Reblogged: The Seeds of Leftist Fantasy

[Gus Van Horn blog]

On his <a href="http://www.hblist.com/">mailing list</a>, Harry Binswanger passes along an <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/jamie-glazov/kindergarden-of-eden-how-the-modern-liberal-thinks/#.UQb_4eD-YjU.email">interesting link</a> regarding how modern "liberals" think. (As you will see, I am using that last term so generously that  I could just about be accused of providing handouts.) In an interview at <i>FrontPage Magazine</i> titled "The KinderGarden of Eden", former leftist Evan Sayet describes his motivation for attempting to understand this perverse <a href="http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/psycho-epistemology.html">psycho-epistemology</a>: <br /><blockquote>... What surprised me - and ultimately rocked my world - is what I metaphorically call "9-12."  That's the days and the weeks and the months and now the years <i>after </i>9-11 and the Liberals' response to the attacks.  The idea that we <i>deserved </i>the attacks - that they were, in the words of Barack Obama's "spiritual mentor," Jeremiah Wright, "The chickens coming home to roost" - and that the way to prevent further attacks was to be <i>nicer </i>to the terrorists seemed to me to be nothing short of insane. Here we were, facing the most obvious case of good versus evil of my lifetime, and the people I thought were the good and the smart guys - the Liberals - were not only siding with the evil, but they were making the most obviously false and even hateful anti-American arguments in order to do so.</blockquote>How on earth does this something like this happen? Sayet does a pretty good job of showing how the notion that no one belief system is any better than any other results in the modern leftist arriving at such a conclusion: <br /><blockquote>Since the Modern Liberal's policy on any given issue is the one that he is led to by his rejection of moral and rational thought - his indiscriminateness - anyone who takes a different position on any issue is not only "wrong," he is evil (or, in Thomas Sowell's words, he is "not merely in error, but in sin.") This is because the opposite of indiscriminateness is the evil of having discriminated: the hate crime of thinking.  One might discriminate because they're 1) stupid 2) bigoted 3) phobic 4) evil or 5) greedy, but, no matter what, the Modern Liberal has no other explanation for disagreeing with him on an issue other than one of these five things.  Sound impossible?  Take a second and try to name a single issue - even one - where one of these things isn't what the Modern Liberal says is the motive for not supporting <i>their </i>policy.  You can't.  Not one.</blockquote>Sayet goes further, noting the kind of process that goes on once a leftist has noticed someone not agreeing with him, taking the success of modern Israel as his example: <br /><blockquote>There are only two possible explanations: either there <i>is </i>something exceptional about Judaism [or the rational, non-religious aspects of Israeli culture --ed] and these successes are the results of that or there <i>isn't </i>anything special about Judaism and the success of the Jews is not only unjust, but given their unparalleled success throughout history, they must be an unparalleled injustice.</blockquote>Guess which of these alernatives is the "answer"?<br /><br />Have you ever watched leftists call for blatantly submissive policies towards Islam? Or wondered why they tolerate everything except America? Or found yourself venomously attacked merely for having made your own mind up about something? If so, you will find value in understanding where this is all coming from, whether it be to disarm an intellectual opponent or even to diagnose one for what he is in the first place.<br /><br />-- CAV

Link to Original

[ruveyn1]

There are only two possible explanations: either there <i>is </i>something exceptional about Judaism [or the rational, non-religious aspects of Israeli culture --ed] and these successes are the results of that or there <i>isn't </i>anything special about Judaism and the success of the Jews is not only unjust, but given their unparalleled success throughout history, they must be an unparalleled injustice.

The irony is so many of the Lefties were brought up Jewish.

I can testify to the efficacy of the -ethical content of Judaism-, as I not only was brought up Jewish, but still am Jewish right down to my toenails. I just do not need the theological baggage any more. The ethics and the resistance to dogmatic thinking is what is important to me. Jews generally do not have to park their brains at the curb to be Jewish. Even some of those of Orthodox persuasion still know how to ask pointed questions.

What other religion teaches one to ask "Mah nishtanoh...." (Why is this different from that?) ? Not too many.

And we learn not to worship idols, not only stone, wood, metal, and plaster idols, but idols of the intellect. The disease of the ultra liberal types is their imaginations are paralyzed by the political and moral idols they have not only construct, but -worship-. If there is a G-D, then that G-D is the rock bottom reality of the cosmos, not our wishful longings and daydreams. When Moses asked G-D what His name was, the reply was: Existence. I am That which is. Sound familiar?

ruveyn1

[2046]

Uhh what? One would think that if Gus van Horn wanted to seriously understand leftist thought, he would just go forth and read a whole concatenation of wide-ranging leftist intellectuals out there, but instead he thinks he's found the lodestone from one terribad FontPage Magazine article from a neoconservative affiliated with Ann Coulter and the Heritage Institute. He quotes what he calls "9-12" and cites the pastor Jeremiah Wright, which makes me think he's totally unaware of the concept of "blowback" and has never read leftist scholars such as Noam Chomsky. Way to delve deep there, Gus. One wonders what the result would be if people only studied Ayn Rand in similar fashion, oh wait they do, and we get horrible caricatures and straw mans. Hmm.

[volco]

Bravo Ruveyn!