Enlightened Caine, Benighted Abel
Those of us who are alarmed at the speed at which Leftists can go from praising Elon Musk as the electric vehicle savior of the ecosphere to committing random acts of hooliganism against innocent (and usually fellow Leftist) electric vehicle owners should not be surprised.
In general, if a Right-wingers sees a Leftist defend a traditionally rightwing position, such as Musk, defend free speech, or RFK Jr defend public health, or even JFK vow to put a man on the moon, we say, “The battle between light and darkness passes through every man’s heart” and we say “All men are sinners; but no sinner who repents is beyond salvation.”
But in general, if the Left-winger sees a Right-winger defend a traditionally Leftwing position, such as being anti-war, pro-Israel, or suspicious of the CIA, FBI and Wall Street, they scream and scream and scream, “Putin’s puppet, colonizer racist, no one is above the law, fascist, fascist, fascist!” No slander is too dark, too absolute, nor too absurd for them to repeat.
Often they must coin new terms, usually ending in -phobia, to level the accusation that holding an unapproved opinion is a mental illness.
However, no one who has read NINETEEN EIGHTY FOUR by Geo Orwell is surprised. “Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”
Orwell merely observed Soviet thinking and penned a pretend future to set this thinking in England. It was a remarkably honest book, shockingly so to this day. But not an inventive one. Orwell was inventive only in the gallows-humor irony of the depiction.
The ability of the Left to engage in Double-think, and so revise opinions instantaneously and retroactively to adhere without any trace of doubt to the current pronouncements of Minitru is, for them, a feature, not a bug, and not a damnable sin leading them to endless hellfire.
There is an ongoing argument I have with my closest friend which has gone on so long, we call it the Eternal Argument.
One of us believes the Leftists rank and file believes what their officers tell them to believe, and actually believe it. These true believers are dupes deceived by the scientifically sophisticated robust and ubiquitous propaganda machine upheld by the teaching establishment, the entertainment industry, the press, the intelligentsia, and the international order.
The other says that no matter what they actually believe in their minds, out from their mouths come lies so outrageous no sane man could possibility believe it, and which contradicts all they said not long ago. They do not believe — in the sense of having any reason to believe other than that they were pressured to do so — anything they say, not a word, not a syllable, not even the jot above the smallcase j.
The two sides of the Eternal Argument, however, agree on the point you just made. Rightwingers think there is good and bad in every man, so no one can be trusted with absolute power. Leftists think whoever recites the Party talking points is a saint, and whoever doubts is a devil, because the idea of doubting the Party is blasphemy, false consciousness, microaggression, a dog-whistle, and, in short not what it seems on the surface.
The whole appeal of Leftist is the self-congratulatory self-deception of thinking you, the superior men, the enlightened, have the inner secret knowledge to unlock the clockwork of the world, which lesser men, the benighted, do not share. This secret inner knowledge is a paranoid conspiracy theory that the powers in command of the world, the Church, the Patriarchy, the White Man, International Jewry, use the opiate of religion, law and custom, such as gender roles or Whiteness or Jewish banks, to command and control the ignorant masses which are exploited and oppressed by the conspirators. Lack of proof about the conspiracy is proof of the skill of the conspirators.
Leftists think they are living in the world of THE MATRIX, and that they alone are Morpheus, in whose palm is the truth pill.
So the fact that the Right thinks the Left are wrong, whereas the Left think the Right are evil does not come as a surprise.
Masses of men can fall under the spell of extraordinary popular delusions, and be carried off by the madness of crowds. What is remarkable is that the majority of men raging in a crowd of madness is not himself mad. If the crowd suddenly pulled back from the brink of the cliffs of insanity, most true believers would follow in lockstep, merely to stay with the crowd.
Here is irony: the Leftism hivemind obeys and adores everything self-destructive, but no individual Leftist is necessarily suicidal.
The average Leftist follower merely wants three things: first, to receive praise for being mentally and morally superior to men smarter and braver and more virtuous than he, without going to the expense or effort of scholarship or heroism or sainthood. He wants the credentials of a famous school, or work in a prestigious career, without actually being smart or talented.
Second, he wishes to conform well with his circle of friends and fellow cultists, to follow and adore whatever celebrity or intellectual is currently fashionable. Collectivists are conformists who pretend (unconvincingly) to be freethinkers. They repeat bromides dating from the Victorian Era while pretending (unconvincingly) to be current, revolutionary, cutting-edge, or futuristic.
Third and finally, some are motivated by a sincere if naive soft-heartedness which urges generosity with the money and effort of other men. In this, they are utterly un-self-aware and un-self-reflective. To them, all public policy be judged by the womanly standard of intention, not the manly standard of result. Which means, not judged at all. They wish to have the laurels of reformers and crusaders without accomplishing any reforms or winning any crusades.
Leftism is indistinguishable from a mental disease, a form of narcissist obsessive-compulsive paranoia. It is indistinguishable form sever retardation, where even ordinary words and simple reasoning is forever beyond their grasp. And yet the main mass of partisans of Leftism, despite being medicated for mental illness, are not mentally ill. Despite their academic credentials (a sure sign of inability to follow a syllogism of three steps or define a term honestly) they are not retarded. The problem is spiritual, not neuropsychological.
Leftism is a heresy of Christianity. It promotes, as socialism, the lifestyle of Apostles who share all goods in common. It promotes, as the Nanny State, the commandment to care for the poor and downtrodden, but calls it charity when coerced. It reads the injunction to love one’s neighbor as a license to demand one’s neighbor first tolerate one’s sins and depravities, then celebrate, then fund and support with vocal and unlimited praise. Silence is violence, after all.
Leftism believes all men are brothers, even thought it dismissed with contempt the concept of a Father in Heaven or mutual ancestor in Adam to make us brothers. But the brothers are divided into Abel, who are blessed by God, prosperous and hale, and Caine, whose sacrifice is unacceptable, and is downcast, and jealous of his brother. But the Left sides with Caine, and urges all jealous and unhappy classes of men to rise up against their brothers and slay them.
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.
