The Wright Perspective: On Liberty
My latest at Every Joe is up ( http://www.everyjoe.com/2014/07/23/politics/liberals-mass-neurosis-political-correctness/)
Tyranny is the default state of mankind.
From the first primitive tribes under the paternal leadership of their elders to the most decadent years of the Pharaohs of Egypt or the God-Kings of Babylon, the Emperors of Rome or of Japan, the default assumption was that the great men were ordained by heaven to rule over the lesser men, allegedly for their own good. The idea that men were unequal, not just in wealth and rank, but in their innate, inner worth, their spiritual worth, is universal and worldwide.
Only with the coming of Christendom is a new concept introduced into human history: the concept of individualism, of equality. Christian princes held a higher rank than a pauper, but both knew that both would be naked on Judgment Day. Both knew that Saint Louis was no more nor less a saint than Saint Francis, albeit one was a prince and the other a pauper; both knew the laws of God applied equally to both. This concept was clarified and refined through the ages until, in America, a second new concept was introduced into human history, the concept of the people acting as their own prince, acting without a prince, merely with the law as their leader, and the state would be ordained by men, not by heaven, to act only in a limited sphere. It was an ideal of a small and limited government ruled by rules rather than by princes.
The mass neurosis called Political Correctness (sometimes called Leftism or Liberalism or Progressivism or Morlockery) is the old days back again. It is the old system of government we had in the Stone Ages, where the tribal chief acted as father and priest and god-king, and in his expert wisdom, decided each detail of anything that concerned the tribe. Political Correctness is the old corrupt system of the Pharaohs and Tyrants and Sultans of the East, unlimited government, government by courtiers, government by cronies, government in every nook and smallest crevasse of life.
It is the claim that we have persons who have an innate and inner superiority to us. By happy coincidence, our superiors happen to be them, the very people who lust over power over us and over each last tiny details of our lives and thought.
Read the test here — http://www.everyjoe.com/2014/07/23/politics/liberals-mass-neurosis-political-correctness/
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.
