency to focus only on the effects of the West's philosophical malaise. The rampant spread of our parasitic victim-culture and our impotence in the face of Islamic terrorism - these are both symptoms. The root cause lies in the psychology of sublimated self-hate that has come to be the prevalent psychic condition middle class liberals and especially those in media and academic circles. The truth is that virtually the entire ‘social justice' project of the last century - driven by middle class liberals on behalf of ‘the oppressed' - was motivated not by something noble but by something weak and creepy.

Its roots are a self-hating neurosis that, in different forms has afflicted the European intelligentsia since the time of Rousseau. I first became aware of the strange mind games of the self-hating middle class liberal at university in the 1970's. It is a mindset that did then (and still does) dominate academic life. Students and their tutors alike - mostly the beneficiaries of upward striving family backgrounds - were consumed with a phoney and entirely self- absorbed infatuation with something they called ‘the working class struggle'.

Through its disproportionate hold on academic and media culture this mindset has now become mainstream.   As it has spread through our culture it has been diluted and sublimated, Paradoxically this has made it even more poisonous by making it more difficult to apprehend. It has become a gossamer web of vaguely held attitudes. Here are some of them:

Being middle class is something to be slightly ashamed of. Being working class on the other hand - or better still affecting to be working class - makes you seem more heroic......As long as you are ‘left wing' you are not only a nicer person but you are also ‘radical' and therefore not boring. If on the other hand you are ‘right wing', well that means you are ‘reactionary' and mean......Business enterprise is essentially disreputable whereas getting a living off the public purse or in the arts and media is highly civilised. Being an engineer or a scientist is OK too, up to a point - for boring people anyway.....And of course all the problems of people in the rest of the world are the fault, not of those people themselves but of the prosperous West. More specifically, the blame lies with ‘the capitalist system'; not you personally of course. You show how much you care by going to Live Aid concerts and that makes you feel much better about yourself.

In the obsessive struggle to subvert the perceived social hierarchy, a new politically correct hierarchy is rammed down your throat. At its apex would be someone like a Red Indian lesbian; at the bottom of the heap would be a middle class, Southern English male. In the latter half of the last century this mentality spread through all professions and institutions and so has become self-perpetuating. By the time the influence filters down to the population at large it is so diluted as to be just a vague lack of confidence in Western civilisation and a linguistic fog of moral relativism which disorientates people and makes them doubt their own common sense instincts about right and wrong.

Of all institutions the most powerful in this respect is the mass media, on account of its insidious ability to drip-drip its influence on every aspect of the way you perceive the world beyond your own direct experience. Everything you know - or think you know - about, Iraq or ‘global warming' or ‘the latest social research' on this or that subject, you probably got via the media. The great media conjuring trick is the illusion that it is merely a transparent window whereas in reality it is a window, richly decorated with mythology. It breathes into your ear things like this:-

All people in the Third World are shouldering with dignity a burden imposed upon them by the West in general and America in particular....All businesses are probably trying to screw you....You as a consumer have plenty to whinge about....Politicians should do something about each and every one of the problems you encounter in life....And if you are making a mess of your life its because someone else should have given you more information or more help.

The trouble with all this apparent social conscience is that what really drives it is not some profound humanism but the desire of a highly privileged elite to feel better about themselves and stave off the unconscious and sublimated self-loathing which was drip fed to them at university.

Virtually everyone in the Western world today will have had his or her perception distorted to some extent by this fake but highly seductive fashion-accessory kind of social conscience. By subverting a perfectly valid hierarchy of values in judging human behavior, this fake social conscience has had a hugely corrosive effect on what was best in our civilization. Take, for example, the near universal acceptance now of the notion that to discriminate is wrong.

Wrong. It is bigotry that is wrong. The capacity to discriminate - far from being wrong - is actually vital to civilized society; the more of it the better.

The psychology of middle class self-hate of is complex and multi-layered.  It is, in part a mindset of frozen adolescence whereby people never entirely move beyond the inchoate parent-anger of their youth. Even sophisticated professionals can still carry their adolescent baggage, now displaced into a vague resentment against their own middle class roots or against America as the parent figure of the Western world. In part it is Rousseau and D. H. Lawrence: the cerebral intellectual's Romantic infatuation with the primitive. And in part it is perhaps a stray fragment of the shattered star of Christianity - the first shall be last etc. This fragment, detached now from its overall religious context, floats meaninglessly in the post-Christian philosophical ether.

The consequences of this confused and self-indulgent philosophy are full of paradox.

First: when do you ever hear any credit given to the wicked American enterprise culture for the microchip, the personal computer, the Internet, Google, and all the rest of the apparatus that every lefty-liberal anti-globalisation warrior or anti-Western terrorist now blithely uses in pursuit of her agenda? In a staggering act of biting the hand that feeds, the liberal intelligentsia sneers at the kind of souls without whom there would have been no Western civilisation in the first place.  Meanwhile South East Asia is turning out science graduates in the millions.

Second: the spread of attention-seeking, wilful victimhood in our culture - the whingeing, blaming and litigating -has tragically been assisted by the very scruples of self reliant, non-drama-queen type people preferring to just keep their own counsel and say nothing.

Third: Whilst we may not exactly have 1984, we do have plenty of Orwellian Doublethink. Being a ‘radical' means thinking just like everyone else in your peer group. Caring about the catastrophic failure of mankind in large parts of the planet means going to rock concerts.

In challenging this malaise, it is not enough to attack the crazy social policies and the political correctness it has spawned. It is also necessary to challenge the century long myth that a left-wing type of ‘social conscience' is good-hearted even if it is naïve. This is one huge fallacy. The truth is that it is more usually self-centred, self-deceiving and ultimately self-serving.

[beyond the sea]

"virtually the entire ‘social justice' project of the last century - driven by middle class liberals on behalf of ‘the oppressed' - was motivated not by something noble but by something weak and creepy"

****

Very true....... and the past forty or so years of liberalism will soon be the cause of many of our deaths in a number of ways.

There are multiple ways that we are weaker now and are susceptible to dangers. And it did not have to happen.

****

By the way, why is "forty" spelled forty when "four" is spelled four??? Bugs me....

;-)

[Stallone]

The hypocrisy of the Liberal Left finds common ground with the Islamofascist.

Unable to export anything more than crude oil pumped by Westerners, and figs, the two-faced culture uses satellite phones, guns, bombs, electronics, communications, all created by the Western modern world, to fight for a primitive and backward society.

[beyond the sea]

great article.........

[beyond the sea]

"Of all institutions the most powerful in this respect is the mass media, on account of its insidious ability to drip-drip its influence on every aspect of the way you perceive the world beyond your own direct experience. Everything you know - or think you know - about, Iraq or ‘global warming' or ‘the latest social research' on this or that subject, you probably got via the media. The great media conjuring trick is the illusion that it is merely a transparent window whereas in reality it is a window, richly decorated with mythology."

****

Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the press, for they will steal your HONOR. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse. -Mark Twain

[Brad from Tennessee]

[Caring about the catastrophic failure of mankind in large parts of the planet means going to rock concerts.]

Let's not forget "Save the Whales" bumper stickers.

[ChiMark]

These are dangerous people. They would sooner kill a christian than jail a bomb throwing terrorist.

The Iraq war is a perfect example of liberal moral perversity.
It is a culture which champions evil.

I read this in the bible somewhere... nothing new.

[navyguy]

ping for later

[beyond the sea]

bump

[jazzlite]

..."Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the press, for they will steal your HONOR. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse. -Mark Twain"...

Mark Twain said that, huh? Brilliant! I guess there is "nothing new under the sun." Thanks for the quote..I shall keep it..

[beyond the sea]

He was not only one very funny man but he was one of the smartest fellows who ever graced the earth.

[kjo]

This is God's truth. We have been held hostage since the New Deal and Great Society to this culture of victimization. It must stop. A start has been made through Talk Radio and the internet.

Anybody notice the first thing the new Democrat congress is going after? They want to restore the Fairness Doctrine.

They can't win the argument so they want to shut us up.

[Ronaldus Magnus Reagan]

He was not only one very funny man but he was one of the smartest fellows who ever graced the earth

Except when it came to investments. He was terrible. He kept squandering his fortune on ridiculous inventions such as the infant bed clamp.

[freedomfiter2]

Why shouldn't these liberals hate themselves? I'd hate myself if I were one of them.

[beyond the sea]

He didn't much care for riches:

****

...being rich ain't what it's cracked up to be. It's just worry and worry, and sweat and sweat, and a-wishing you was dead all the time. -The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

How unfortunate and how narrowing a thing it is for a man to have wealth who makes a god of it instead of a servant. - Open Letter to Commodore Vanderbilt, 1869

I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

[Kay Syrah]

Hmph.

The left is made up of narcissistic high chair kings/queens who want to make people do what they want them to(for their own good)

They believe that their motives are the highest and those who disagree have the basest.

They are not given to rational discussion, examination of facts or understanding unintended consequences of their beliefs put into action.

They want to be story book radicals in a free country where they can say what they want without consequence. They are fantasists who imagine(whatta theme song) the world, at its worst so they can imagine a world at its best delivered by them.

They are authoritarian, rely on judges to fast track anything they want, and secretly hate their countrymen because they actually can be persuaded to vote for republicans, or conservatives. They are not oppressed so they make criminals victims and victims criminals.

They have the bully pulpit, (the arts, the entertainment the media, the academy) and they use it to bully.

They believe that it is conservatives who are fearful and they give us global warming. (Where ya gonna be when the ice caps melt, bro?)

They have a deep screeching howling(nods to Alan Ginsburg)
hole in their soul, that can't be sublimated, because they fear the sublime. Therefore life at either end becomes valuless since their own lacks any higher purpose. This is not so much self loathing as deep primal fear, that always looks outward for the evil that they have within.

Which is why they cannot see their own country as a continuously self correcting hopeful place, but rather the ultimate expression of all the sins of mankind.

They believe that the epithet, " go eff yerself" is not an anatomical impossibility but rather an impossibility imposed by American consumerism, selfishness, imperialism, rightwing theocratic laws, bigoil, halliburton, cheyny, bush and Christians, which can be performed successfully when they get a judge to declare that it can.

So I wish them well with that. Prolly the only part of the liberal canon I can get on board with.



Sigh.....the preceeding is a meta conclusion derived from years of observation and interface with liberals.

[Thumper1960]

Intellectuals have almost always held my utter contempt. Not sure why, though. Those who can, do; those who cannot, supervise/intellectualize/philosophize/criticize.

It has always seemed preferable to me to create and see, hold in my hands and place into the world those things which better the human "condition" than to simply stand on the sidelines and comment or stand in the way of those who do the actual "creating".

[beyond the sea]

Ditto.......

[Thumper1960]

"They believe that the epithet, " go eff yerself" is not an anatomical impossibility but rather an impossibility...."

Actually, they'd prefer to "eff" us all, so long as they get to enjoy it and we remain ignorant of who is, in fact, doing the "effing".

[Alia]

From article:

The psychology of middle class self-hate of is complex and multi-layered. It is, in part a mindset of frozen adolescence whereby people never entirely move beyond the inchoate parent-anger of their youth. Even sophisticated professionals can still carry their adolescent baggage, now displaced into a vague resentment against their own middle class roots or against America as the parent figure of the Western world. In part it is Rousseau and D. H. Lawrence: the cerebral intellectual's Romantic infatuation with the primitive. And in part it is perhaps a stray fragment of the shattered star of Christianity - the first shall be last etc. This fragment, detached now from its overall religious context, floats meaninglessly in the post-Christian philosophical ether.

The consequences of this confused and self-indulgent philosophy are full of paradox.

First: when do you ever hear any credit given to the wicked American enterprise culture for the microchip, the personal computer, the Internet, Google, and all the rest of the apparatus that every lefty-liberal anti-globalisation warrior or anti-Western terrorist now blithely uses in pursuit of her agenda? In a staggering act of biting the hand that feeds, the liberal intelligentsia sneers at the kind of souls without whom there would have been no Western civilisation in the first place. Meanwhile South East Asia is turning out science graduates in the millions.

Second: the spread of attention-seeking, wilful victimhood in our culture - the whingeing, blaming and litigating -has tragically been assisted by the very scruples of self reliant, non-drama-queen type people preferring to just keep their own counsel and say nothing.

Third: Whilst we may not exactly have 1984, we do have plenty of Orwellian Doublethink. Being a ‘radical' means thinking just like everyone else in your peer group. Caring about the catastrophic failure of mankind in large parts of the planet means going to rock concerts.

In challenging this malaise, it is not enough to attack the crazy social policies and the political correctness it has spawned. It is also necessary to challenge the century long myth that a left-wing type of ‘social conscience' is good-hearted even if it is naïve. This is one huge fallacy. The truth is that it is more usually self-centred, self-deceiving and ultimately self-serving.

***

Well said.