John C. Wright's Journal

The final installment of an essay where one of the great mysteries of the modern age is illumined.

Perhaps, like me, you have wondered how it is that so many people, otherwise honest, can adopt without demur the Orwellian anti-language of Political Correctness; how it is that so many people, otherwise rational, can adopt without demur the paradoxes, self-contradictions and logical absurdities involved in relativistic morality, materialistic ontology, subjective epistemology, and the other nuggets of vacuous blither forming the foundations of modern thought; how it is that so many people, otherwise possessing good taste, can without demur fund and support and praise the blurry aberrations of modern art, praise ugliness, despise beauty; how it is that so many people, otherwise good and peaceful, can praise and support and excuse the hellish enormities and mass murders of figures like Che and Mao and Stalin and Castro; or can view with cold eye the piles of tiny corpses heaped outside abortion mills, and make such enemies of the human race into heroes; or can rush to the defense of Mohammedan terrorists with freakish shrieks of ‘Islamophobia!’ and ‘Racist!’ even though to be wary of Jihadists bent on your destruction is rational rather than phobic, and even thought Mohammedanism is a religion, not a race; how otherwise happy, moral, reasonable and decent people can not merely excuse sexual perversion, but will be swept up in a fervor of righteous indignation even if someone points out the biological or Biblical reality of the situation; and likewise excuse lies in their leaders, and adulteries, and abuses of power, and abuses of drugs, and any number of things these otherwise ordinary people would never do themselves.

And, finally, Perhaps, like me, you have wondered why it is that these people who are otherwise civil nonetheless can neither explain their positions nor stop talking, and their talk consists of nothing, nothing, nothing aside from childish personal attacks, slanders, sneers, and accusation, accusation, accusation.   Why are they so angry? Why are they so noisy? Why are they so blissfully unaware of the vice, injustice, ugliness and evil they support?

As I said in a previous essay, I had an insight into the answer, or part of the answer, into this question.  It is an answer which I do not pretend is original, but which I happened never to have seen before, so it is new to me.

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• Suburbanbanshee posted on February 16, 2014
  I think you would have to tell us first which books of Western literature feature a flawless hero who never…
• John C Wright posted on February 13, 2014
  No, your views are a result of a popular error in economics which says that increasing automation creates unemployment. This…
• Jay Santos posted on February 13, 2014
  Having worked in hospital emergency rooms and clinics for the last fifteen years, I can assure you that I have…

I am engaged in the difficult task of explaining an insight it required my dull brain several decades of experience and one moment of epiphany to see.

Again, in all fairness, this is something which I assume nearly everyone but me has seen for years: but to me it was an intellectual adventure, as shocking as opening a hidden door and coming across the Minotaur in the center of his bone-littered maze. Many others no doubt have trod here before, but still I feel the excitement of discovery, for I have found the heart of the labyrinth.

I have been puzzled for years how it is that so many otherwise wise and educated people can be Leftists; why so many otherwise compassionate people simply overlook the bloodthirsty enormities routinely perpetrated, applauded, excused, and rationalized by the Left, from prenatal infanticide to lauding Che and Castro and other butchers of men; why otherwise honest men approve of the Orwellian lies of Political Correctness, which corrupts both speech and thought; why so many otherwise good and faithful Christians routinely ignore Christian teaching and cling to the shibboleths of Political Correctness on any point where the two worldviews differ; why so many good people so routinely support, applaud, and encourage so blatantly vile an evil.

It is too obvious for the blindness to be anything but willful, and yet it does not seem to be willful, for who can will the destruction of themselves and all they hold dear? How is it possible for so many children of the most blessed, most powerful, most successful, most wealthy, most free, and most benevolent nation history has ever known to hate it? Why are the heirs of Western Civilization the enemies of Western Civilization?

The epiphany visited me in the space of a single hour, along the course of three conversations with honest men I happen to respect, despite our deep differences of opinion.

It was as if I suddenly could see clinging to the countenances of these otherwise honest and able men, the Facehugger from ALIEN which had been invisible up until that point, whose long proboscis entered their skulls though mouth and palate and shot poison into their brains. I wondered why they did not tear the Facehugger away, and breathe free.

Not to spoil the surprise ending, but the reason the exploded into my awareness like a bolt was this: they have nothing else. They leave the alien thing lodged in their brain, eating away their happiness, ruining their lives, spoiling friendships and darkening the light of heaven for the simple, tragic reason that without the alien thing, they would be lonely.

I mentioned the first discussion and one of many, many nondiscussions which clicked the first two tumblers into place in the process of unlocking this moment of insight. Here is the next.
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• Centurion13 posted on February 9, 2014
  Oh, I have NOTHING against the Law of the Jungle. But as to whether it is sensible or somewhat fair…
• Arakawa posted on February 9, 2014
  "a regression back to the Law of the Jungle, where whoever has the biggest stick decides what is Right." To…
• robertjwizard posted on February 9, 2014
  As Dylan said, "The Times they are a-changin'" I would say Centurion13 is talking about the New Atheists, and they…

This is the second part of an essay in which I try to explain, in a few zillion words or so, an insight that took me less than a second. As I said before, it is no doubt something which many people have noticed erenow, but to me it allowed many disconnected facts to leap into place.

I said before that the insight was based on three discussions I recently encountered, but, to be precise, one non-discussion must be added. This is one of the sets of facts that fitted itself suddenly into place with a click like a tumbler falling.

The one non-discussion must serve in the place of an endless number of non-discussions. A non-discussion is that particular act of craven intellectual treachery whereby a man flees from confronting any honest inquiry into his arguments by decreeing imperiously that no discussion is profitable or possible: the matter was settled long ago, and to dissent is a sign of mental incapacity and moral depravity and treason and blasphemy and worse.

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• John C Wright posted on April 14, 2014
  Thank you. The important thing to remember is that the Left is not the enemy. They are merely innocent dupes…
• jimf posted on April 14, 2014
  Just found the link from Larry Correia. Excellent essay and analysis of the "Left"!
• Tyrrell McAllister posted on February 9, 2014
  I am a liberal, a progressive, and a free thinker, in the sense in which most people understand those terms…

I had an insight recently, one of those Archimedes-sloshes-the-bath moments where a great mass of otherwise disorganized observations and rules-of-thumb suddenly fell into a pattern as neat as a periodic table. It is no doubt something many thinkers have seen and discussed erenow, but this was the first time I saw it, and to me it was a new as a young man’s first infatuation, as new as spring.

The insight occurred during a three discussions with fellow writers for whom I have enormous respect, but whose ideas I condemn as misleading, deceptive, even poisonous. (If you wonder one can respect a man whose ideas you loathe, imagine being a mother whose child grows up to be a drug addict, or a sexual pervert, or demon-possessed. The greater her love for the child, the deeper her hatred of the addiction, perversion, or possession enslaving him.)

At the risk of giving away the surprise ending (which, honestly, I suppose is not a surprise to anyone but me) I realized why it is that the current mainstream modern thought, despite its illogical and pointless nature, is so persistent, nay, so desperate.

I realized why they never admit they are wrong no matter how obvious the error, nor can they compromise, nor hold a rational discussion, nor a polite one, nor can they restrain themselves. They can neither win nor surrender.

I realized why their hearts were so restless.  It is obvious once one sees it.

No doubt I should explain first why this was such a puzzle to me.

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• John C Wright posted on March 7, 2014
  Your statement, “This is contrary to the concept of God as sovereign, and to the concept of natural law,” is…
• Montecristo posted on March 6, 2014
  Mr. Wright, you are much too generous. Have you not observed the vehemence with which the collectivists react when confronted…
• Montecristo posted on March 6, 2014
  1. Your statement, "This is contrary to the concept of God as sovereign, and to the concept of natural law,"…