Politeia: The Spiral of Hatred

In a post containing the thoughts of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff just before her trial in Austria for 'hate speech' is resuming on January 18, she accurately describes how the 'hatred' narrative works.

The Left - or more accurately, those who like to think of themselves as nice, empathic, inclusive, under-dog loving people, often are very far from it. They feel great hostility towards the opposition, who have no right in their minds to have such vile, egoistic, mean-spirited thoughts about freedom and humanity.

Projection is a psychological coping device, that deals with the ensuing cognitive dissonance by turning the opponent as by magic into a demon: the process that is leading to scapegoating and collective guilt.

Projectionists have become incapable of looking at their opponents with anything remotely smacking of objectivity or empathy. They no longer think, they simply smear and condemn. And here we have one of those infamous Leftist contradictions which are simply ignored as part of the logic (Hegel's dialectic): 'morality does not exist,' yet they morally condemn anyone, who does not agree with their narrative.

In the Western world we have things nicely under control (or so we thought): for any conceivable risk there's an insurance policy and Europeans have been lazily laying back in nanny states that cuddled their citizens from cradle to grave. What could possibly go wrong?

This has created a phantom security in which all evil seems to have evaporated. No war, pestilence or bad fortune could befall the citizen of such a country. Such circumstances have led some to the false conclusion, that evil does not exist. In this way amoralism finds its way to people's mindsets: good and evil have become fluid, subjective constructs that wither away.

To them morality is no longer a matter of objectivily right or wrong, but the median mores of any given culture. We'll have a look up close shortly how that is playing a major role in the climate of hatred.

- Projection in action -

On top of that, traditional Kantian thought has insinuated the fallacy in Western culture that reality is in some way dependent on human consciousness: thought creates reality.

Since in this philosophical ruin, one external, objective truth does not exist, we are thus a single step removed from blaming people for their opinions. Personal taste has taken the place of objective truth, but with a difference. You can't blame truth for being true, but you can blame people for having a terribly bad taste.

It is no coincidence that Leftists on both sides of the Atlantic are scolding their opponents in terms of 'bad taste', 'indecency' or 'the wrong tone'. In his recent memorial speech in Tucson after the Loughner massacre, Barack "bring a gun" Obama called for 'civility'. Persistant Conservative has listed a number of martial analogies from the President himself.

In this way those like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Elisabeth Sabaditsch and Geert Wilders, who warn against the insidious influence of Islam and Sharia law, have become people of bad taste. Or in the view of Leftist Islam apologists, narrow-minded xenophobes who 'hate' Muslims.

Robin of Berkeley, a recovering liberal and a psychotherapist, has written a great piece available on American Thinker about the ethical side of psychological projection; the relationship between amoralism and hatred neatly falls into place. On the process of scapegoating and collective guilt he writes:

"Collective guilt is not just a noxious premise, but it's an evil one. It presumes guilt without a shred of evidence. In this case, conservatives are incriminated for Loughner's bloodshed (even though Loughner is apparently a Karl Marx-admiring atheist.) The delusion of collective guilt shields people from taking a long hard look in the mirror, thereby witnessing their own bad behavior."

But as Ayn Rand has pointed out:

"The clearest symptom by which one can recognize [the amoralist] is his total inability to judge himself, his actions, or his work by any sort of standard."

The descent into evil becomes a vicious spiral: amorality is leading to the inability to judge one's self, which is leading to cognitive dissonance, dealt with by psychological projection (scapegoating and collective guilt), which is evil, but isn't recognized as such because of amorality, and so on, and so on. A vicious spiral is born.

Here's Robin of Berkeley. For 'Americans' read 'Western culture' ...

American Thinker: "See No Evil"

One of the first books that made me thirst for God was, ironically, about His polar opposite. The book is Andrew Delbanco's 'The Death of Satan: How Americans Have Lost the Sense of Evil". The author describes the disastrous results of Americans rejecting the concept of evil. When Satan was alive and well, citizens practiced the Ten Commandments, atoned for their sins, and worried about eternal damnation. But today, inhabitants eschew the devil as an anachronism of days gone by.

And what has been the result of the Death of Satan? More bloodshed than ever before in the history of humankind. In the 20th century alone, hundreds of millions of people were murdered by genocidal regimes. And yet, why would banishing Satan result in a less civilized society? Because without an understanding about how good and evil work, people are stripped of Divine intelligence. (...)

The number one rule in warfare is this: Know thy enemy, whether it's Radical Islam or evil. Yet, most Americans, with heads firmly buried in the sand, have no idea how to cope when darkness rears its ugly head.

Their default is to find scapegoats, projecting all badness outwards. Liberals routinely scapegoat conservatives. Yet, by smearing an entire group of people, liberals become part of the evil themselves.

Scapegoating is the quintessential feature of evil, says M. Scott Peck, in his seminal book, "People of the Lie". (...) So the Left demonizes others, which is a fascinating term in and of itself. Instead of taking a good and hard look at themselves and how the Left has unleashed and enabled the brutality, progressives tar conservatives as the demons.

The progressives do this by devilish actions: first, turning conservatives into subhumans, as the other. (...) The Left denies that evil forces exist because they deny God. Evil cannot exist without its polar opposite, the Creator. (...)

And so Leftists do what they always do: blame conservatives. They disown any responsibility for the dark times that are upon us. They exploit the Tucson tragedy, thereby creating more damage. And through it all, Leftists cling to the notion that they a are the Good Guys. (...) >>>

- Ouroboros -

Which brings us back to square one. The Left - or more accurately, those who like to think of themselves as nice, empathic, inclusive, under-dog loving people, often are very far from it. They feel great hostility towards the opposition ... (start from top).

Update

- Caroline Glick: "The Aim of Blood Libels"
- PNJ: "Schneider: Protect uncivil speech? It's only Common Sense"
- American Power: "The Lies of Bill Maher — And the Epic Struggle Between Good and Evil in the Aftermath of Tucson, 1/8/11"

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