Posted on 05/22/2009 10:06:31 AM PDT by stfassisi
That’s what my kid says. “It was a joke.”
Look, your joke spawns the talking points. It’s Gramscian. Wake up.
Have you been in a university recently where they push this on students?
Some like to blame the boomers and the sixties for all the ills that wormed their way into US society since that time. But this article correctly points out that the Marxist/communist/socialist, or whatever sickness had its origins between the world wars, and that the 'leaders' during the sixties, years older that the boomers, were already in place and ready to take advantage of the opportunities presented by those turbulent years.
And the protesters and hippies were never the brave young moralists they've claimed to be, but were a gang of self-absorbed, spoiled and petty kids whose behavior in those years led to all sorts of disasters both in the US and for the people of Southeast Asia. They were the willing tools and dupes of those leftist extremists who'd been waiting for the right opportunity to cause harm to the US, and to advance their leftist causes.
I know, I know, when Donna Shala was born.
“– that they are blinded by culture and religion to their true class interests. “
That’s exactly what Russ Feingold believes!
We’re sooooo lucky. /s
He was born in Ethiopia of Italian parents who stayed after the war. At the time he was the only one I knew of in our agency who was born in Africa. Unfortunately he was argued down by those who had darker skin. He claimed Afro, then African American til he retired and the rest of us supported him.
My next early PC experience was in sexual harassment "training."
P.C. reminds me a lot of Maos little red book’’ we used to hear about in the 60’s. Will we ever learn.
I think cornelis’ point is that, even in so vocally condemning Gramsci et al, we are giving them visibility, which works in their favor. We need to have these conversations to be sure, but perhaps more circumspectly. And we need to battle these pernicious ideas without naming them or (paradoxically) promoting them.
I see. Well, knowing history of ideas is important, and therefore will be used as justification for things that are not particularly important in themselves.
The link between stodgy buttoned-up marxism of the Stalin-Brezhnev eras, and neopagan hypersexualized multi-cult of today’s left, for example, is not obvious. I liked especially the first part of the article which explained the structural similarity of the two.
In fact, I would throw another consideration into that pot. The left would often point out that they are not marxist because they like pluralistic democracy. But what they do not say, is that the underlying principle is the same: majority rule. In the Soviet Union they never said that cultural pluralism was bad, and as regards political pluralism they would say that the USSR did not need competitive elections because the Communist party already reflected the will of the majority.
His writings on things like socialism and americanism apply to what we see today
From Pope Leo XIII on Socialism...
QUOD APOSTOLICI MUNERIS
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_28121878_quod-apostolici-muneris_en.html
“This kind of error, which falsely usurps to itself the name of reason, as it lures and whets the natural appetite that is in man of excelling, and gives loose rein to unlawful desires of every kind, has easily penetrated not only the minds of a great multitude of men but to a wide extent civil society, also. Hence, by a new species of impiety, unheard of even among the heathen nations, states have been constituted without any count at all of God or of the order established by him; it has been given out that public authority neither derives its principles, nor its majesty, nor its power of governing from God, but rather from the multitude, which, thinking itself absolved from all divine sanction, bows only to such laws as it shall have made at its own will. The supernatural truths of faith having been assailed and cast out as though hostile to reason, the very Author and Redeemer of the human race has been slowly and little by little banished from the universities, the lyceums and gymnasia-in a word, from every public institution. In fine, the rewards and punishments of a future and eternal life having been handed over to oblivion, the ardent desire of happiness has been limited to the bounds of the present. Such doctrines as these having been scattered far and wide, so great a license of thought and action having sprung up on all sides, it is no matter for surprise that men of the lowest class, weary of their wretched home or workshop, are eager to attack the homes and fortunes of the rich; it is no matter for surprise that already there exists no sense of security either in public or private life, and that the human race should have advanced to the very verge of final dissolution.”
From Pope Leo on Americanism....
TESTEM BENEVOLENTIAE NOSTRAE
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/L13TESTE.HTM
“”From the foregoing it is manifest, beloved son, that we are not able to give approval to those views which, in their collective sense, are called by some “Americanism.” But if by this name are to be understood certain endowments of mind which belong to the American people, just as other characteristics belong to various other nations, and if, moreover, by it is designated your political condition and the laws and customs by which you are governed, there is no reason to take exception to the name. But if this is to be so understood that the doctrines which have been adverted to above are not only indicated, but exalted, there can be no manner of doubt that our venerable brethren, the bishops of America, would be the first to repudiate and condemn it as being most injurious to themselves and to their country. For it would give rise to the suspicion that there are among you some who conceive and would have the Church in America to be different from what it is in the rest of the world.””
The idea that men could self-organize into a just society either through democratic means (liberalism) or by favoring the most numerous social class (marxism), is a foolish project either way.
Pluralism means not caring about sin as long as it does not effect you.
The whole idea leads to abundant sin that does effect the world they live in.
Dr John Rao is one of my favorites on this topic.
Here is an excerpt of something from him..
http://jcrao.freeshell.org/Vitalism-Pluralism
Americans like to speak of their nation as a “young” one, and contrast it favorably with the decadent countries of the Old World. But the American nation is as much a product as a European land of all of the ancient battles and modern naturalist developments that we have been discussing since the beginning of this week. America's Founding Fathers worked in an environment deeply affected by the loss of Christian Faith and its transformation into a secularist tool. The system that they created also very much reflects the concerns of the final, Enlightenment stage of modern naturalism: including all of its doubts regarding both speculative and empirical Reason, and, hence, all of its temptations to rebuild order on foundations that one “makes believe” are objectively true.
The Founding Fathers and their successors built their “make believe” objective order first and foremost upon America's British heritage. This was quite a schizophrenic legacy by the late eighteenth century. It certainly included Christianity, chiefly in the form of Anglicanism and Puritan Protestantism. But it also involved the Enlightenment, primarily in the manner that former Anglicans and Puritans who had lost their Faith presented it. These converts to the naturalist camp often used the Christian-inspired language with which they were familiar to promote their new, anti-Christian goals. Whether they intended this or not, such speech soothed those who remained believers and blinded them as to where, exactly, their familiar-sounding doctrines might actually lead in the future.
Even the Founders were aware that there was a troublesome reality that their novus ordo saeclorum was obliged immediately to confront. This was the presence in the United States of a kaleidoscope of different ethnic groups and religious convictions. That presence grew still more complex and troublesome with the mass migrations of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The fullness of the make believe order of the American Pluralist system emerged out of attempts to harmonize the reality of a multicultural society with the basic conservatism of the Anglican via media, the radicalism of Puritanism, and the naturalism of an Enlightenment of both Anglican and Puritan flavor. Its theory and “mystique” were firmly in place by the late 1890’s. What they claimed was that America had discovered the formula for providing a peaceful, ordered community out of a society guaranteeing freedom to all of God (or Nature's) divided children. America thus offered mankind throughout the globe its “last and best hope” for a liberty, tranquility, and happiness greater than any ever known in human history.
Unfortunately, “diving into” the Americanist Pluralist mystique helps merely to bring to fruition another version of vulgar, materialist, and uniform disorder, whipped into some semblance of make believe unity through the will of the strongest. It aids in the perfection of that type of bland, organized willfulness predicted by nineteenth century Catholic thinkers, but in a more successful and seductive way than they could ever have imagined. Those who are interested in a deeper, more detailed discussion of Americanist Pluralism and its (temporarily) successful employment of Original Sin as the central building block of individual and social life should consult my Americanism and the Collapse of the Church in the United States, Why Catholics Cannot Defend Themselves, Founding Fathers and Church Fathers, To Promote Dialogue, Fight American Pluralism, and many other articles, all to be found on the For the Whole Christ website (jcrao.freeshell.org). All I propose to do in the present brief talk is to outline the main lines of the perversion and the confusion that this system perpetrates.
Let it suffice to say for now that the “freedom” and the “order” that one obtains through it are a purely naturalist freedom and order based upon the peculiar and often contradictory Christian and Enlightenment factors forming American culture. Its naturalism is bewildering to the believer because, as noted above, so many Americans used-—and still use-—Christian language to describe, praise and promote a set of anti-Christian purposes. It is baffling also because it has to cater to both radical and conservative naturalist tastes at one and the same time.
Hence, the American is told that he has the radical freedom that a secularized Puritans might wish him to have, a freedom that “sounds Christian” because it can easily be related to its fundamental Protestant roots. But in order to practice this freedom in a way that does not disturb the order preferred by Enlightenment conservatives, he learns that liberty actually has to be utilized in a way that avoids “divisiveness”; in a fashion that “integrates” its practitioner into an order composed of endless varieties of “non-divisive, integrating individualists”.
Americans learn that the “freedom” of communities, such as the Catholic Church, is subject to the influence of Puritan and secularized Puritan ideas regarding liberty. Freedom, under these circumstances, means only the freedom given for individual members of a religious society to rip their communal authority to shreds. All attempts to hold onto communal authority could be nothing other than assaults on freedom detested by the anti-institutional God of Protestantism and the anti-institutional Nature of the liberty-loving Enlightenment. Freedom for religious communities-—for all communities, as far as more radical thinkers are concerned-—amounts to nothing other than the freedom to be impotent and to self-destruct. James Madison, the chief author of the American Constitution, quite openly rejoices in this truth, arguing for the need to “multiply factions” within existing, strong communities so as to paralyze their ability to mobilize their followers and actually shape the American political and social order.
Individuals and communities are ultimately given a two-fold teaching regarding the relationship of freedom and order. On the one hand, they are pressed to divide serious free thought from serious free action. On the other, they are encouraged to build whatever unity can exist upon a positive materialist use of their freedom. In the final analysis, the freedom granted to men and communities under the Americanist Pluralist “mystique” is merely the freedom to be materialists in a myriad of fashions. To take but one example, freedom for a Chinese must never be understood as allowing him to harmonize the American system with Confucianist principles. It does mean, however, that he can open as many restaurants as he might see fit, thereby contributing to the rich diversity of American life.
But this cheap form of freedom offers no more substantial block to sinful misuse than reliance on “common sense” prevents adherence to unnatural errors. It has within it an innate tendency to degenerate, and, with that degeneration, to ensure construction of an “order” based upon the dictates of the strongest practitioners of materialist freedom; libertines and criminals. Such criminals maintain their alliance with the Americanist Pluralist ideologue and the Word Merchant in order to justify and ennoble their oppression of the weak. All, together, guarantee that the system gradually “spirals downward”, ending in that boring, corrupted sameness identified by Louis Veuillot as a chief characteristic of the “Empire of the World”.
None of these essential problems of the American Pluralist mystique can even begin to be discussed. That mystique prohibits all criticism of its theory and its practice. If, for example, a person wishes to employ all of the various tools western man has developed over the course of the ages for discussing the validity of its definition of the meaning of individual and social life, all of these tools, one by one, including theology, philosophy, history, psychology and sociology, will be dismissed as both impractical and intrinsically dangerous. A desire to use them will be said to illustrate nothing other than a lack of “obvious common sense” on the part of the foolish, impractical, “loser” critic. Do such tools help one to make money or keep the peace? On the contrary, all they do is bring up disruptive fantasies encouraging divisiveness and disturbing profits.
If, on the other hand, one seeks to demonstrate the long-term practical dangers of the Americanist Pluralist mystique, and especially its degeneration into a reign of “might makes right” disguised as the victory of freedom, its totally unquestionable “godliness” will be called up to smother the dialogue. The critic will be accused of lacking Faith in its divine nature and mandate...as revealed, let us remember, through the all too arbitrary Will of the Founding Fathers. Here he is condemned for his cynical rejection of the “last and best hope” for individual freedom and social peace, and his consequent lack of charity for suffering humanity.
Should the critic then return to theory, and identify the Americanist Pluralist Faith as a voluntarist, irrational fideism masquerading a purely materialist conception of life, he will be brutally brought back down to the practical level once again. Now, with complete disregard for the change in tactic, he will be assaulted for his childish naiveté; his hopeless idealism in the midst of a jungle universe guided by the War of All Against All. Surely only a “loser” envious of the success of his betters would think that life was susceptible to guidance by his utopian spiritual babble!
But what if our critic persists in his position and emphasizes the fact that he has been the subject of an irrational attack, accused simultaneously of being both a faithless cynic and impractically (but enviously) naïve? Why, then, he will become the kind of “public nuisance” promoting unpleasant, logical consequences of first principles that David Hume deplored and Ralph Waldo Emerson considered to be the infallible sign of a “petty mind”. The Word Merchants will be called onto center stage to find as many “appropriate words” as possible to brutalize this Enemy of the People. Truth will not matter in their campaign against him. He will be dismissed as an obvious lunatic. Moreover, since Americanist Pluralism fought the good fight against the Fascists, he will also be denounced as a Nazi; an anti-Semite; a defender of genocide. Terrorism being the system's current manifestation of evil, the critic will also be painted as a probable Al Quaeda, “Islamo-Fascist” supporter. Why this deranged, extremist Loser is the kind of man who most likely wishes that Estonia were still within the Soviet Bloc as well!
Few have the stamina to reach this final stage of unsuccessful dialogue. The schizophrenia brought on by Americanist Pluralist refusal to allow serious thought to be transmitted into action will have deconstructed most potential critics’ spirit from the very outset. Others will have been daunted by the number of tools that have to be marshaled to uncover the system's fraud and its bewildering modus operandi. Should a hardy few possess the will to fight the good fight still longer, they, too, shall eventually be forced to abandon the struggle due to the materialist environment created by the system in question. That environment demands work and ever more work in order merely to survive. Even the strongest opponent, over time, will be simply too exhausted to indulge the luxury of criticizing the system in the few hours of repose left to him by it each day. Hence, mankind's “last, best hope” retains its undeserved image, its victims never learn of its poisons, and it can continue to wreak its all too predictable havoc again and again and again, in country after hapless country.
Equivocal use of Christian language on behalf of a happy vision of order and freedom, accompanied by the appeal of potential success in the New World seduced many Roman Catholic immigrants into the camp of Americanist Pluralism in the years between 1890 and the present. Accepting its precepts seemed to be a “no lose” proposition. The appearance of openness, prosperity, and tranquility similarly entranced the exhausted and demoralized Europeans of the 1940’s, with those resisting the Americanist Pluralist embrace easily anathematized as unregenerate Fascist remnants.
Good resource. We should post more from this man.
That’s exactly what happens, IronJack. Thanks.
I have in the past and sadly free republic has pulled some of the threads.
Dr Rao is the director of the Roman Forum and the Dietrich Von Hildebrand Institute.
This also seems to ruffle the feathers of Acton Institute members who think america is the best and only place for the church to thrive for some ridiculous reason as if the church had to wait for america in order to have a forum to bring the faith to the world. That whole idea spits in the face of the Martyrs and the Saints through the ages
And yet, conservatism without God becomes just that: another ideology. And therefore, merely another version of liberalism.
To take but one example, freedom for a Chinese must never be understood as allowing him to harmonize the American system with Confucianist principles.
Well, duh. The American system is for all Americans, and thus may not be "harmonized with" any one faction (i.e. made to serve as a source of special benefit to that faction and an oppressive power against all others).
ah ... memory does serve me right when I recall a pseudo biographer in his early days reminiscing of how he so much enjoyed his days at Columbia chatting up the deconstructed feminists and 3rd worlders while seeing the rich people’s dogs come to walk and not scoop their poop in his MorningSide Heights neighborhood. Sure does bring back memories doesn’t it? Those were the days/s
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