We American conservatives are all, in a manner of speaking, recovering liberals, and we must constantly fight the temptation to relapse.
Conservatives, by definition, oppose liberalism. And well they should, because liberalism, with its foolish utopian schemes based on false or impractical understandings of equality, liberty and tolerance, is inflicting serious, possibly fatal harm on America. But since, as I argue below, the worldview of the Left has near total control over the thinking of Americans, including many conservatives, it is vital that we understand liberalism so we can oppose it more effectively. And effective opposition to liberalism must begin within our own minds, as we free ourselves from pernicious forms of thought that have become conventional.
It must be noted up front that there is a valid distinction between liberal and leftist, but the distinction is one of degree rather than of kind. Leftists are consistent liberals, and liberals temper the principles of the Left with common sense and common decency, making themselves inconsistent in thought and deed. Nevertheless, and in keeping with common usage, I generally use the word "liberalism" to denote the basic way of thinking.
The first point to establish is that there even is such a thing as liberalism. Since leftist thinking is ubiquitous, there is a temptation to react only to its most outrageous manifestations, while failing to recognize its most basic tenets. Indeed, since most of us conservatives are temperamentally, well, conservative, we have a strong desire to affirm the status quo. But if liberalism has become the unofficial state religion of America, then the status quo must be challenged.
And liberalism, being the status quo, often masquerades as common sense. How many times have you heard someone say, in effect "You have an irrational bias toward conservatism, but I'm not biased. I just go where the evidence leads." Since liberalism is taught by most of America's highest authorities (chiefly the schools, the news media, and entertainment), it is the position that requires the least thought. In fact, many people are unaware that liberalism is a philosophical system that could possibly be wrong, depending on the evidence. For them, liberalism is simply the way things obviously are. And this serves as a useful defensive strategy for liberalism: If we cannot identify it and locate it, we cannot fight it
So how do we identify liberalism? To begin, imagine the following thought experiment:
Assemble a list of 20 specific issues that are currently in dispute, each of which has two well-defined positions (basically "support it" and "oppose it"). For example, the list might begin with these issues:
1) Legalizing same-sex marriage.
2) Opposing gun control.
3) Outlawing abortion.
4) Establishing a comprehensive, federal-government-run system of socialized medicine.
Make sure that for each issue, a typical person would label the two sides "conservative" and "liberal."
OK, so we have 20 well-defined current issues which divide along right-left lines. Now imagine choosing someone and asking him for his views on the first 10 issues, and suppose he has taken the liberal position on each of these 10 issues.
Question: What are the chances that he will take the liberal position on most, if not all, of the remaining 10 issues? Clearly the chances are very good. But why?
Because liberalism really exists. That is, there exists a comprehensive system of thought commonly called "liberalism," and since this worldview has a certain integrity (that is, it is not just a random collection of unrelated assertions), we can make predictions about what people who hold to it will believe. Since people, as opposed to philosophical systems, are often inconsistent, we cannot expect that John Q. Liberal will take the party line on all issues. But to be a liberal, he only has to think and act for the most part in accordance with liberalism.
Given any specific and well-defined issue with political ramifications, it is usually pretty clear which side is the liberal side.1 So examine as many specific liberal views as you can, and attempt to discern the basic beliefs that they have in common. In other words, determine what basic ideas provide the logical foundation that supports the views that abortion and same-sex marriage should be legal, that we should have government-run health care, that there should be no religion in government-run establishments, and so on.
What then can we conclude about liberalism? I will presume that the reader has enough experience to recognize the essential truth of the following summary without having to be provided with the myriad examples and discussions that would be necessary to convince someone with no knowledge of American society:
I. Liberalism is a worldview.
That is, liberalism is not just a randomly-chosen collection of unrelated beliefs. It has a philosophical consistency to it, which is why, in the thought experiment described above, we can have confidence that somebody who is liberal on the first 10 issues will be liberal on most of the others. People do not form opinions at random; they generally hold views that are consistent with their fundamental beliefs about how reality operates.
II. Liberalism emphasizes freedom, equality, openness to the outsider (i.e., multiculturalism) and nonjudgmentalism.
"Freedom" is, of course, another word for the liber in liberalism. Liberalism certainly emphasizes freedom when it can, but freedom cannot be an ultimate good, because it is only a negative condition: the absence of restraint. Much more important to the contemporary American liberal is equality, both as a moral imperative ("we need to treat all people the same") and as a description of man's condition ("We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . ."). From the belief in the inherent equality, at least potential, of all people, come the imperatives to be open to the outsider and to be nonjudgmental.
For example, as is clear to anyone who has paid any attention to the debate over immigration, even most conservatives take the position that America has no right to simply declare a halt to all immigration, because that would be an egregious violation of the sacred principle of openness. Aside from appeals to utility ("Immigrants do jobs Americans won't do"), the basic position of all liberals and most conservatives is that refusing to allow foreigners to immigrate to America is inherently wrong, and that's just all there is to it. And please note: Here we see many conservatives thinking like liberals.
As for the moral imperative to be nonjudgmental, it follows from the belief in equality, and from the imperative to be open to the outsider. If we were to judge people, we would conclude that people are actually unequal in nature and ability: Some are smarter, some are more diligent and some are more violent and antisocial than others, for example. Furthermore, if we were to judge societies, we would notice that some societies are more compatible than others with our American values and way of life. And from all these judgments it would follow that we would have to treat people and societies unequally, which would be unacceptable according to liberalism. Therefore we must not judge.
III. The foundational principles of liberalism.
What basic beliefs are necessary to justify the liberal emphases described above? It would seem that the following are required:
1. Liberalism holds that the God of the Bible does not exist. This does not necessarily mean outright atheism; liberals have varying concepts of God. Most liberals believe in some sort of god, but their god is usually "mystical," that is, a god about whom nothing can be known with certainty, and therefore "God" for them has no ultimate authority. But liberalism definitely denies the existence of the God described in the Bible, because to be compatible with liberalism, "God" must not be "judgmental," must not require belief in any particular religion, must not send people to Hell (unless they are spectacularly wicked), etc.
How do we know the nonexistence of the God of the Bible is one of the foundations of liberalism? Primarily in two ways: Liberalism (as described below) assumes man is the Supreme Being, which would be absurd according to the biblical worldview, and the intellectual leaders of liberalism are all either outright atheists or at the very least not biblical theists.
2. Therefore liberalism holds that man is the Supreme Being. This supreme being could be either man the group (according to postmodern liberalism), or man the individual (according to "classical" liberalism). More specifically, man determines what is true and false, what is (morally) right and wrong, and what is beautiful and ugly. Therefore, truth, goodness and beauty are subjective, not objective, and this naturally leads to relativism, the doctrine (or perhaps just the attitude) that truth, morality and even existence itself vary from person to person.
3. Liberalism must believe that man is naturally good, for otherwise, without a God to set things right, we have no hope. And if man is born good, it must be society that makes people bad, in which case we must remake society. Liberalism thus holds that all human societies up to those that currently exist have been deeply flawed, at the level of their basic premises, and accordingly liberalism pushes for a fundamental rethinking of every aspect of society and its ordering: laws, rules, customs, traditions, schools of thought, etc. All must be changed in order to remove from society every trace of the false ways of thought that have allegedly produced so much misery.
4. Liberalism also leads to nominalism: Since there is no transcendent realm (at least no transcendent realm about which we can know anything), things mean whatever we say they do, and so there are no objective limits, standards, rules, categories, etc. Therefore, according to liberalism, we have permission to make the changes discussed in point 3 above. Thus, for example, we have the "living Constitution," which means only what today's Supreme Court says it does, and which accordingly embodies the latest leftist fads.
5. This imperative to change society also leads to totalitarianism. Since the imperative to promote equality all across the board is non-negotiable, liberal authorities will not tolerate any significant expression of anti-liberalism, even if it originates from a legitimate part of the process of government. If an executive order, or a bill passed by the legislature or the voters, violates liberalism, it must be nullified by the courts or the bureaucracies, which would be the two branches of government that are almost entirely controlled by liberalism. This nullification of the normal process of democracy is not seen as undemocratic (and therefore invalid) by liberals, because it is carried out on behalf of liberalism's most sacred duty.
IV. Liberalism is a religion
Since liberalism is a comprehensive system of thought that describes the nature of reality, answers the big questions of life, and provides a code of conduct for both individuals and societies, it qualifies as a religion. Calling liberalism a religion sounds a little less odd now that Ann Coulter has published Godless: the Church of Liberalism, and this way of thinking emphasizes the comprehensive and fundamental nature of liberalism: It isn't just a collection of ideas, it's a way of life.
An example showing the religious nature of liberalism is a blog post by the Norwegian blogger Bjorn Staerk (who is known as a conservative) that includes the following:
Brave is sitting down calmly on a plane behind a row of suspicious-looking Arabs, ignoring your own fears, because you know those fears are irrational, and because even if there's a chance that they are terrorists, it is more important to you to preserve an open and tolerant society than to survive this trip. Brave is insisting that Arabs not be searched more carefully in airport security than anyone else, because you believe that it is more important not to discriminate against people based on their race than to keep the occasional terrorist from getting on a plane. [Emphasis added.]
Staerk later defended these sentiments against criticism, thus showing his words to be more than a passing fancy.
Although Staerk is known as a conservative, these comments clearly mark him as a liberal: Only a liberal would regard the ideals of tolerance and non-discrimination as more important than his own life. More specifically, only a liberal would say that taking prudent action to defend his life and the lives of others from the credible possibility of a terrorist attack, by asking the authorities to investigate suspicious behavior, is so immoral that it would be better to die in a terrorist attack than to take the chance of humiliating and inconveniencing an innocent Arab.
So here we have a liberal saying he'd literally rather die than transgress the liberal imperative of non-discrimination by taking what would have been regarded in the not-so-distant past as simply commonsense precautions. What could possibly explain his position? We observe that an individual's religion contains those principles (if any) for which he would be willing to die, so there is only one possible conclusion: liberalism is a religion, and is accordingly regarded by serious liberals as something they would be willing to die for.
V. Liberalism is the unofficial state religion of America
There is nothing improper in making this claim. Every society must have some sort of (at least unofficial) state religion because a religion is primarily a system of thought that describes reality, and leaders must always have a philosophical system to guide their decisions. Furthermore, the majority of the population needs to approve of the reasons the leaders give for their decisions, or at least to find those reasons tolerable. Therefore it is no insult to liberalism to call it a religion. On the contrary, to do so is to take it seriously as a system of thought and governance. It is not its status as a religion that makes liberalism illegitimate; it is the specific doctrines of liberalism that make it a menace.
What is the evidence that liberalism is our state religion? Just ask yourself, "What philosophical system do most teachers and professors (and even, God help us, many clergy) teach? What way of thinking is taught as (or assumed to be) true by most journalists? What ideas are portrayed as true, good and beautiful by most artists?" If you answered anything other than "liberalism," you have not been paying attention.
And what system of thought do most of our leaders use to make their important decisions? When the Supreme Court says that anti-sodomy laws are unconstitutional even thought the Constitution says nothing about homosexuality, when the President signs legislation outlawing incandescent light bulbs, and when a state governor signs legislation legalizing same-sex marriage, they are following the dictates of liberalism. And in a sense they have no choice in the matter, at least most of the time: If America's intellectual leaders mostly say that liberalism is true, and if America's populace mostly agrees (or at least doesn't openly disagree), then America's political leaders must generally go along with liberalism, or risk the wrath of the people.
One big question, though: If liberalism is as false as I have said it is, and as dominant, how is it that America continues to function as well as it does? After all, if a largely false way of thinking is the basis for most of our important decisions, we ought to have committed the collective equivalent of suicide long ago. Yet America is still relatively healthy, albeit headed in a bad direction
The answer is provided by what blogger Lawrence Auster has dubbed the "unprincipled exception." When faced with the necessity of making important decisions, Americans frequently violate liberalism, whether by supporting the death penalty for a particularly heinous crime, taking steps to make life harder for illegal aliens, or withholding approval of homosexuality. Conservatism may be in trouble, but at least in America, it still has the ability to win some fights.
But exceptions to liberalism are generally unprincipled. That is, they are not accompanied by any understanding, let alone repudiation, of the fundamentals of the liberal creed. In order for our life to be tolerable, common sense and common decency demand that we make plenty of these exceptions to liberalism. But in many cases, probably most, this opposition to liberalism is purely ad hoc, and does not proceed from a comprehensive rejection of our religion of liberalism. A particular application of liberalism just feels like it's too much, but the feeling is all there is; it does not lead to a fundamental reappraisal of one's system of thought.
And this leads to an even more alarming point, to which I alluded above: Many conservatives are basically liberals who just happen to oppose a few of the important specific initiatives of liberalism. They have the courage and the understanding to oppose, for example, mass immigration, socialism, or the legitimization of homosexuality, but they do not oppose liberalism in toto, or per se.
This is, unfortunately, only to be expected. Thinking about one's fundamental beliefs is difficult and frightening, even for those (i.e., conservatives) with enough wisdom and courage to doubt the state religion that we have all been indoctrinated in for our whole lives. As David Horowitz describes so vividly in his autobiography Radical Son, rethinking one's attachment to the Left involves a reorientation of one's whole being, and therefore it triggers a dark night of the soul. Those not so attached to the Left may not find the path to enlightenment quite so earth-shaking, but one can never change one's fundamental way of thinking, and go against most of the powers that be, without considerable fear and trembling.
But conservatives should take heart. If you have the insight and wisdom to doubt at least some of the liberalism that people all around you believe, and the courage to maintain your beliefs in the face of the unremitting scorn and ridicule that the Left directs against even the most mild apostasy, then you certainly have what it takes to go all the way, and uncover liberalism in its essence. If you are a conservative, I encourage you to carefully examine the liberalism you oppose. If you oppose the effect (mass immigration, same-sex marriage, socialism, etc), you should oppose even more the fundamental cause that makes the effect what it is.
Since liberalism is all-pervasive, you must study it carefully so as to be able to distinguish it from the correct thought that should be your goal. Being a conservative is a full-time business, and the effort to think more clearly and accurately is a lifelong process. We American conservatives are all, in a manner of speaking, recovering liberals, and we must constantly fight the temptation to relapse.
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Read more articles by Alan Roebuck
Well said!
A couple of notes. First, conservatives should defend equality as a founding principle of this nation. This is different than sameness, which is the liberal version of equality. Conservatives view equality as the starting point to be secured by law (opportunity), while liberals view it as the outcome, to be secured by law (results).
Second, if the status quo is liberalism, then it is conservatives who are truly liberal, for conservatives want to change the status quo. Liberals want to further entrench liberalism into society, which makes them conservative.
Third, abortion and same sex marriage aren't necessarily liberal, since libertarians would argue that the expansion of government into these areas would be a violation of personal sovereignty. However, they are conservative in that preserving the institutions and cultural practices that have stood the test of time is conservative.
Fourth, the author is quite right that liberalism is a religious worldview. In fact, I would assert that liberalism has been specifically constructed to take the place of God.
Comment by Mountain Man | February 22, 2008
Alan,
You’ve attempted a very grand thing here, akin to the 12 labors of Hercules. Superb article, but flawed. Let’s apply simple logic to it.
If you’ve articulated what liberalism is, then:
(1) Conservatism must be its converse.
(2) Every manifestation of liberalism and its antipode conservatism should be directly associated with some principle you expressed in your article.
(3) The assocations between detailed manifestations and general principles should not lead to contradictions.
Alternately: (1) Is your definition of liberalism accurate? (2) Is it complete? (3) Is it internally consistent.
Question #1 is easy to answer. All I need to do offer counterexamples to disprove your thesis. Questions #2 and #3 are tougher because they mandate a definitive definition of liberalism, a goal not achieved if your definition of liberalism is inaccurate. Ergo, I’ll try to answer only question #1.
Your definition of liberalism is inaccurate because you fail to specify what principles liberalism and conservatism share. I’ll address these relative to your indexed points, athough not in the order you specified them. Hoepfully you’ll see why I reordered them.
III. Principles: 4. Liberalism also leads to nominalism…
Except as a Platonic abstract, perfection and the absolute do not exist in our finite and temporal world. In mathematical terms, it is impossible to map the infinite onto the finite, and the eternal onto the temporal. In effect, nominalism is our universe’s essence.
IV. Liberalism is a religion.
So is conservatism. You defined ‘religion’ this way:
Since liberalism is a comprehensive system of thought that describes the nature of reality, answers the big questions of life, and provides a code of conduct for both individuals and societies, it qualifies as a religion.
Eschewing logic here, I think conservatism fits that definition, too. Besides, conservatism should be equally as comprehensive as liberalism; else, we conservatives are inferior. No way. Now, back to logic.
The only truth we can derive via reason is Cogito ergo sum. Everything else is speculation, and accepted on faith alone. Ergo, all tenets of both conservatism and liberals — and everything else, too — must be accepted on faith. If faith is the most primitive aspect of religion, then everything we believe and, more importantly, think we know is a religion, too.
Even if we believe in God, our conservative beliefs must mesh with our religious beliefs and be nourished and reaffirmed by them. Therefore, our conservative beliefs themselves are religiously based.
I. Liberalism is a worldview.
Based upon the above, conservatism is a worldview, too.
II. Liberalism emphasizes freedom, equality, openness to the outsider (i.e., multiculturalism) and nonjudgmentalism.
Conservatives believe in freedom and equality, too, but we define it differently. We believe in negative rights, while liberals believe in positive rights. We believe in individual rights, while liberals believe in collective rights.
Multiculturalism in and of itself is not bad, either. After all, cultures may share common beliefs; eg, murder is bad.
However, if permitting all cultures to practice every aspect of their culture in the midst of any other culture (eg, allowing Muslims to practice sharia law in the US even though aspects of sharia conflict with US law) is what you mean by ‘nonjudgmentalism’, then nonjudgmentalism is bad.
III. Principles: 3. Liberalism must believe that man is naturally good…
Liberals don’t think that either man or society can be 100% perfect. If they do, then they reject their own self-professed nominalism. We conservatives also believe that both man and society are imperfectible.
End of what I hope you take as constructive criticisms.
Is conservatism what liberalism is not? No. Liberalism is a beginning, while conservatism is a destination. I’ve haven’t rejected the liberal idealism of my youth, just the liberal part.
Comment by LiveFreeDieFree | February 22, 2008
“Liberalism emphasizes freedom…”
No, it doesn’t. It emphasizes license.
“And if man is born good, it must be society that makes people bad, in which case we must remake society.”
The problem with this idea is that it’s people who make up society and administer it.
Speaking of Lawrence Auster: "The indispensable condition of any conservative or traditionalist movement, as well as of our personal spiritual survival, is that we say NO to the prevailing values of the liberal order and that we keep saying NO.”
Comment by sedonaman | February 23, 2008
I think Thinker missed the main point: that conservatism is not a religion. That’s simply because conservatives don’t need two religions.
While he generalized, the author started from the point that liberals/leftists do not believe in God, thus their ideas of justice, social policies and beliefs in general are rolled up in a “religion” of liberalism. Fundamentalist Muslims are similar in that Sharia law is used to rule civil society.
The church of liberalism may not be tax exempt, but I suspect it could be. With thou shalt not be culturally insensitive, thou has dominion over one’s body and any life in it, and ye will always have an open door to thy neighbors (particularly illegal Mexican neighbors), what judge could say no?
Religious conservatives are influenced by the principles of their faith, and if asked the 20 questions the author proposes may rely on their faith in some cases, such as the question of abortion, but because they are beings made in God’s image, they have more faith in themselves as “designed” than secularist leftists who believe we are theirs to be shaped and perfected in their image.
But if one is not so arrogant, we are free to trust ourselves more and think in ways that would make the answers to some of the 20 question more unpredictable.
What I mean is people of God believe their common sense was God-given and is a gift to be exercised. They have repeatedly proven to themselves its value through their experience.
But the author’s example of the writer who sits quietly behind a group of Arab men acting “suspiciously” on a plane and ignores his instincts, believes just the opposite. Common sense tells him that Arab terrorists would be acting the same way. Further, common sense tells him that in this day and age, Arab men who are anything more than idiots would have the good sense and courtesy not to behave suspiciously on a plane.
Bottom line is our liberal passenger knows something could be wrong. But he gives us advice about what to do when one feels something is wrong - nothing. Clearly he believes our common sense fears are something to be overcome – part of our efforts to evolve as a humans and to shed the vestigial survival instincts of our ancestors – instincts that today serve only to hurt the feelings of others.
He sees his situation as a struggle with himself (never mind the lives of everyone on board in his hands) and even calls himself “brave” for mustering the courage to do nothing. But he goes further, noting that even if his gut is right and the men are terrorist, he is making the right decision by doing nothing, as suppressing anything inside him that could be construed to be culturally insensitive is more important than saving the lives of everyone on board (even the terrorists).
The passenger’s act of “bravery” is truly remarkable and turns a common sense idea expressed by “better safe than sorry” on its ear. It also illustrates the concept of many secular progressives, who believe they are their own God, creator and minister to themselves. They were not made in God’s image, but they belong to themselves to be shaped in any way the leftist morality du jur dictates. Further, they are willing to impose these beliefs on others by intimidation and ridicule, and even passing laws.
Back to reality, it is interesting to think that while our morally superior writer may have gotten off the plane thinking he won a victory for cultural sensitivity and that his new-age progressive ideas were validated, he may have provided a group of terrorists on a trial run to measure passenger response with exactly what they needed to know. But even if he learns later the men killed thousands in a suicide hijacking, as he already stated, the deaths of innocents is a price we must be brave enough to pay.
Human intuition and common sense must be shed at the door of liberal utopia. But the author's plea to the rest of us is, don’t give it up, because no matter how much you change your thinking and try to fool yourself, or become mesmerized by leftist faiths, bullets hailing from reality still have full access to the leftist realm.
The notion that life is not worth living if it involves inconveniencing or embarrassing suspicious characters on a plane is unmistakably derived from a religious-like zeal. Consider that our plane passenger might not be able to control himself in the face of the suspicious Arabs, and that he finds himself about to commit an act of cultural insensitivity by pointing them out to the crew. What is he to do as a devout, sensitive liberal fully committed to his belief system?
It may sound absurd, but to use his own words (which he apparently defended afterward) he tells us it is better to die with the terrorists than to commit an act of insensitivity toward them. Thus we have to assume he is ready to throw back a vial of cyanide to stop himself from being insensitive toward them. Already committed to dying and knowing that means everyone on the plane also must die, one wonders what his morality would allow him to do to a fellow passenger he sees about to embarrass the suspicious men by pointing them out to the crew.
Just how extreme are people who believe like him? Just what kind of life would we have living under laws he and his kind would impose? What happens when our lawmakers agree that it is acceptable that a plane full of innocent people should die in the name of forwarding cultural sensitivity? Will they award special posthumous “bravery” medals to the passengers for their courage to do nothing?
Life under Sharia law is starting to look better all the time.
Comment by nick adams | February 23, 2008
nick adams:
"Life under Sharia law is starting to look better all the time."
LOL!
Comment by sedonaman | February 23, 2008
“Therefore, truth, goodness and beauty are subjective, not objective, and this naturally leads to relativism, the doctrine (or perhaps just the attitude) that truth, morality and even existence itself vary from person to person.”
What liberals have never been able to answer is that if morality is relative, why should we accept theirs?
The author should have explored this a little. In his discussion on multiculturalism, tolerance, relativism, and liberal thought in general, is the idea of polylogism, literally “many logics.” Since we cannot judge other cultures, multiculturalism states that all cultures are equal, and none are better than others [the one exception to this is Western European, i.e., white, culture is WORSE than all others]. Proving this equality of cultures necessitated the invention of polylogism. Have you ever heard a liberal say, “What’s true for you might not be true for me.”?
"Polylogism is the belief that different people or groups have different forms of logic. Since logic is the art of non-contradiction, polylogism can have only two possible meanings. Either reality is different for each group, or logic is a loose term for method of acquiring knowledge. The latter, though, is not how it is used. Those speaking of polylogism state that the conclusions from the different logics are different. This means that although they both claim to be methods of acquiring knowledge, the truth of the knowledge is different for different groups. This can mean only that reality is different for the different groups.
"Polylogism is an absurd idea. It hides behind a more realistic idea, though. People can acquire knowledge in different ways. There are various methods one can use in approaching truth. Some of these methods are legitimate while others are not. Polylogism pretends to encompass the legitimate methods by claiming different cultures are more prone to using particular methods.
"This is just camouflage. Polylogism is nothing but social subjectivism. It claims that knowledge is whatever you want it to be, but applies it to groups. Cultures, tribes, or races are the deciders of truth, and reality conforms to their views. What's true for a Greek philosopher is not true for an Eastern philosopher. This does not mean that the two believe different things. It means that the two are both right, even though they contradict one another. It is a denial of the Law of Identity.
"Polylogism is not a philosophy or an epistemological theory. It is an attitude of narrow-minded fanatics, who cannot imagine that anybody could be more reasonable or more clever than they themselves. Nor is polylogism scientific. It is rather the replacement of reasoning and science by superstitions. It is the characteristic mentality of an age of chaos. http://solohq.com/Objectivism101/Irrational_Polylogism.shtml
And …
“But there’s a deeper objection. On what basis does the polylogist claim that polylogism is true? If all truth is a cultural construction of some sort, then this would apply to the truth of polylogism, which means that if it is true, it is true only for the culture of polylogists (whatever that is). To say that polylogism is true for everyone would make it a universal truth. This won’t work because polylogism says there are no universal truths or logical norms. In other words, to a logical mind, polylogism is self-refuting.
“Unfortunately, the ‘culture of polylogists’ is no longer limited to the cultural Marxists in law schools and humanities departments on the campuses of America’s dominant universities. It suffuses a great deal of public thought, often masquerading behind calls for ‘tolerance.’ Most of its advocates do not even understand, much less have an answer to, the self-refutation charge. They couldn’t care less about such technicalities. On this larger scale, polylogism is dangerous.” [Emphasis added]
http://www.lewrockwell.com/yates/yates62.html
Comment by sedonaman | February 23, 2008
Josh McDowell spoke at the anniversary of the Columbine high school shootings. In his remarks, he pointed out that the #1 most cited (and recognized) Bible verse today is no longer "For God so loved the world…" but is instead "Judge not, lest ye be judged."
He then went on to remark on how this is both indicative of our culture and enormous in its repercussions, and is at the root of what happened in the Columbine tragedy. If you have not read his book "The Last Christian Generation" or heard his Columbine message, I encourage you to do both.
Essentially, the "judge not" salvo is thrown like a trump card to end all discussions of right and wrong, and though most who employ it would not recognize it as the polylogism described above by sedonaman, that is exactly what it is. Even my 12-year-old understands that telling someone "it's wrong to judge" is a logical contradiction: the statement itself is a pronouncement of judgment. It judges people who judge.
The context of the Biblical instruction on judging isn't that judging is wrong, but that judging unfairly and hypocritically is wrong. However, that's a lesson for another day that will never be understood by the drive-by culture because they simply haven't the time or interest to question their dogma. Besides, that one point would unravel the fabric of their entire belief system and they don't want to pick at that thread.
And speaking of picking, we can pick at the author's words here, but the truth is that he is more right than he is wrong and is to be commended for a fine essay. Liberalism is a core set of beliefs, relatively small in number, that define everything else in one's worldview. It is not just an a la carte set of postures chosen haphazardly, nor is it random. It is the logical and predictable outcome of elevating man as the source of ultimate truth, freedom above restraint, rights above responsibilities, and relativism above absolutism.
Comment by Steve Sabin | February 23, 2008
Steve:
“…that one point would unravel the fabric of their entire belief system and they don’t want to pick at that thread.”
Good post. I would wager a person skilled in logical thinking could pick at any of their beliefs [and they are only that] and “unravel the fabric of their entire belief system.”
As far as the Biblical “judge not, lest ye be judged” goes, there must be more to it than liberals are wont to remind us, as you point out. Christians are cautioned not to associate with those who would lead them to sin. So how would a Christian, without judging, determine who to avoid?
Comment by sedonaman | February 23, 2008
It also is important to recognize that "Judge not, lest ye be judged," are words for people of faith and come with the understanding that God exists and He judges in our stead, freeing us from the consequences (being judge ourselves). Use of the passage by non believers is abusurd when you think about it.
There is no expectation by God that humans should not pass laws or judge whether they have been broken.
Comment by nick adams | February 23, 2008
[…] Liberalism 101How our own "leaders" have become our enemies. […]
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"1. Liberalism holds that the God of the Bible does not exist. "
Absolutely incorrect. Quite a few liberals believe that they are doing the work of Jesus by redistributing wealth.
Comment by WolvenBear | February 23, 2008
Always good stuff to chew on, our ideologies continue to escape satisfactory explanation. Mr. Roebuck has given this a good, if disturbing, treatment. I found particularly interesting his use of the mathematical discipline for parsing his argument in the form of a thought experiment establishing the pervasiveness of liberal thought; and I would say he has succeeded thus far. Leave it to us mathematicians, scientists and engineers to go about it this way. Even so, I find two problems with his conclusions.
First, Roebuck’s quantification of abstracts comprising liberal thought include many that are equally attributes of the ‘true’ American-conservative; suggesting conservatism v. liberalism is not an either/or proposition, but, rather, a matter of interpretation; with one set of rules at one end and another set at its polar opposite governing the same basic ideas. [Hereafter, I will use ‘conservative’ to connote ‘American-conservative’ for brevity, except when discussing non-American conservatism.] The conservative just as genuinely reveres freedom (perhaps more so), equal (fair) treatment, openness (that does not compromise), and particular venues in which the judgment of others is unwelcome. The conservative is less compromising of his personal freedoms and those of his fellow citizens; he’s just not enamored of giving away his birthright to non-citizens. His notion of ‘equality’ is limited to the sphere of law and justice, and does not admit government into other spheres for which it is unqualified. The average conservative is just as open to the ideas and opportunities of other cultures as the average liberal; he just doesn’t make a religion of preferring the values of every Tom, Ricardo and Mohammed to his own. And, in the realm of conscience, the conservative bows to none in his preservation of this right.
Second, while I agree American-conservatives are, all of us, in some measure ‘of the liberal persuasion’, I do not see this is all to the bad nor ‘separable’ from conservatism as Robuck makes it. He comes nearer the mark suggesting these two antipodal philosophies are inseparably linked than many conservatives will admit. The philosophies of Locke, Adams, and Jefferson were, in their own day, radical and to the ‘left’ of what was then deemed conservative. Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are radical from the standpoint of parliamentary-monarchists (themselves radical in the view of pure-monarchists). So, why is it conservative to embrace those philosophies today when they were so ‘liberal’ then? Answer: because they are now established and the nature of conservatism is to conserve that which has been established. At the same time, the ideals we conservatives relish are, in some regions of the world (not even including progressive or socialist embellishments), deemed way too ‘liberal’. Take the ‘purest’ most adamant American-conservative you can find and plunk him down in Saudi Arabia and he will be regarded a dangerous liberal lunatic. To Saudi sharia loving sensibilities, not only are American-conservatives liberal, we are radical and dangerous; only slightly less obnoxious than Western-liberals masquerading as multicultural ‘friends’.
So, if we (liberals and conservatives) both ascribe to the same core notions, by what do we differ? To get at this, we first have to know where we agree so that we can set it aside and not degenerate into endless parsing of terms.
According to Wikipedia (after some trimming): ‘Liberalism’ consists of a broad array of related ideas and theories of government considering ‘individual-liberty’ its primary political goal. Liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity. Different forms of liberalism propose very different policies, but are generally united by support for a number of principles: freedom of thought and speech, limited-government, rule of law, free exchange of ideas, free-market or mixed-economy, and transparency in government. All liberals (as well as some adherents of other political ideologies) support some variant of the form of government known as liberal-democracy, with open and fair elections, wherein all citizens have equal rights by law.
Liberalism, in all its forms, rejects certain foundational assumptions dominating earlier theories of government: divine rights of kings, hereditary status, and state religions. Social-progressivism, the belief traditions have no inherent value and social practices ought to be continuously upgraded, is a common component of modern (non-conservative) liberal ideologies. Liberalism is also strongly associated with the belief human society should be organized in accordance with certain unchangeable and inviolable rights. Different schools of liberalism, however, are based on different conceptions of these rights, but there are some rights all liberals support in some degree: life, liberty, conscience, and property among them. [end of Wikipedia]
(cont.)
Comment by Bob Stapler | February 24, 2008
(cont.)
[note: Wikipedia, despite its open format, is dominated by liberals who give the definition of liberal a liberal favoring spin, so I took some liberties with ‘correcting’ it for greater balance. It still includes things I’d argue are interpretations (i.e. modern-liberals are not greatly enamored of free-markets and are not fastidious where property is concerned), but will leave those for now as too much correcting will only distort the liberal self-image and impose yet another bias. To decide how fair or unfair I’ve been in this distillation, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism.
Suffice it to say both liberals and conservatives use much the same rhetoric and refer to the same foundational ideas. Each is genuine in his embrace of these values, yet arrives at different conclusions regarding implementation. Within liberalism, there are two major currents competing for use of the term "liberal", known to clash on many issues because they differ regarding what constitutes freedom.
• Classical-liberalism (aka, libertarian) emphasizes negative rights: freedom from coercion. As a result they see state intervention in the economy and personal affairs as encroaching on freedom, emphasize laissez-faire economics, and oppose welfare.
• Social-liberalism emphasizes freedom ‘from’ economic coercion (and other perceived coercions) as necessary to the operation of freedom. Social-liberals, therefore, theorize numerous positive rights, including: voting, education, healthcare, wage, reproductive, euthanasia, anti-discriminatory (housing, education, health, employment, & speech), environmental, security, and welfare rights; all to be provided by the state supported by progressive taxation.
Conservatives, therefore, tend closer to classical-liberalism with minor differences (not as ‘pure’ as Libertarians). [Note the Libertarian is suspicious even of police and military as legitimate objects of government, and would have us return to the posse comitatus model; but is not an anarchist.] The main difference, then, must turn on application of principles; and Roebuck has taken us some way in discovering this. Let’s review some of the differences he mentions:
term: freedom
conservative interpretation: independent to manage our own affairs short of violating rights and persons of others (not as independent as libertarians, who would reduce government to the point of ineffectuality)
liberal interpretation: unconstrained by advantages that give some greater options - perceived as a ‘disadvantage’; unequal treatment correcting unequal operation of freedom
term: equality
conservative interpretation: equal application of laws (governance)
liberal interpretation: equal advantage in the application of laws, equal opportunity, unequal treatment to correct for handicaps or discrimination, equality of outcomes, disinheritance as a means to return everyone to the same footing, inequity aversion, social equality, cultural equivalence
term: rule of law
conservative interpretation: we are ruled by laws not subject to arbitrary interpretation
liberal interpretation: we are ruled by laws democratically arrived at, but open to interpretation by our courts
term: right to life
conservative interpretation: applies to all humans (regardless of viability or burden); exception: forfeiture for murder
liberal interpretation: applies to all humans; exceptions: the unborn, choice women have to not support life of another in her body; those not independently viable AND lacking any consciousness or will (all of these use ‘viability’ plus ‘consciousness’ plus ‘burdensome’ as criteria for ‘humanity’)
From these, we see a pattern of ‘stretching’ or expanding the meaning and spheres of liberalism by those presently regarded liberals from its original form. Where the conservative generally limits his interpretation of liberalism to a constraint on government, the liberal expands the operation of government making it ultimate arbiter in every sphere. The conservative will allow government to expand to encompass certain objects he cannot do on his own but only within the original mandate, the liberal will expand government almost without limit in the delusion he can do this without sacrificing those freedoms he genuinely cherishes. The conservative is also guilty of this, but far less inclined to do so than liberals and with respect to fewer objects.
That there are objects for which government is better suited than the posse comitatus we have no doubt. That we revere some of the same things liberals do has become a sticking point in our dialog with liberals, and has lead some, on both sides, to spin ever more fanciful distortions of interpretation just to differentiate ourselves from the other. If we can’t even agree on those things to which we agree, there is little hope we can persuade even moderate liberals of our goodwill or that ours is the surer path.
Comment by Bob Stapler | February 24, 2008
[…] Alan Roebuck, over at Intellectual Conservative, studiously points out […]
Pingback by THE MIDNIGHT SUN » Blog Archive » The Liberal Faith | February 24, 2008
[…] Alan Roebuck, over at Intellectual Conservative, studiously points out Given any specific and well-defined issue with political ramifications, it is usually pretty clwhich side is the liberal side. So examine as many specific liberal views as you can, and attempt to discern the basic beliefs that they have in common. In other words, determine what basic ideas provide the logical foundation that supports the views that abortion and same-sex marriage should be legal, that we should have government-run health care, that there should be no religion in government-run establishments, and so on……That is, liberalism is not just a randomly-chosen collection of unrelated beliefs. It has a philosophical consistency to it, which is why, in the thought experiment described above, we can have confidence that somebody who is liberal on the first 10 issues will be liberal on most of the others. People do not form opinions at random; they generally hold views that are consistent with their fundamental beliefs about how reality operates.Roebuck also points out several fundamental assumptions that the Liberal faith holds1. Liberalism holds that the God of the Bible does not exist…2. Therefore liberalism holds that man is the Supreme Being. This supreme being could be either man the group (according to postmodern liberalism), or man the individual (according to "classical" liberalism)…3. Liberalism must believe that man is naturally good, for otherwise, without a God to set things right, we have no hope. And if man is born good, it must be society that makes people bad, in which case we must remake society…4. Liberalism also leads to nominalism: Since there is no transcendent realm (at least no transcendent realm about which we can know anything), things mean whatever we say they do, and so there are no objective limits, standards, rules, categories, etc…5. This imperative to change society also leads to totalitarianism. Since the imperative to promote equality all across the board is non-negotiable, liberal authorities will not tolerate any significant expression of anti-liberalism, even if it originates from a legitimate part of the process of government…Roebuck’s list looks like it could have come fresh from the Liberal book of Genesis. Roebuck well concludesSince liberalism is a comprehensive system of thought that describes the nature of reality, answers the big questions of life, and provides a code of conduct for both individuals and societies, it qualifies as a religion. Calling liberalism a religion sounds a little less odd now that Ann Coulter has published Godless: the Church of Liberalism, and this way of thinking emphasizes the comprehensive and fundamental nature of liberalism: It isn't just a collection of ideas, it's a way of life.John Kekes highlights the role of blind faith in the liberal religionThe secular faith, however, is a dogmatically held fantasy: no evidence is allowed to count against it. Both reasonable and unreasonable actions are regarded by lovers of liberty as confirmations of the faith. If people act reasonably, it is because they are naturally reasonable; and if they act unreasonably, they are still naturally reasonable, although interferences have corrupted their natural dispositions. The explanation that unreasonable actions are due to corrupting interferences ignores the obvious question of how these interferences have become corrupting. Interferences are human actions; if they are corrupting, it must be because the people whose actions they are have been corrupted. But if people are naturally reasonable, then how could they have been corrupted? Explaining their corruption also in terms of corrupting interferences leads to a never-ending regress repeating the same explanation, which of course is no explanation at all. Sooner or later lovers of liberty must recognize that people come first and their actions can only follow. If their actions are unreasonable, then they must be the result of pre-existing unreasonable dispositions. And were <>those pre-existing unreasonable dispositions also the products of corrupting interferences? And if they were, how did those corrupting interferences become corrupting?Just think for a moment where the historical onus of liberalism lies. It was John Stuart Mill whom was famous for first articulating the origins of the liberal mentality. Roger Kimball in his Experiments Against Reality (2000), quotes Maurice Cowling on Mill Not so much a plea for individual freedom, as a means of ensuring that Christianity would be superseded by that form of liberal, rationalising utilitarianism which went by the name of the Religion of Humanity. Mill’s liberalism was a dogmatic, religious one, not the soothing night-comforter for which it is sometimes mistaken. Mill’s objection was not to free men, but to convert them, and convert them to a peculiar exclusive, peculiarly insinuating moral doctrine. Kimball statesFor Mill, established morality is suspect first of all because it is established. His liberalism is essentially corrosive of existing societal arrangements, institutions, and morality. Mill’s philosophy was all-corrosive on systems of morals, there was no objective moral truth and freedom was one which atomised the individual, abdicated the social binds of society and removed any common standard of shared goodnessTake Mill’s doctrine of liberty, which boils down to the exhortation: Let everyone please himself in any way he likes so long as he does not hurt his neighbour.The Conservative ResponseNow the trouble with the conservative response is that they are not meeting this head on. In fact, they are not really taking to it at all. Many of the traditionally conservative parties of today, just aren’t consistently conservative. On the US RepublicansWhile the media has successfully portrayed the Republicans as the party of snake handlers and moonshine, the difference between image and reality is profound. Bush has just spun the odometer, proposing the nation’s first ever $3 trillion budget. On matters pertaining to the very survival of our culture – the primacy of English, multiculturalism, the denuding of our public square of historically present Christian symbols and sentiments – Republicans are found wanting. As for illegal immigration, both the President and presumptive Republican nominee support a form of amnesty.Meanwhile Australia’s Liberal Party has conceded a ‘sorry’ to a stolen generations myth and the British Torries haven’t been truly conservative in years. Truth is, each lacks a cohesive vision of reality or proper philosophy and thus they are powerless against the other side. Mark Richardson points out the all-to-often blunder of expounding conservatism on a liberal status quo which means that liberalism winds up being conserved. Instead, liberal philosophical presuppositions need to be questioned and critiqued. Such that we have already seen, like their view of humanity or morality. Thus it is that conservatives need to think deeply about what they believe and start articulating a consistent ideology from which they can deduce their judgements on individual cases. They need to fight the liberal religion with true philosophy and even more so, in my opinion, with the Christian religion – a far superior view of the world if ever there were one. […]
Pingback by THE MIDNIGHT SUN » Blog Archive » The Liberal Faith | February 24, 2008
WolvenBear:
“Quite a few liberals believe that they are doing the work of Jesus by redistributing wealth.”
This is undoubtedly true, BUT that doesn’t change what liberalism itself holds. What individual liberals believe is not the same as the aggregate belief. Liberal leadership has done an excellent job of convincing conservatives that most liberals believe religion is only superstition.
Comment by sedonaman | February 24, 2008
WolvenBear:
“Quite a few liberals believe that they are doing the work of Jesus by redistributing wealth.”
While true, this does not necessarily equate to them believing in the God of the Bible. Liberals (and conservatives) can and do believe many things about Jesus ranging from lunatic to prophet to God incarnate, while still citing his "good works" and using him as a poster child for their pet initiative. Indeed, Liberals just love to paint a picture of Christ that is equal parts radical activist like Abbie Hoffman and passive dispenser of love beads and platitudes like John Lennon.
The way that many liberals "name drop" Jesus when talking about inherently socialist concepts is really just a way of using someone's Christ's unquestioned "VIP credentials" to erroneously lend credence to their own ideas.
Thus, while they recognize him as a VIP, it doesn't necessarily mean that they deem him to be who he actually said he was in the Bible.
Indeed, Christ said, "Before Abraham was, I AM." All Jews understood immediately that the name I AM was reserved for God alone, and was a statement of blasphemy…unless he really was who he said.
To cite Josh McDowell once again as in my previous post, he pointed out many years ago during his own quest from atheism to Christianity that Christ was either really who he said, or he was a delusional nutjob.
In continued Polylogistic fashion, many liberals want to simultaneously hold that he was "a great man/teacher/prophet" without really coming to grips with the fact that he made outrageous claims about himself that would render him a narcisstic mental case…unless his claims about himself were actually true. And that you cannot simultaneously hold to the belief that Jesus is right, Mohammed is right, Budda is right, etc. Their claims are mutually exclusive.
Comment by Steve Sabin | February 24, 2008
Steve Sabin:
Good reply. I have noticed that liberals want us to live according to their perceived socialist teachings of Jesus, but not all of his teachings.
Comment by sedonaman | February 25, 2008
[…] failing to stand on principle. As I have argued in Liberalism 101, liberalism (i.e., the worldview of the left) has almost complete control of America. It is our […]
Pingback by ‘Seeker-Sensitive’ Conservatism « True Discernment | March 30, 2008
[…] Roebuck has a terrific piece on the subject at Intellectual Conservative. Mr. Roebuck argues that, yes, Liberalism is most definitely a […]
Pingback by Timothy Birdnow » The Religion of Liberalism | April 2, 2008
[…] failing to stand on principle. As I have argued in Liberalism 101, liberalism (i.e., the worldview of the left) has almost complete control of America. It is our […]
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