When Ideology Is More Important Than Truth

The American Conservative ^ | 9/27/2016 | Rod Dreher

[cornelis]

More from philosopher Ryszard Legutko’s The Demon In Democracy, in which the Polish Catholic academic, an anti-communist dissident, explores the similarities between communism and liberal democracy:

The liberal-democratic man, especially if he is an intellectual or an artist, is very reluctant to learn, but, at the same time, all too eager to teach. This trait of his character is in a way understandable once we remember that his nature was considerably impoverished by his turning back on standards of classical and Christian anthropology. He lost, or rather, as his apologists would have put it, was relieved of the intellectual instruments — deemed unnecessary — that would enable him to describe the inadequacy of his existence and to articulate a sense of want. He is, as Ortega once put it, a self-satisfied individual, not in the sense that he occasionally fails to feel his misery, or to be haunted by a fear of death, a disgust of meaninglessness, a fatigue of the mystification that, as he begins to realize more and more acutely, surrounds him, but because he assumes and never has the slightest doubt that he is in possession of the entirety of the human experience. Looking around, he finds hardly anything that would put this conviction into question and a lot that gives it — practically each day and with each development – a strong corroboration.

On life under communist ideology:

The ubiquitous ideology in the communist and liberal-democratic societies drag people farther and farther from reality. One of the most unpleasant aspects of living under communism was an awareness that we were always surrounded by nonreality, i.e., artifacts fabricated by the propaganda machine, whose aim was to prevent us from seeing reality as it was.

Oftentimes it was a fraud or simply a suppression of information about, for example, the state of the economy, or who murdered whom at Katyn, or what the fraternal Parties agreed on during the summit. But it was something more sinister than that. The entire atmosphere was sultry, because we could not free ourselves from a feeling that we were living among phantoms in the world of illusion, or rather of delusion.

After communism ended in Poland, Prof. Legutko found that:

Very quickly the world became hidden under a new ideological shell and the people became hostage to another version of the Newspeak but with similar ideological mystifications. Obligatory rituals of loyalty and condemnations were revived, this time with a different object of worship and a different enemy.

The new commissars of the language appeared and were given powerful prerogatives, and just as before, mediocrities assumed their self-proclaimed authority to track down ideological apostasy and condemn the unorthodox — all, of course, for the glory of the new system and the good of the new man. Media — more refined than under communism — performed a similar function: standing at the forefront of the great transformation leading to a better world and spreading the corruption of the language to the entire social organism and all its cells.

… Practically everyone felt coerced not only to take the right side, but to reassert his partisanship by surrendering to all the necessary language rituals without any critical thought or disarming doubt. The person accused of a reactionary attitude under communism could not effectively defend himself because once the accusation was made it disallowed any objection. Even the best counterargument to the effect that the charge was ill-stated, and that being a reactionary does not mean that one is necessarily wrong just as being a progressive does not mean that one is necessarily right, only sank the accused person deeper. Any such argument was a confirmation of his belonging to the reactionary camp, which was clearly reprehensible if not downright criminal. The only option that the defendant had was to admit his own guilt and submit a self-criticism as self-downgrading as possible, but even that did not have to be accepted. If the defendant had the right to answer the charges in public — and of course hd did not — the immediate result was an avalanche of well-orchestrated condemnations and mass protests where the indignant engineers, workers, and writers shredded the insolent reactionary into pieces.

[cornelis]

This is an excerpt.

[x]

The liberal-democratic man, especially if he is an intellectual or an artist, is very reluctant to learn, but, at the same time, all too eager to teach. This trait of his character is in a way understandable once we remember that his nature was considerably impoverished by his turning back on standards of classical and Christian anthropology. He lost, or rather, as his apologists would have put it, was relieved of the intellectual instruments — deemed unnecessary — that would enable him to describe the inadequacy of his existence and to articulate a sense of want. He is, as Ortega once put it, a self-satisfied individual, not in the sense that he occasionally fails to feel his misery, or to be haunted by a fear of death, a disgust of meaninglessness, a fatigue of the mystification that, as he begins to realize more and more acutely, surrounds him, but because he assumes and never has the slightest doubt that he is in possession of the entirety of the human experience. Looking around, he finds hardly anything that would put this conviction into question and a lot that gives it — practically each day and with each development – a strong corroboration.

Sounds a little like Obama.

[cornelis]

People in power and those who think they are in power are very moralistic. There is no time to seek out and learn, certainly not publicly. That’s tantamount to abdication, especially in a secular government.

[Fiddlstix]

[HLPhat]

 

"...who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time;

 

...

 

 that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them. "

 

"I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY TO EVERY FORM OF TYRANNY OVER THE MIND OF MAN"

--The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom
--Thomas Jefferson, 1786

https://www.google.com/webhp?#q=truth%20is%20great%20and%20will%20prevail%20if%20left%20to%20herself

 

[Billthedrill]

You just cost me money. LOL! Thanks for posting.

[Secret Agent Man]

What is “when you’re a socialist” for 2000, alex.

[loveliberty2]

Thank you for posting!

So-called "progressives," wherever they are found, portray themselves as the "intellectual" elite, although they are totally bereft of real knowledge or understanding of the great ideas which were the seedbed of Ameria's successful 200-year experiment in liberty.

Today's liberals, especially these so-called "progressives," with all of their domination of academia and Far Left politics, seem to fit into a category described in an essay by T.S. Eliot on Virgil:

"In our time, when men seem more than ever to confuse wisdom with knowledge and knowledge with information and to try to solve the problems of life in terms of engineering, there is coming into existence a new kind of provincialism which perhaps deserves a new name. It is a provincialism not of space but of time--one for which history is merely a chronicle of human devices which have served their turn and have been scrapped, one for which the world is the property solely of the living, a property in which the dead hold no share."(Bold added for emphasis)

Without intellectual anchoring in the enduring ideas which provided the philosophical foundation of America's Declaration of Independence and Constitution, their vain imaginations of superiority only expose their limited world view.

Yet, the America which rose from obscurity to greatness, from crude hoes and axes to putting a man on the moon, and from oppression by King George to a symbol of liberty for millions all over the world--that America provides shelter for them, even as they attempt to "change" her into something unimagined by the Founders.

If they are allowed to succeed in their own little provincial experiment, their posterity never will know the "blessings of Liberty" proclaimed by the Preamble to America's Constitution.

Now would be a good time for conservatives to read Dr. Russell Kirk's "The Conservative Mind, which can be read online, by the way.

In Kirk's last chapter he reviews the works of poets and writers, quoting lines which now seem to bear a striking resemblance to the players who, though rejected by freedom-loving citizens, simply refuse to leave the stage, as if reality is outside their universe of thought.

For instance, in Robert Frost's "A Case for Jefferson," Frost writes of the character Harrison:

"Harrison loves my country too
But wants it all made over new.
. . . .
He dotes on Saturday pork and beans.
But his mind is hardly out of his teens.
With him the love of country means
Blowing it all to smithereens
And having it made over new."

Yes, the pseudointellectuals who just left the White House, are entrenched in the so-called "mainstream" media, and much of Congress fancy themselves "intellectuals."

By their words and actions, however, they display that provinciality Dr. Kirk recalls as having been described by T. S. Eliot (see above) as being one of time and place, having no intellectual grounding in ideas older than their own little experience in dabbling and discussing Mao, Marx, and other theoreticians.

America's written Constitution deserves protectors whose minds are out of their "teens" in terms of their understanding of civilization's long struggle for liberty.

It certainly deserves protectors who do not consider it a "flawed" document because that Constitution does not permit the government it structures to run rough shod over the rights of its "KEEPERS, the People" (Justice Story).

Blasting it "all to smithereens" seemed to be the goal of the Far Left, which recently had control of the Executive and Legislative branches of the government.

Such politicians rely on what they must believe to be the ignorance of the American people when they make such ridiculous claims. They have been outwitted, however, by an increasingly knowledgeable citizenry who are using the miracles of technology to study for themselves ancient and modern writings on the ideas of liberty versus those of tyranny. As Jefferson wisely observed:

"History, by apprising the people of the past, will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views."

[YogicCowboy]

I’m just a garden-variety autodidactic bumpkin:

For the sake of brevity and clarity, I - in my simplistic bumpkin way - call ‘em all communists.

I don’t play the euphemism game with their vile kind anymore.