A Liberal Trademark [Excellent Read]

Tech Central Station ^ | 06/03/2003 | Frederick Turner

[Carolina]

I have smelled the stink of fear in the most unlikely places.

In polite liberal gatherings of very nice academics, well-paid writers, journalists, even lawyers (who need fear nothing, surely) I have sensed a special kind of fear. It resembles, but is subtly different from, the unease that I dimly remember from my communist youth in the old British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, where if one said the wrong thing it might contradict the party line as it came down to us from time to time from Stalin's Moscow, together with the disguised funds that kept the office going.

It also resembles the fear I was taught to feel in Prime Minister Daniel Malan's South Africa, where as a boy I nearly got my parents arrested for saying loudly in a bus that "Malan is a bad man. He won't let the Africans have their own country." More recently I felt it visiting the PEN Club in Budapest before the fall of the Iron Curtain, where you had to watch what you said because there were still Soviet tanks in the countryside.

But what is this whiff of fear doing in the good old USA? I was at a party in the Northeast recently with the nicest people you could imagine. The conversation got on to Bush and Iraq, and at first it looked and sounded as if it was unanimously liberal. Bush was "scary," Texas was a dark and terrible place, the Iraq war was a catastrophe, it was all about oil, it boded the most terrible consequences for world peace. I started innocently asking awkward questions and citing awkward fact. At first people just tried to put me right, as if I hadn't understood. Then it looked as if the subject would be dropped; I had no desire to pursue it, preferring literary or scientific or philosophical questions anyway. I really didn't want to spoil the mood of the party, and people were beginning to look uneasy.

But then something odd happened. Somebody else started doing the same thing as I had, asking awkward questions, reminding people gently of facts they had forgotten; and then it turned out that this man's wife, who'd been silent, was quite fiercely in favor of the war and of free markets and democratic government. This couple had earlier struck me immediately as the most confident and intelligent guests present, though they were very quiet; and they were not yahoos at all, indeed they looked impressively Ivy League. The unease grew in the room. People shifted in their chairs and looked anxiously at the door.

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[RandyRep]

Thanks for the article and link.

I explored TCS a bit more and found another great article on the economy -- at

http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/techwrapper.jsp?PID=1051-250&CID=1051-060203C

It's about "Economic Attribution Errors" where people attribute all economic successes/failures to the current President. Interesting.

[narby]

True liberators, as we can now see, would deprive the world of victims, and thus dry up the supply of peons that constitute the new class's constituency. This is why, even though the new class disliked Saddam Hussein, they hate Bush infinitely more.

The left. NAILED!

Awesome article. Great post. Thank you Thank you Thank you.

[Paradox]

Oh my goodness, this guy nails it in so many ways. As a former member of the intelligensia, I must admit to having been one of these snobs. Through high school and early college (I heckled Jeb Bush, back when he really was a wee shrub, at the University of Miami campus!), I thought and felt myself so superior. My friends and I would dismiss conservative arguments by looking at each other and rolling our eyes, never bothering to really counter what they were saying.

All this time though, something was eating at me. As I got older and hopefully wiser, I began to see the big flaws of liberalism, but being unable to actually LIKE or become a conservative or republican, I went over (this is a huge jump), to the libertarians. This allowed me still a bit of snobbery (come on libertarians, you know it!). Now older still, I consider myself a libertarian leaning conservative. But I still remember well the smug, self-righteous, dissmisive a$#hole that I was, how intoxicating was that feeling to be among my high-minded friends, as we looked down at the troglodytes...

[tictoc]

Bump!

[djreece]

marking

[NathanR]

Ping.

[tictoc]

Welcome to the club! A while back, rdb3's 19-year old cousin (nephew?) introduced himself on FreeRepublic.

I was gnashing my teeth. A 19-year old conservative? My younger self looked even more stupid.

How's your cuz, rdb3?

[Catalonia]

He is SO ABSOLUTELY correct in identifying a key factor in the Leftists of academia and the "upper classes", which is that it is a set of common beliefs that permit them to feel they are "a cut above" the common ruck and herd. This is a very critical point. The fact that their beliefs do not correlate to reality will eventually cause the Leftist belief structure to collapse, but not until these people die off.

Correct on all counts. The Baby Boomer Left (and I am a Baby Boomer), formerly known as the New Left but what I like to call the Leftover Left, holds the power in academia, the font from which all modern liberalism flows. It will take 15-20 years before enough Leftovers retire for a new worldview to emerge. Until then we need to keep calling them on their bullshit.

Regarding beliefs that do not correlate with reality, I am starting to warm up to the idea that Leftism is indeed a form of mental illness, involving a disconnect from reality and a complete lack of pscyhological self-monitoring capacity.

They cannot afford to admit they are wrong and change their minds, because it is the belief structure itself that permits them to feel they are better than those ignorant and oh so common conservatives. It props up their egos - they fundamentally believe that they are better than, and superior to, those who believe differently than them. To change their minds would cause them to realize that they are not better, and in fact they are ignorant and foolish.

I’d just add that those who wrap up their identity with their politics have an extremely difficult time changing their politics. It’s not as simple as saying, “OK, I guess I was wrong about socialism. Looks like limited government is the best political system. My bad.” Some of these people would have to change their entire view of themselves – their ego, as you say – in order to change their politics. That is a far, far bigger, more psychologically complex task than simply beginning to vote Republican or Libertarian. For some of these people, rejecting their politics requires them to reject the entire structure on which their self-esteem is based. No easy task.

Also, many of the more rabid Leftists use politics as psycho-therapy. They need shrinks more than they need rational debate. Thus Marxist cultists and neo-Marxist victim-mongers need serious psychological de-programming more than they need facts.

Therefore, they will never engage in rational debate. They will go to their graves believing that they are right and we are wrong -- don't confuse them with the facts, their minds are made up.

Thus they do not educate, they indoctrinate. Thus they appeal to emotion, not to reason.

[Dianna]

Thus they do not educate, they indoctrinate. Thus they appeal to emotion, not to reason.

I'm not even sure they recognize that emotion is NOT as meaningful as logic. I have had several discussions with a quite bright, but left leaning woman. She is a chemistry major, pre-med, so I assumed she could think and reason.

We were discussing hate crime legislation. After I had made my points (assault, murder already against the law; valuing some citizens more because of their skin color, religion as compared with their attacker). The woman AGREED with me. She said my arguments made perfect sense! BUT, "Dianna if you had ever had someone you loved hurt because of his skin color or whatever, you'd feel the same way I do." Argument over, she thinks she won.

I tried to explain reason vs emotion but she wouldn't listen anymore.

[GOPJ]

It's not unusual for upper classes in banana republics to align with the criminal class. You've shown insight:

The class rationale for this odd paradox is complex. Karl Marx was right when he identified the phenomenon of a class having policies even when none of its members would necessarily recognize them - and the people I am talking about here are eminently nice, even good people, who would be horrified by the class motives they serve. But here it is: their class privileges are preserved by means of the continued existence and allegiance of a peon caste who will vote for the upper crust's leaders at home, and confuse and frustrate the great class enemy, the U.S. military, abroad. (If you want to "shock and awe" one of these folks, just mention that your son is in the Army. The look of horror is instantaneous, though it vanishes quickly.)

[randog]

Carolina--thanks for posting this awesome article. The author verifies a lot of what I've been seeing lately.

dark_lord: They cannot afford to admit they are wrong and change their minds, because it is the belief structure itself that permits them to feel they are better than those ignorant and oh so common conservatives.

Although I agree with you in the short term, I believe liberals will eventually change their tune and march to whomever's beating the drum because they have no real values or morals except for what's "in". IMO, Once conservatism takes over as the dominant political belief of the nation you'll see the limousine liberals bid adieu to their leftist fellow travellers and join the parade.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Bump

[stands2reason]

Ping for your General list...

[MeekOneGOP]

Thanks ! Coming up.

[MeekOneGOP]

Full text on post #5.

A Liberal Trademark [Excellent Read]

Excerpt:

Over the years all the real arguments for the left-liberal position, involving evidence and rational deliberation, have been exploded one by one. Thus rational discussion itself has become a sign of bad taste, of a pugnacious Appalachian kind of insensitivity, with a hint of a possible tendency to tobacco chewing, gun racks, talk radio, pickup trucks, wife-beaters and incest. There is left but one simple rule for the new upper crust: by all means prefer victims to oppressors, but always prefer oppressors to true liberators.

The class rationale for this odd paradox is complex. Karl Marx was right when he identified the phenomenon of a class having policies even when none of its members would necessarily recognize them - and the people I am talking about here are eminently nice, even good people, who would be horrified by the class motives they serve. But here it is: their class privileges are preserved by means of the continued existence and allegiance of a peon caste who will vote for the upper crust's leaders at home, and confuse and frustrate the great class enemy, the U.S. military, abroad. (If you want to "shock and awe" one of these folks, just mention that your son is in the Army. The look of horror is instantaneous, though it vanishes quickly.)


Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.

[Dr. Frank fan]

I have to agree with you. That is a great article.

[Gritty]

Great article!

[MEG33]

Great post.The lib class system exposed!

[MonroeDNA]

Mandatory reading about the roots of the liberal crackup!

Thanks for the pingy-dingy

[rdb3]

He's great! Spoke with him last week.

He's doing work as an intern this summer in Cleveland. Next fall, he'll be at Ohio State.

The bombing starts in five minutes.