Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

I’ve been thinking lately about a bunch of philosophical conceptions on the left side of the island.

First, I’m going to say that this is to an extent the result of self-selection that has nothing to do with politics.

The left has a narrative that is a just so story. It is, as was pointed out here, in the comments, a Christian heresy, but one that caters to fake “rationalism.” What I mean is that the narrative of the leftist/communist/socialist story includes all the comforting high points of Christianity but avoids the opprobrium of “superstition” cast by enlightenment onto traditional Christianity.

Leftism, whatever they call it, has its roots in Marxism, and Marxism offers a comforting view of paradise (primitive times, when property was communal and blah blah blah. If the flavor is feminist, it was communal property and ruling matriarchs) fall (we discovered something that changed us. These days it’s fashionable in academic circles to blame agriculture, which apparently was no good, very bad, terrible for us, even though, you know, it allowed us to colonize the Earth and have a vast and varied population. In the seventies it was war. There are as many candidates for the liberal sin that caused human fall, as there is for the Christian sin, and honestly, none of them make a heck of a lot of sense) and redemption (here it’s different from Christian redemption, where each individual redeems himself, but the species can’t be redeemed till the second coming. Um… scratch that. Perhaps not that different. It is assumed that the evils of the human species are because we are not designed to live in “capitalism” which these dodos seem to think is any kind of trade or hierarchy. They actually do call monarchies “capitalist” even absolute monarchies. And because we are distorted and made “evil” by this structure, when the communist state withers away into a perfect classless, communal society, we’ll be redeemed, as surely as by the second coming. Frankly, at least the second coming is more plausible from a scientific point of view. At least it doesn’t require a bloated, totalitarian state to behave in ways that no totalitarian, bloated state ever behaved. And while our species might have no experience of the Son of the Creator returning again in full glory this time to rule over us, we do have endless experience of totalitarian states.)

However, all of this mystical belief is dressed up in “science.” History is taught with the idea that it has an arrow and the arrow leads inevitably to collectivism, and because they only teach select portions of history, the poor kids are convinced of it.

This is partly what I meant by self-selected. The people who tend to gravitate left, PARTICULARLY those older than say 25, are the GOOD kids. This is something that is rarely appreciated, and poor things, they view themselves as daring rebels. It’s sort of pathetic, actually. (Having grown up in a village, I’ve had a great chance to observe human nature, and one of the inevitable funny twists of the human mind is that the most flexible of humans like to think themselves steadfast and inflexible. The kindest flatter themselves they’re cruel. Meek women think they’re termagants. I’m not sure why, really. It just seems to be an invariable part of the human “package.”)

They’re the people who went to school and listened really well, and answered what the teachers wanted to hear. They’re the ones who internalized lessons, and explanations, and the ones who want to have a system in which to integrate everything they learn. Everything has to “fit” in their world view.

I kind of understand that because I too like “grand unified theories.” It’s just that after the age of fourteen, I started discovery too many things that didn’t fit anything they’d taught me.

I think those of us on the conservative/libertarian side are more like that, because though we were raised in the same culture, a culture permeated with the mechanistic view of Marxism, we COULDN’T integrate every fact, and instead of choosing to ignore those facts, we realized it invalidated what we’d been taught. Instead of shutting up and fitting in, we went rogue. We went against the school, books, entertainment, the way news were reported, the way history was taught, and started looking for non conforming facts. We, in fact, preferred to believe our lying eyes over their sacred narrative.

This makes us a little odd but also predisposes us to be able to process five incompatible facts before breakfast. It doesn’t mean we’re always right, but it means we can go “Okay, that doesn’t fit what I would like to believe, and I’m okay with that. I’ll wait more facts.”

The left’s beliefs aren’t in general that robust. They must silence dissenting facts and opinions, because the dissonance is unbearable. They’re terrified they’ll become “of us” you see.

Why is this important?

Because over time, with their dominance of the entertainment-educational-intellectual establishment (which let’s face it, like all ESTABLISHMENTS prefers good boys and girls) they’ve become more an more solipsistic.

They were always a little solipsistic, a little convinced that what you believed was most important. What you believed (not what you did) made you good or bad.

But now they have to defend against so many attacks to their vision—be it blogs, or people talking peer to peer about the things the media would rather not be mentioned—that they’ve retreated into a sort of crazy solipsism. Or if you prefer, a crazy religious frenzy. What we believe is paramount, and making the right gestures—even when we know they’re futile or counterproductive (raising taxes. Leaving the borders open and encouraging the destitute of the world to come in. Encouraging America’s enemies.) will eventually, automagically, bring about a world in consonance with their beliefs.

Obama’s administration was most obviously in thrall of this vision of the world. Most of what he did—the apology tour; refusing to lower taxes (even though he admits high taxes depress the economy which is bad for the poor); refusing the pipeline, giving uranium to Russia and money to Iran who is still by declaration at war with us—were akin to sacrificing goats in front of a shrine, because then the rain will come.

That they do this while calling it scientific and proclaiming they’re the party of science is part of that humans liking to think themselves EVERYTHING they aren’t.

But it also makes their vision not only dangerous, but frail. They can’t allow us to dispute it at all, because what people BELIEVE determines how the world is.

This kind of mentality led to most religious massacres in the world. It is the belief system that is at bay and indefensible that goes on the attack, that must silence the opponent and make them BELIEVE OTHERWISE at all costs.

When you view antifa, or the other various children’s crusades, as well as their romantic imaginings of resistance, remember that’s what you’re seeing: a belief system that can no longer confront reality, and is therefore trying to impose itself by force alone. (This is probably why they have such high affinity for Islam.)

I’m not telling you it’s not dangerous. Sure it is. It is at this stage that belief becomes fanaticism, that annoyance becomes fury, etc.

And it’s dangerous in and of itself to have a religion masquerading as a political party, because sooner or later they win elections, and then you get… well… craziness.

Will there be blood? Almost for sure. How much blood? Well that depends when and where and how many of them there really are, outside of “positions formerly of power.” I can’t answer that, because part of what they did was corrupt all statistics and data. Since what you believe is more important than reality, they’ve massaged data to be what they want, because thoughts create reality.

Solipsism is a fun set of believes, until the bus you don’t believe in runs you over, and unfortunately their bus can run all of us over.

But I do know something: in the long run what can’t go on, won’t go on. In the long run reality wins. And we at least try to understand there is a reality external to our skulls.

It’s going to be bumpy as hell, but be not afraid.

In the end we win, they lose.

 

Reprinted from According to Hoyt, November 6, 2017.