Tag Archives: Progressivism

Post-Christianity and Frankfurt

Mike’s recent post on the Frankfurt School ignited a discussion which I haven’t commented on yet because the idea the Frankfurt School caused modern progressivism seems nigh undeniable; I thought his post was simply a restatement of the basics rather than anything controversial. That being said it also undeniable that progressivism preceded the Frankfurt School. It wasn’t Frankfurters who beheaded King Charles.

The puritan hypothesis seems like a good explanation for the general current of English progressivism that has slowly been leading to liberalism and “enlightenment”, while the Frankfurt School created a particularly virulent strain of the progressive mind virus that increased the viciousness and destructiveness of the ideological meme. I don’t really see how these are in contradiction.

On a similar note, when discussing the general trend of puritan-derived progressivism around here we tend to use the terms ultracalvinism, hyperprotestantism, puritanism, non-theistic Christians, etc. This brings up objections from many Christians who object to the use of these terms as nonsensical verbal games or simply wrong because there is no Christianity without Christ.

I’ve written before. the identification of ‘non-theistic Christians’ is not a verbal game but I have also written before of how the essence of Christianity is Christ, so I can identify with the objections to talking of a Christianity apart from Christ. As I wrote before, the concept of the ‘non-theistic Christian’ is useful as it illustrates the fundamentally religious nature of progressivism as well the mental confusion of self-proclaimed ‘rationalists’ and ‘atheists’ engaging in such religious absolutism.

So instead, of ultracalvinists, hyperprotestants, non-theistic Christians, etc. I propose we start using the terms post-Christians or post-Puritans. This illustrates progressivism’s cladistic lineage while also avoiding the objections that progressivism isn’t Christian in essence.

Victimization

Two recent controversies have shown a particular pathology of the left. The first is the fight over the Washington Redskins, and how the Redskins have lost their trademark for being disparaging. The second is the strong reaction of the left to Miss Nevada saying women should learn to defend themselves from rape.

First, the Redskins. Look at their logo:

Are those logos in any way disparaging or insulting?

No. The first shows a strong, proud man with a calm, dignified bearing, the second shows a a strong, proud warrior raring for action. Both are rather complimentary to Aboriginals.

I am part Norse, so the Vikings team has a mascot of my heritage.

Is this disparaging? No, because, as with the Redskins logo, he’s a strong, determined man. In fact, although I don’t follow NFL at all, my team(an extremely shallow allegiance) is the Vikings, simply because they are the Vikings, and they celebrate my heritage.

So the question is why do leftists think portraying Aboriginals as strong, proud men and celebrating their strength is disparaging?

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Next we come to Miss Nevada. She stated a very sane and rational opinion:

But I think more awareness is very important so women can learn how to protect themselves. Myself, as a fourth-degree black belt, I learned from a young age that you need to be confident and be able to defend yourself. And I think that’s something that we should start to really implement for a lot of women.

The feminists freaked out.

Here’s one example that really shows the absurdity of this condemnation: a male feminist condemns a man who teaches women to protect themselves from rape as a misogynist, while at the also praising someone who raped children.

So why do leftists think that teaching women to be strong and to protect themselves is misogynistic?

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The answer to both of these is the same, the words ‘disparaging’, ‘racist’, ‘misogynist’, etc. are not used for their literal definition, they are used merely for their exo-semantic meaning of ‘bad’. They carry the same semantic meaning as a pack of monkeys pointing and hooting.

The words don’t mean much in themselves, but the reason for the pointing and hooting is what’s important.

The left needs women and minorities to remain victims.

If one points the Aboriginal back to his heritage, the proud brave, independent, strong, and free, the impoverished and beaten-down Aboriginal on the reservation may look at his life and ask, “Why are we so broken, so dependent, when our ancestors were so strong, so proud?”

If a young woman learns to protect herself and avoid drunkenness, she won’t have need of the rape hysteria of feminists. If she learns self-responsibility and takes control of her own life, she won’t need feminism and its war against personal responsibility at all.

This is what the leftists fear. They fear Aboriginals might decide to get off the reservation, that women will stop feeling victimized, that blacks will leave the welfare plantation, etc. Leftists need people to feel like victims so they will cry to others, ie. the government, for help.

The leftists strategy is and always has been to expand the state. Victims are dependent on the state, they need the state to protect them, to provide for them. If leftists run out fo victims, they no longer have the cover they need to continue expanding the state.

Leftists hate the Redskins because they need Aboriginals to feel victimized and to not be able to remember the proud warriors and leaders their ancestors were. They hate women protecting themselves, because a confident self-realized woman does not need the state to protect her and provide for her.

Without victims the state is unneeded; without those who make their livings in the victim- and welfare-industrial complexes would not have such cushy jobs.

Leftists need victims to continue their long march.

The Left: UnTruth, Amorality, & Narcissism

Progressives are untruthful. It is not because they are “liars” per se, but rather because they don’t believe the truth exists. You can not be truthful when you do not believe truth exists; truth is necessary for truthfulness.

So it goes with morality; progressives are amoral because they don’t believe morality exists and morality has to exist for someone to be moral.

I am not calling leftists untruthful or amoral as a form of verbal attack, but as a simple empirical description. If one actually reads and listens to what leftists say, it is plain as the light of day that leftists both explicitly deny both truth and morality and/or implicitly accept this; usually the more hardcore leftists are explicit, while the useful idiots accept it implicitly.

Richard Anderson points out a recent example from a speech at a white privilege teachers conference:

“Teaching is a political act, and you can’t choose to be neutral. You are either a pawn used to perpetuate a system of oppression or you are fighting against it,” Radersma said during the session. “And if you think you are neutral, you are a pawn.”

Which implies that there is no such thing as objective truth, merely political truth. This is the mentality of a totalitarian. The writer of the above isn’t a fool, she’s a dangerous fanatic.

This is, of course, not unique. Cultural and moral relativism is rife throughout progressivism. To deny absolute truth is to deny Truth itself. TO deny an absolute morality is render morality subjective and therefore entirely meaningless.

But even denying Truth and Morality, leftists still hold to truths and moralities. Leftists believe in social truth and they will usually accept fact truth (as a concept, if not in all particulars, such as IQ), but they deny the existence of primal truth.

As I noted, Truth must be primal truth. Fact truth is empirically true, but mundane, while social truth is true but only through consensus. Primal truth is true on a deeper level; it is what is fundamentally truth.

The leftist is stuck only with mundane empirical truths which have no moral value and no meaning and social truths which are only true and meaningful insofar as they are society makes them true and meaningful. The leftist finds himself in a nihilistic hell where his only meaning can come through the shifting social mores that surround him, yet he knows that those mores are not True, because those outside his particular social grouping deny those social truths.

From this comes the leftists need to intrude his social truths on everyone else. It is why gays need to force Christians to bake them cakes, it is why feminists need Catholics to pay for their birth control, it is why non-leftists, however milquetoast, must be purged, and why leftism must be forced throughout the globe.

He knows that his social truths are only valid insofar as they are accepted by society, so he must force society to accept them, or he renders himself, his truths, his values meaningless. But he must even go beyond his own society, for if other societies do not accept his truths, then he is rendered meaningless to the rest of the world.

Here we can see why the most virulent forms of leftism are so thoroughly narcissistic. The leftist needs others to accept his truths, accept him, or he is, in any real sense, meaningless.

By denying primal Truth, his entire value must come from the society around him. If society ever denied his value, he would lose it completely. Leftism forces its adherents into either nihilism or narcissism (or both), and most people are not psychologically equipped to stare into the nihilistic abyss.

Meanwhile, the natural narcissists find in extreme leftism an ideologically cozy way to enact their narcissism.

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In practice most progressives will usually act and espouse some level of morality (ex: most leftists would abhor murdering a child outside of the womb) and will hold to some things to be true (ex: global warming).

Here we get into the dichotomy of true leftists and useful idiots. The true leftist, such as our educator above, truly denies the existence Truth and Morality believing all truths and morality to be social truths. The useful idiots are either unable or unwilling to actually examine their cognitive dissonance with reason.

As well, not all leftists will become narcissists, as some will become nihilists, and some will either simply live with the cognitive dissonance of living as if the social truths were Truth or simply not be able to intellectually comprehend that social truth is not Truth.

It’s all Related

The Captain has a post up where he argues economics and the manosphere are one and the same.

I agree, but would go further.

All the fights we in the manosphere/alt-right/traditionalist blogosphere pick are the same fight. Free-market economics, anti-feminism, traditional marriage, game, human bio-diversity, opposition to public schooling, gun freedoms, IQ, the paleo diet, anti-environmentalism, anti-internationalism, anti-egalitarianism, etc. are all facets of the same thing: the fight against government-backed unreality.

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The fundamental truth underlying human existence is evolutionary biology/psychology and/or man’s fallen nature, which are essentially the same for all practical purposes. Humans were evolved or created to have a genetic structure which expresses itself in certain drives, abilities, and proclivities which we refer to as human nature and these will express themselves differently in people of varied genetic structure. Human nature can be, to some limited extent, controlled and directed by society and environment.

Up until sometime in the 18th century, this view of human nature (with some variation and minus the genetics) was well-accepted. This began to change when Rousseau argued that human nature was heavily malleable and Marx argued that human nature did not exist. The rejection of human nature became increasingly accepted in certain circles, until the 1960’s and 1970’s, when the long march through culture triumphed. Progressive ideology was wholly taken over by those denying the existence human nature and over the next few decades this progressivism became the dominant ideology of the West.

Under this ideology, human nature does not exist, rather man’s nature is determined primarily or solely by the social environment. Man could be perfected through better social institutions, particularly the state. So, the progressivists began to expand the state to

Meanwhile, traditional social institutions, such as the church, family, the nation, etc. were seen to be hindering the perfection of man. They either needed to be co-opted (as the mainline liberal churches were) or destroyed (as the traditional has been).

The elites with political and financial power, realized the power they could gain by expanding the state and jumped on the progressivist band-wagon whole hog. Other groups, such as environmentalists, whose ideology depended on state control, joined the progressivist band-wagon.

The left, which traditionally had been hostile to the state, became the vehicle of the state. Various interests, many diametrically opposed, rallied around the cause of the state to expand thier interests and power. It is now to the point where the original goals are barely more than smoke-screens to justify furthered expansion of the state.

Meanwhile, conservatives, who work to preserve current reality, are generally busy fighting to defend the progressivism that has already been put in place. They are softer progressivists unable and unwilling to fight the underlying progressivism of society.

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That leaves the manosphere, the alt-right, and other such fringe movements to fight against progressivism on their own, and everything they fight comes from the belief in either the denial of human nature and the desire to perfect humanity or the expansion of the state.

Feminism is predicated on the belief they are no real psychological differences between the sexes that could lead to different outcomes.

Game is the application of insights from evolutionary psychology to sexual, to counteract advice stemming from the denial of psychological differences between the sexes.

The destruction of traditional marriage and family comes from the desire for perfectibility.

The public education system is the most direct attempt to remake man in man’s image, the glorification of the state through learned helplessness, and the agitprop to sustain the beliefs in the perfectibility of man.

The denial of HBD and IQ and egalitarianism is necessary to believe in the perfectibility of man and the denial of human nature.

Modern environmentalism (as opposed to traditional conservationism) is a justification for the expansion of the state and the international bureaucracy.

Internationalism is the expansion of the state through the creation of new super-states.

Keynesian economics is an ideological tool to justify the expansion of the state.

It is all the same.

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Of course, as science develop, it becomes increasingly clear that the existence of an intrinsic human nature is very much a reality.The shibboleths of egalitarianism, feminism, and the like become increasingly unsupportable.

As economic evidence piles up from the former Soviet Union, from Germany, from Korea, from Estonia, from Europe, from the US, from Canada, etc. it becomes increasingly clear that statism is bad for society. Thus support for communism become support for socialism, socialism become progressivism, progressivism become keynesianism. Each ideological change cedes more intellectual capital to the free market, but the centrality of the worship of the state remains.

As the schools continue to fail, the perfectibility of man becomes increasingly far away. As the traditional family fails and the problems of divorce and single-parenthood become clear, the function of traditional institutions become increasingly transparent.

The state has propped the ailing progressivist structure up, but as the state goes increasingly bankrupt, there will be no fallback.

The structure of lies is failing and the manosphere, alt-right, etc. are there to prevent, ameliorate, or simply explain the collapse. At the very least, we help others who wish to see, see and benefit for themselves.

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Why is the manosphere involved?

Because, the single most dangerous organism the world has produced is the single young adult male. The best way to control society is to control and destroy the male. If not restrained, males could overthrow the balance of society and destroy the edifice of lies that has been erected.

Of course, this restraining has negative impacts on males. As well, to the consternation of females, leftists, and conservatives, men respond to the incentives of such a structure in a logical way.

The manosphere is involved because males are the major target of the progressivist campaign. They are also the major losers in this campaign.

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The problem is, too many, in the manosphere and in allied blogospheres, only focus on a single factor facing us. The red pill is not a single factor, picking and choosing too focus on a single factor, while ignoring the others misses the larger picture.

Game is only a stop-gap and MGTOWs have abandoned the fight entirely, we need more. Focusing only on economics,as many libertarians are apt, misses the underlying culture that allow a free market to function. Conservatism that buys into feminism only works to undermine what conservatives supposedly stand for. Big government conservatives who focus on culture, but ignore the free market, only undermine the culture; you can have society or the state, not both. Those who ignore the public education system or simply avoid children, hand the future to the progressivists.

We need to swallow the red pill whole if we are to win, not just a few parts of it.

The Internal Contradiction of Liberal Ideology

Here’s a post I’ve been planning on writing for a while, but haven’t got around to. CR at GL Piggy wrote a post that touched on it, so, now’s a good a time as any to finally get it out.

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There is a fundamental contradiction within modern progressivism* between its economic beliefs and underlying philosophical beliefs.

North American liberals hold to Keynesian economic theory; all the standard-bearing liberal economists, such as Krugman, Ygglesias, and Stiglitz, are Keynesian.

Keynesianism is demand-side economics, where economic health is determined by aggregate demand for goods and services. A main goal of Keynesian economics is to keep demand high, so more goods are produced, which leads to increased employment, full-employment being a primary aim of Keynesianism. The government is required to interfere in times of low demand (ie. recessions and depressions) by spending money (it doesn’t really matter on what) to raise demand. Too much savings is harmful to the economy as it prevents spending.

This opposed to demand-side economics, where economic health is determined by the supply of goods and services. It calls for low barriers to production, to lower prices so consumers can purchase goods at the lowest cost. The government is required to remove themselves from interference so individuals can best optimize savings and consumption for themselves.

Essentially, the main theoretical difference between the two is whether the economy is driven by creation (production and investment) or by consumption (demand and spending).

On the other hand, liberal political philosophy is strongly opposed to consumerism. It is also strongly environmental in nature and oppose what they refer to as over-consumption. They’ll complain of artifical demand created by mass media, rage against planned obsolescence, and have their Buy Nothing Days.

Now, if you are more intellectually acute than the average occupy protester, you may have noticed something from my descriptions of Keynesianism and progressivism: they contradict each other.

The economic theory that the economy is driven by consumption and that the government must work to keep demand high is essentially a call for over-consumption. A theory where economic health depends on demand for consumption while aiming for full employment, is a call for people to buy things they don’t need so they can work more so they can buy things they don’t need.

Keynesian economics is consumerism.

Liberal economics necessiatates and prizes everything liberals claim to hate about capitalism.

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So why does liberal economic theory contradict liberal political values?

It’s simple: government control.

Earlier I told you the main theoretical difference between supply- and demand-side economics, but that’s just theory and nobody cares much about theory. Much more important to why (most) people choose which economic theory they prefer is the practical implications of the theory.

The main practical difference in application between the two theories is the level of government control of the economy.

Liberals like Keynesian economics, not because they believe in the theoretical underpinnings of Keynesianism, but because it allows more government control over the economy.

The capability of free-market capitalism to produce goods and services is so obvious to see, that no one with any pretensions to intellectual seriousness can completely discard capitalism. The superiority of free-market capitalism is so undeniable that (most of) the left has given up fighting capitalism as a whole.

But progressivists are unwilling to give up their desire for control, so instead they have adopted mixed economic theories which use free-market capitalism as a substructure, then put a government regulation superstructure over the substructure so the elites can still feign control over the economy.

That is why their economic belief in Keynesianism (which is ideological consumerism) can so blatantly contradict their supposed values of anti-consumerism and environmentalism.

Keynesianism is only a superficial belief, a mere ideological tool to justify liberals acquiring what they really value: the expansion of the state.

* I use liberalism, progressivism, and new left interchangeably as there has been no real difference between them in North America since the McGovernite takeover of the Democratic Party (and Trudeaumania in Canada).

Lightning Round – 2012/06/12

Welcome back to the Lightning Round, we’ve got a large one today.

The emotions and our genetic drives of red-pill nihilism are just as enslaving and meaningless as blue-pill delusions. In a somewhat related post, Roissy talks of how players lose the ability to find divine love in their quest for meaningless sex.

Feminism is the ideological justification for female childlessness. No matter how much utopian ideologies may ignore it; choices have consequences.

Apocalypse Nowish gives one of the clearest, most straightforward explanations of how the banking system and the government are colluding to rob you.

In surprising news, a study shows government size and economic growth are negatively correlated. The Captain had already pointed out what could have been.

In related news, it seems Americans lost 20 years of wealth  between 2007 and 2010, and everybody makes less except seniors. Related: We are becoming a rental generation and the government refuses to learn from past mistakes.

But, Fearsome Pirate has hope that progressivism can be smashed, while Zero Hedge calls us to have courage in the fight against the tyrants.

Some are not so hopeful. Noting that in fact, Canada is actively destroying itself.

Zero Hedge says bring it on, the solution to our problems is collapse.

The Captain asks “Is it me, or is there something wrong with everybody else?”, and concludes it’s everybody else. Red-pill thinking requires a certain amount of arrogance.

Wintery Knight points out that young Christians are abandoning the fight in an anti-intellectual compartmentalization of the faith. Will S comments. If Christians give up on changing the culture, what then do we have?

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Much has been written on Christian relationships in the manosphere in the last week:

Athol notes that the Bible was written for when men were all alphas under the law, so it recommends beta behaviour, but when culture betaized men, this created hardcore mode for Christian men.

Dalrock points out that the celibate boyfriend is non-biblical. All Christian relationships should be geared towards sex as soon as possible, within marriage.

UMan coins the phrase girligious and notes that Christian marriage has the advantage of a “a rule book written thousands of years ago” in our battle to preserve traditional marriage.

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I knew men committed more suicide, but I never knew it was quite this bad. One possible cause could be that boys are persecuted by the public schools.

Wintery Knight points out the lie that homosexual couples are as good for raising children as straight couples. Related: A homosexual Mormon enjoys a happy an fulfilling heterosexual marriage and family.

Some people still blindly defend the worthless university system and encourage the degree bubble.

Every time I doubt the Conservative Party (and voting in general), they do some small thing that encourages me.

Ummm… No. Chivalry is for ladies, and there are few ladies nowadays.

(h/t: Instapundit, SDA, Wintery Knight, Save Capitalism)