Leftism v Facts
A friend of mine sent me this link to a column on Slate:
https://slate.com/technology/2017/02/counter-lies-with-emotions-not-facts.html
It is not worth reading, so I will sum up: the writer is affirming that fact checking will not stop rumors and falsehoods, but jests and memes will, so the writer suggests giving up on facts, at least for a time.
Unironically, the three things she offers as examples of rumors not to be quenched are “No, there won’t be death panels. No, Sarah Palin didn’t cut funding for special education. Yes, Obama was born in America.”
Obviously, there will be death panels, since inevitable logic says there must be once you prioritize health care by political categories, the empirical examples of England and Canada testify to this inevitability.
Obama being born in America is a question that could be solved by producing his birth certificate. It has been sealed. Draw your own conclusions.
The third thing was a leftwing smear against a rightwing politician. “Sarah Palin didn’t cut funding for special education.” Of course, the Leftist lie is a lie. It is placed here to give a false impression of objectivity.
After expressing typically girlish and unsightly emotion over the fact that rumors often overwhelm truth, the writer then suggests using rhetoric, emotional appeals, and falsehoods.
She is suggesting to use a non-truthful approach when a truthful approach is not cost-effective. The ends, you see, justify the means.
But the true, unintentionally hilarious, recklessly shameless or absurdly unselfaware punchline comes next:
“You’ll hate it because we liberals tend to pride ourselves on caring about evidence, science, and accuracy.”
The reader may wish to pause a moment to recover from laughter or shock or despair, depending on his temperament. A brain-slave of the Woke Mind Virus, and a cog in the most insidious, ubiquitous, unrelenting, vile, dishonest, crooked and nasty Project Mockingbird Media-Agitprop Industrial complex establishment political machine ever devised by man is suggesting to deviate from strict honor and literal truth.
As if the Noah-sized Deluge of Fakeness had not swept away all the antediluvians kingdoms of man, and drowned the life from the last few orphans, puppies and kittens clinging piteously to the shrinking peaks of submerging mountains, kicking in vain, trying to keep their noses above the endless flood of Orwellian Lies overwhelming and overspilling this, the Age of Gaslighting.
How can Lefties be so earnestly and so often say the exact opposite of the truth about themselves?
One theory is that the Lefties lie and know that they are lying, that they love lying, and that the lies are loved because they are lies.
One theory is that the Lefties do not know that they are lying, and are making honest efforts to discover the truth, but are misled and beguiled by their fellow Leftists, and have no idea that they are lying.
Yet another theory is that the Left are brainwashed, mesmerized, or possessed by Devils from Hell, so that they are trapped inside their dark, crooked, and shrinking brains, unable to see themselves for what they are, unable to admit mistakes, unable to hear the stream of gargling nonsense coming out of their mouths and dripping from their pens.
My own theory is that every man is controlled, whether he know it or not, by a philosophy, a worldview, a dogma of faith. It can be one he has examined, or one he accepts without examination. He might be unaware of the philosophy possessing him, or he might be aware. The Leftist philosophy is Gnosticism, which is based on a simple & absolute devotion to falsehood over truth, evil over good, death over life.
All falsehoods pretend to be truths. All devils appear as angels of light. So Leftism, which is a no-thought condition of mental suspended animation, pretends to be thoughtful. Leftism is paleolithic mysticism pretending to be futuristic science. Leftism is envy pretending to be equality, racism pretending to be the brotherhood of man, hellish hatred dressed as the sheep’s clothing of heavenly compassion, fascism disguised as democracy.
My theory is that Leftism is a neurotic balancing act of trying to talk and act while avoiding thinking, reasoning, cognition altogether: a whole nation of men pretending to be sleepwalkers, devoid of common sense, seeking revenge against the happy, sane and fortunate.
They neither know nor fail to know when they are hypocrites. Hypocrisy is the source and summit of their mental life: rules for thee, not for me. Gnosticism regards all rules to be illegitimate exercise of power by bullies and exploiters over the exploited, so no rule need ever be obeyed by me. The only point of rules is to trick the exploiters into obeying their own rules, so as to entangle and hinder them. Rules are only weapons in the struggle. No Gnostic really believes in any rules.
Likewise, words are not spoken to affirm the truth or express opinions. They are also weapons, nothing but. Lies are not a lapse nor an oversight: false words based on false thoughts are the core of their worldview.
Everything is a weapon. Everything. Happiness is impossible in this worldview. Leftism is hell.
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.
