Posted on 09/13/2002 10:29:11 PM PDT by ThePythonicCow
I think it misses one step.
Liberalism is not a personal disease. A man confined to solitary confinement can still get sick and die from the plague, exhibiting the same essential symptoms and disease progression as a man in the public light. But the essential qualities of the Liberal disease that afflicts our cultures are not manifestly present in that solitary confinement cell, even if it be Hitler, Mao, Stalin, or Hillary Clinton wishful thinking ;) who resides there.
Rather, Liberalism is a sickness of society, not of the individual. Granted, as with most disease, weakness in other planes of ones life makes one more susceptible to infliction. People with the ego weaknesses that Mr. Ray describes are more likely to be dangerous liberals, but that is just a statistical tendency, in the large.
What would be of interest to me would be to further study Liberalism as disease of the body politic, a social or communal (note the common root words with "socialism" or "communism") malady. I have this hunch that like most diseases, there are several essential different elements or roles that contribute essential elements to the overall dynamic, like the tasks of the stage hand, the applause of the audience, the parts played by the actors, the guidance of the director, and the funding of the wealthy benefactor, to a Theatre Play.
Some of these roles, most in fact, might be typically played by quite ordinary people with no particular psychological weaknesses. Some of these roles, such as that of the Grand Tyrant (Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, Napoleon) are likely played by exceedingly warped individuals.
But it is the identification of these roles, and the illumination with examples from our history of how they interact to produce the overall phenomenon, that is of particular interest.
Indeed, if we can better understand this disease, perhaps we can better fight it. Surely it is the most lethal disease afflicting mankind.
But moral codes are onerous and Communism offered an escape from them. If all men were to become brothers and all resources were to be shared freely, fathers would not be needed for anything more than the act of procreation itself. This vision was of course a great attraction for both men and women and Leftists were always in the vanguard of sexual liberation. Sex sells and it certainly sold Leftism to many.This is certainly true of leftist movements in free countries, but no Communist regime in power ever had the slightest tolerance for sexual irregularities among common people. Stalin even gave out medals to women who had the most children.
"Free love" is for undermining bourgeois society, not an essential of leftism.
You state that liberalism is not a personal disease. I say liberalism is a personal disease. The disease they have is actually hypocrisy. The only way liberals could say one thing but do the opposite is because they are hypocrites. They have one standard for themselves and another standard for others ie a "double standard".
To say that it is not a personal disease is to confuse cause and effect. The person in the solitary confinement cell still has the disease (hypocrisy the cause), he just doesn't have a group to operate with (liberalism the effect).
By the way thank you for posting this wonderful and insightful article ThePythonicCow. And thank you johnjayray for the tremendous amount of research and thought it took to produce what I consider a masterpiece.
”. It became clear that neither religion nor the church were essential to the survival of a civil society. The family survived with or without the church and with or without externally enforced moral codes. Only some churches and some conservatives have as yet adapted to that new reality, however.”
This is not at all clear. Society was not very civil during the French Revolution, under Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot or Mao. It is arguable that modern Western civil society is drawing on the accumulated moral capital of religion in as much as the family still survives. We need only observe, however, the effect of the loss of moral codes on the creation and growth of an “underclass” that now has approximately 70% of certain groups in the US procreating without a traditional family structure. There is not doubt that society will survive, whether that is a “civil” society I will leave to history.
” And he did rebuke his disciples for proposing to sell their luxury goods and distribute the proceeds to the poor (Matthew 26:10).”
You cast suspicion on your argument with references like this which are not only inaccurate by taken out of context. First, the “ointment” the woman poured over Jesus’ head was not his disciples’ property. Taken in the context of Matthew 26:11-12 (“For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial.”) your interpretation simply does not stand.
” Religion is perhaps the most pervasive expression of ego. Ego thinks that he or she is so important that he/she cannot really die and that the creator of the universe is concerned about his/her every thought and deed! How unrealistic! How ludicrous! How egocentric! If the universe does have a creator, such a creator is surely far above any human passions or concerns and has far bigger things to concern him/it than worry about what some priest does with his penis (for instance). And yet what evils have been perpetrated in the name of religion! Without excess ego, we would, for instance, have no Islamic fundamentalism.”
This is a rather egocentric (on your part) interpretation of the manner in which Christians approach their relation to God. It assumes that Christians invented their god to make them feel important. That’s not only bizarre, but it inverts the belief that animates Christian theology. You then go on to make an assertion about “a creator” that many people who disparage Christians seem to make: they make assertions about God (“Is surely far above…etc.”) for which they have not rational basis except disdain for people of faith.
From this I conclude that, as an academic, you have absorbed the typical academic anti-clericalism. Just be advised that the inclusion of screeds like that above do nothing to advance your thesis. And, by the way, the evils that have been perpetrated in the name of religion disappear before the evils that have been committed in the name of Atheism, a belief system closely identified with Leftism, as you point out so well in the rest of your paper.
” Religion too is essentially a reality denying exercise. As Marx famously said, it is the "opium of the people". Those of us with ultimately Judaic traditions delude ourselves into believing that somewhere there must exist some real counterpart to the omnipotent and benevolent father we thought we had in our early childhood and those of us influenced by Eastern religions generally believe that our elder family members continue to be able to help us even after death. We invent imaginary helpers and benefactors to replace the lack of real ones.”
Again, this has no bearing on your primary thesis. Perhaps religious people are deluding themselves. People have deluded themselves about any number of things in the past and will continue to do so in the future. However, the assumption that religious people are looking for a father substitute is so much psychobabble.
The critical element here is that Leftists attempt to root out the belief in absolutes, such as an omnipotent God and Judge. In it’s place they attempt to implant a belief in Man as his own God. This, God/Man then becomes the deity that we can worship and die for. The Fuhrer, Father Stalin. Only when Man and Man’s Society is God, can we send millions to the Gulag – to rid society of “pests,” and gas the Jews to purify the Race.
My reference to anti-clericalism should be taken in context. It is a reference to the current trendy distain for religion in academia.
That Jesus was anti-clerical is open doubt, since the Bible recounts that he taught in the Temple. That he opposed the Scribes and Pharisees there is no doubt. However, the suggestion that he was anti-clerical per-say is simply untrue. After all, he preached to the multitudes and admonished his disciples to spread the good word, which they did, by preaching.
From an historical perspective, He was tried and condemned by the Jewish leaders for heresy.
There is a vast difference between anti-clericalism and disagreements within a religious context. Luther was not anti-clerical. He was a monk and remained one. He just had a disagreement with certain Catholic practices.
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