Addendum to the Unified Field Theory of Madness
Deep thought and sudden insight inspired me to add another point to my theory:
If we could also explain why the Rich, who are routinely vilified by the Left number among its most ardent supporters, or the secular Jews, our theory would be very potent in its explanatory power.
8. The Paradoxes of the Wealthy Socialist and the Antisemitic Jew.
While it is not one of the main paradoxes addressed above, one must be curious why so many of the Left seem to have joined a movement with a worldview that is innately hostile to what appears to be their self-interests.
But recall what the Unified Field Theory of Madness predicts: From the roots of the compassionate epistemology, which forbids them from holding any opinion based on judgment, we have seen how this flowers into to the judgments all opponents are evil, all lovely things hateful, no war is just, no independence of thought is to be tolerated, no success to go unpunished, and no truth to be admitted.
To whom would this naturally appeal? What sort of man wants the laurels due to an intelligent man, without doing the work of actually using his intellect? What sort wants the palm leaf due an honest man, without shouldering the burden of honesty? What sort wants the ovations due a hero, without the danger or bloodshed of heroism? Who wants other people’s wealth, but not for himself, nor, apparently, for anyone, merely wasted in a vast display of public pomp?
And why are they so angry? Why so vehement? Why so arrogant? Why do they always attack the person, and never the argument, during any disagreement?
It is because they are respecters of person, and that is all they are. Christianity, Capitalism, and Democracy are all innately egalitarian. While Emperors and Kings exist comfortably in Christendom, dictators, tyrants, and Oriental potentates with absolute powers unbound by any law, and Brahmin, held to be superior spiritually, not just temporally, do not. In a free market, a car salesman is worth what his customers pay him, but his right to property is the same as that of a famous and insightful novelist, who is paid much less. In a democracy you do not get an extra vote merely because you are smart. Christianity, Capitalism, and Democracy are all innately no respecters of person.
Recall the description of unearned pride as the addictive drug of this type of psychology. Now, pride exists in all of us, but overweening pride exists mostly in men of some accomplishment, real or imagined: such as inheriting vast wealth; such as being a member of a highly bookish and intelligent Chosen People whose myriad accomplishments, even when dispossessed of their homeland, have no parallel; such as earning a degree in an elite university; such as having artistic or spiritual insights, or the gift of gab, which allowed one to enter the Chattering Classes, and earn one’s daily brain merely by words and wits — some accomplishment, that is, which in their estimation has not been recognized nor rewarded as due.
But what is the one thing the Rich, the Chosen or the Elite, blessed by so much, cannot get for love or money in a Christian Commonwealth, in a Free Market, or by vote in a Democracy?
They cannot get rank. They cannot get the imponderable pomp and honor and deference due to men of noble or high station paid to them by the lesser and inferior ranks.
For it is not just wealth, or race, or intellect that makes a man into the shriveled and whining destroyers I have here so tellingly described. It is a sense of being cheated.
You heard me. These pampered and privileged members of the elite feel that they are being robbed of their just due. Being elite is not enough. They want the lesser beings, the common men, the mob, the peasants, the underlings, to give them the honor and worship and adoration normally paid to a true and ruling aristocracy.
These people hate America, and everything for which she stands, and hate Christ, and everything for which He stands, with the bitter hatred of someone who has earned a high position and been cheated of it. Democracy does not give them what they want. God does not give them what they want.
Look at what Leftist political theory did in Russia and Red China once it was freed of all lingering doubts and checks and chains. Look at the piles of skulls. Then look at the Dachas and the larger-than-life monuments to the Beloved Leader.
They want to be aristocrats, in spirit if not in fact. They want to be born into privilege, and to be admired, without the tedium of actually doing anything to earn admiration, neither in the marketplace of the market, nor in the marketplace of ideas.
There is no paradox at all of rich man being committed to policies that will destroy the laws and customs needed to create wealth. The Middle Class creates most of the wealth, most of the jobs. Socialism requires cooperation between certain protected industries to be kept alive as neutered pets. Whether the rich bribe the powerful or the powerful extort wealth from the rich makes no matter: the end result is a partnership between the rich and powerful to trample the faces of the poor. That is the end result of the mindset described above, once it is free to act, and devoid of scruples. Imagine a boot stomping a human face forever.
Any proud man who feels the society has not given him his due will gradually grow more critical and impatient with it. Remember the hatred poured out upon the Middle Class, and our religion, and our morals, and our work ethic. Remember how we are accused, and accused, and accused of the very things we and we alone, across the ages, have cured or corrected or minimized, everything from pollution to racism to population outnumbering resources.
The reward of wealth is not enough for the rich socialist; the reward of freedom from racism not enough for the Jew who supports Palestinian bombers and hates the state of Israel; the reward of sinecure is not enough for the Ivory Tower professor. They see men who are self-reliant and happy and God-fearing who do not bow the knee to men who possess more, physical or intellectual possessions, than do they. They do not fear and love their superiors. That the ordinary working man, a father with a family, should be happy in his suburban home, and pay no honors and make no obeisance to the would-be elite in our elite-free society is intolerable.
They do not want our money. If they wanted money, they would not spend countless billions on boondoggles or flush it down ratholes. They do not want to rule us. If they wanted to rule, they would not be so absurdly incompetent when in power.
They want only to have the honors, like Princesses, not the duties of war and lawmaking, like Kings. In the final reckoning, when all is said and done, all these paradoxes can be explained by the simplest theory of all.
Leftism is the sin of pride disguised as compassion.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
