On Labor Day 2009, when discerning Leftists are removing themselves as far as possible from the original red folklore dating back to 1889, it is perhaps a good opportunity to expunge a few political fairy tales.
Of course Leftism has not ceased to exist: it has taken distance from the “Cuban jackboot” as some Dutch Social Democrat just expressed it - epitomizing duplicity, and the use of terror against its own people as part of 'Socialist theory' - it has reinvented itself and taken on the Postmodernism mask, a guise few as yet are able to recognize for what it is.
But the time of the classical Left versus Right alignment in politics is well and truly over! In fact, it never existed in the way most observers understood it.
Ever since Europe at the beginning of the last century was confronted with a false dilemma, the choice between either Fascism or Socialism, people have been misled by Rightist and Leftist ideologies that are together responsible for the loss of over 110 million souls - and counting.
What was cleverly and purposely left out of that equation was Liberty. Then - as today - the “capitalist system” is said to have failed. But Liberty is unlike any other political and social system: not only has it lifted humanity out of poverty and enslavement, it is also our birth right! As such to speak of a mere 'system', hardly defines the width and depth of the underlying philosophical principles.
To explode yet another myth, the political domain of Liberty is not situated roughly somewhere between the extremes of the Left and the Right. Both Left and Right deal in collectives: either social or economic class, or ethnic, cultural or religious groups. Liberty - the home of individual rights - is situated at the opposing end of that spectrum, standing firm for true universal equality of all individuals, irrespective to which group one 'belongs'.
Liberty is a corollary of the inalienable rights bestowed upon man by God or by nature. Rights are not generously shared out (or forfeited) by the State for good or bad behavior, but are inherent in the nature of humans as rational beings (this is why collectivists like to deny the existence of reason itself (“just a Western social construct,” or hold that man on the contrary, is a creature of passion).
Collectivists may spun fairy-tales of their hives having a 'living group soul', assuredly a collective - the modern equivalent of the totalitarian tribe - has neither a mind nor a brain, let alone a soul. That is the prerogative of creatures with self consciousness.
Rather than being on the Left or Right side of the political spectrum, the relevant question politicians ought to answer is, do you unconditionally uphold the freedoms of the individual, or should they submit to the will of the collective? In other words, do you swear to uphold the negative rights that represent the narrow boundaries within which the State may act? President Obama would beg to differ, but it's the positive rights of the 'nanny state' that are the velvet chains by which Governments secretly re-shackle the citizens to their collective.
The current Government interventions in the financial systems might well represent a coup toward a new, Pragmatist form of transnational collectivism, and whether it is Left, Right or center, is frankly immaterial. The difference between Hitler and Marx is the collective of choice: ethnic Socialism versus world Socialism.
Most politicians these days subscribe to Pragmatism. It is a basically amoral, relativist philosophy in that it does not recognize any 'right' or 'wrong' way per se of taking care of business: what counts is the expedient in relation to a specific case, in this particular moment in time. To whose and what end we can only guess: this type of politician seldom specifies anything beyond vacuous sound waves like “Change” and “Yes, we can,” the precise meaning of which is in the eye of the beholder.
The result is a cacophony of cognitive dissonance and an ideological hotchpotch in which we find the unpalatable, putrefied remains of the Communist command economy, as well as elements of free market capitalism, all held together by ligaments that have more in common with corporate Fascism than anything else.
The financial sector especially finds itself in a Fascist limbo: not altogether nationalized, but up for commandeering whenever the State sees fit - on behalf of the tax payer, of course, who wasn't asked for his opinion to begin with. It's back to the future once again: the financial sector may well end up like one of these obsolete utilities we just got rid of.
Related, recently diagnosed by Dr Sanity:
- "Capitalism and the Culture War Being Waged Against It"
- "The Nub of the Crux of the Gist of the Problem"
- "Liberal Amnesia = Hysterical Amnesia"
- Filed on Articles in “The Case for Neo Communism” -
Friday, May 1, 2009
What They Don't Teach in School and the Media Won't Tell
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3 comments:
Great article Cassandra!
"this is why collectivists like to deny the existence of reason itself"
- here I thought you would add 'and replace it with dialectical/trialectical materialism' or whatever.
"Liberty is a corollary of the inalienable rights bestowed upon man by God or by nature"
- personally I try avoid phrases like that, altho I appreciate why you use them. The problem is that if a Marxist or Islamist deny them - as they do, the latter with his own 'racist' charter of Islamic human rights - there isn't much you can say. I think we must just posit, or choose to support that belief. And those that choose to support Liberty, will have to fight together to protect it.
I agree with your final comments on economics in general, but I'm not sure how well it can be applied to the tail end of our current financial debacle. I'm not an economist, and I don't want to study and become one, but if there is no re-financing of the system, it may collapse to a worse state than its current one. Anyway, I don't know enought to argue that point.
Thanks for all that, Kafir911. The problem in the debate is that 'we' have fallen into the trap, accepting the relativist premise that "everyone is right from his or her particular perspective". We must relearn the meaning of objective truth. That it is objective - universal - lies in the nature of man. This is the same for everyone, no matter his opinion or faith. That man is a creature of reason lies in the fact that everyone preserves his life, if he so chooses. No one crosses a highway at rush hour and expects to live. Freedom and its corollaries derive from this morality. We must relearn to say to our opponents - "No, you are objectivively wrong, and here's why!"... only then we can save ourselves from relativism. In your example you inadvertently go along with their error, which is why you have no answer. Hope clear ... very important point! Check out this resource for logic: http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5317
Ah yes, Carol Gould prise loon :
— that at Anglia I was one of only three Jewish members of staff in a workforce of 900 in 1981. My colleague John Rosenberg (I was Drama Commissioning Editor to his Head of Drama) used to joke that he walked up the main street in Norwich and could ‘feel’ people staring at him. This was true: one of the secretaries up there, an otherwise darling and very kind woman, said ‘I’d never seen a Jew until John came up to Anglia House and my family has been in Norfolk for 800 years.’ It was not meant in a malicious context; another secretary said she thought Jews had horns. If you think this preposterous, in my film ‘The Jewish Evacuees’ Sonya Serlin, who was evacuated to Wales during the Blitz, said she was asked to come to the Church Hall and the village had lined up to look behind her ears to see that she did not have horns. Absolutely true story. These were generous and good people whom she grew to love in her years away from London, ther East End of which Hitler bombed to smithereens because it contained the largest connurbation of Jews. Getting back to Anglia and Norwich: the city was, after all, the location of the Norwich Bllod Libel and the Jews were expelled in the 1200s not really ever to return. There is still no synagogue in Norwich. The myths about Jews perpetuate and ‘c’est la vie.’ It mayNot only does she have the investment acumen of a pygmy she is also furious in that article that she was not the recipient of the easy life for entirely nothing! The woman clearly has mental problems and projects her extreme racism on the poor unfortunate Brits who have to live about her.
Class!
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