It seems Jeff and I have been doing more than a few posts lately cataloguing the angry derangement of the left. All of this anger, shrillness, violent pathology, intolerance, rage, and rejection of logic coming from those who claim to be the most peceaful, tolerant, and rational members of society creates a paradox. How can a progressive claim to be rationale, and yet consistently favor discredited and unsustainable economic policies? How can a progressive claim to be tolerant, yet demand that all contrary opinion be shouted down and dissidents be jailed? How can a progressive claim to believe all races are equal, but demand that blacks and hispanics be treated as inferiors that need to be condescended to and acccommodated because they just can’t be expected to perform as well as white people if all are treated equally? And the greatest paradox of all; how are progressive leftists so blind to their own contradictions and hypocrisy?
(Progressive Leftist: “Um, because You’re a RACIST!!!”)
John C. Wright Attempts to explain:
The theory must explain, first, the honest decency of the modern liberals combined with their astonishing indifference, nay, hostility to facts, common sense, and evidence; second, it must explain their high self-esteem (or, to be blunt, their pathological narcissism) combined not merely with an utter lack of accomplishment, but with their utter devotion to destructiveness, a yearning to ruin everything they touch; third, it must explain their sanctimoniousness combined with their applause, praise, support, and tireless efforts to spread all perversions (especially sexual), moral decay, vulgarity, and every form of desecration; fourth, their pretense of intellectual superiority combined with their notorious mental fecklessness; fifth, it must explain both their violence and their pacifism; sixth, the theory must explain why they hate the very things they should love most; seventh, the theory must explain why they are incapable of comprehending an honest disagreement or any honorable foe.
The essay attempts to arrive at this theory, and as such, has to cover a lot of ground, and uses a lot of big words and philosophical concepts that would be utterly lost on the typical progressive Obama-voter. But it sort of comes down to this.
How can anyone continue to be a Leftist for a week, much less for a lifetime?
The answer, allow me to remind the patient reader, grows out of their theory. Again, their theory of knowledge is that there is no knowledge, no truth, only bigoted opinion. The only way to avoid bigotry is to avoid judgment and the use of reason. Avoiding reason necessitates a theory of morality that denies cause and effect. No vice causes loss, no virtue causes happiness. Hence life is a random roulette wheel. If there are no vices and virtues, not even the intellectual virtues of honest thinking, then no independent thought is desired or permitted. Instead, all thoughts are determined by social cues. Thought is collective.
…
The whole point of Liberal theory from start to finish is to form earplugs to smother the ringing of that alarm clock called reality.
…
The Leftists are people who abandon their innate intelligence and moral stature and who deliberately make themselves to be stupider than average, less moral and upright and decent than average, who at once combine the worst features of a self-deceived fool and a self-deceiving conniving con-man. The only thing that saves them from the constant pain of the dentist drill of their conscience, the constant clamor of their wretched self-esteem telling them that they do not deserve to live, the only thing, indeed, keeping them alive, is their false and inflated sense of sanctimony.
This sounds like Evan Sayet’s theory. I’m not taking away from Wright; only supplying some more words that make the point.
The liberal’s goal is (in Sayet’s words) a Kindergarden of Eden, where unicorns and rainbows reign supreme because everyone is special and no one ever rejects, judges (morally) or discriminates. Since the goal itself flies in the face of reality, it is inevitable that the liberal herself would contradict it (she must inevitably do quite a lot of rejecting, judging and discriminating as she attempts to bring it about).
Moreover, she must inevitably attack whatever has proven to be good, right or successful in the world, because her philosophy rejects the concept that success is ever deserved. Since everyone is “special”, no one ever deserves to be more successful. And since no on ever deserves it, all examples of success in the world are necessarily undeserved. Anytime one person, viewpoint or country is more successful than another, it is “unfair” by definition; it could only have arisen for corrupt, unfair or unjust reasons (rather than authentic, honest reasons). The liberal is then morally obligated to tear it down, by whatever means necessary.
Ah, now that I read the full article, I see that Wright goes into Sayet at length.
Why are they angry? because they have hit the wall. They are at their high water mark and they know it. It’s all down hill from here, the primary problem being the lack of a new generation of the left is they are dependent on the children of others who will sooner or later follow in the footsteps of their parents. When they started pushing abortion, Choice! they never realized they were aborting the future generations of leftists. It was supposed to only be for the poor and middle class. It didn’t work out that way.