THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF "HONORING" WOMEN IN THE RELIGION OF PEACE

Andy McCarthy at The Corner catches this incredible exchange from MEMRI recorded earlier this year:

Interviewer: Wife beating is a serious accusation [leveled against Islam]. Let us examine this matter bit by bit.

Sa’d Arafat: Allah honored wives by instating the punishment of beatings.

Interviewer: Honored them with beatings? How is this possible?

Sa’d Arafat: The prophet Muhammad said: “Don’t beat her in the face, and do not make her ugly.” See how she is honored. If the husband beats his wife, he must not beat her in the face. Even when he beats her, he must not curse her. This is incredible! He beats her in order to discipline her.

In addition, there must not be more than ten beatings, and he must not break her bones, injure her, break her teeth, or poke her in the eye. There is a beating etiquette. If he beats to discipline her, he must not raise his hand high. He must beat her from chest level. All these things honor the woman.

She is in need of discipline. How should the husband discipline her? Through admonishment. If she is not deterred, he should refuse to share the bed with her. If she is not repentant, he should beat her, but there are rules to the beating. It is forbidden to beat her in the face or make her ugly. When you beat her, you must not curse her. Islam forbids this.

Interviewer: With what should be beat her? With his bare hand? With a rod?

Sa’d Arafat: If he beats her, the beatings should not be hard, so that they do not leave a mark. He can beat her with a short rod. He must avoid beating her in the face or in places in the head where it hurts. The beatings should be on the body and should not come one right after the other. These are all choices made during the process, but beatings are allowed only as a last resort. [...]

The honoring of the wife in Islam is also evident in the fact that the punishment of beating is permissible in one case only: when she refuses to sleep with him.

Interviewer: When she refuses to sleep with him?

Sa’d Arafat: Yes, because where else could the husband go? He wants her, but she refuses….

Only in the upside down world of Islam could a woman consider a beating to be "an honor". This is an Egyptian cleric on Egypt TV saying this; not some backwards jihadi hiding in a cave (even if that is the proper place for such a man). But enough about the learned cleric, Sa'd Arafat. Where are the voices of the Women's Movement condemning this kind of outrageous idiocy? Where is our foolish President, who apologizes daily for Western values and bows to Saudi princes? Where is Code Pink and others of that ilk? Where, in short, are the useful idiots of the political left on this issue?

Usually, they can be found rationalizing and aggressively supporting this deeply misogynistic and backward religion; making sure it is incorporated into the K-12 curriculum so our children accept the idea that it is "peaceful" and that we are not; and ensuring that Islam has a special place in the public sphere (not granted to any other religion) so that they won't be labeled Islamophobic-- that's where they are.

Allah knows he has some powerful (and deeply terrified)allies in the useful idiots of the political left. Take for example, the Archbishop of Canterbury's descent into multiculti sermonizing. This story is old, but it emphasizes the extent of the betrayal of western values exhibited by someone who should know better. With intellectual and spiritual leaders like Williams, the Anglican congregations should just convert en masse to Islam and be done with it. Why waste time?

Even more amazing was that Williams was simply shocked at the outrage and anger that was then directed at him after he made his remarks. He was misunderstood! His intent was only to promote tolerance, understanding and love.

Just like the GZM promoters, I guess.

But what these apologists for Islam are actually are promoting is an anti-human ideology masquerading as a religion; and one which has at its foundation a horrendous and viscious misogyny.

This article which discussed the Archbishop controversy has a fascinating exchange between Nicholas Sarkhozy and Tariq Ramadan on the subject of sharia law and its support and encouragement for stoning women:

Six million Frenchmen watched Ramadan defend the stoning of women for the crime of adultery in a televised debate with the present President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, then the Interior Minister. As quoted by Paul Berman in The New Republic of June 4, 2007, the transcript reads as follows, Ramadan refuses outright to say that he is against stoning adulteresses:

Sarkozy: A moratorium ... Mr Ramadan, are you serious?

Ramadan: Wait, let me finish.

Sarkozy: A moratorium, that is to say, we should, for a while, hold back from stoning women?

Ramadan: No, no, wait ... What does a moratorium mean? A moratorium would mean that we absolutely end the application of all of those penalties, in order to have a true debate. And my position is that if we arrive at a consensus among Muslims, it will necessarily end. But you cannot, you know, when you are in a community ... Today on television, I can please the French people who are watching by saying, "Me, my own position." But my own position doesn't count. What matters is to bring about an evolution in Muslim mentalities, Mr Sarkozy. It's necessary that you understand ...

Sarkozy: But, Mr Ramadan ...

Ramadan: Let me finish.

Sarkozy: Just one point. I understand you, but Muslims are human beings who live in 2003 in France, since we are speaking about the French community, and you have just said something particularly incredible, which is that the stoning of women, yes, the stoning is a bit shocking, but we should simply declare a moratorium, and then we are going to think about it in order to decide if it is good ... But that's monstrous - to stone a woman because she is an adulterer! It's necessary to condemn it!

Ramadan: Mr Sarkozy, listen well to what I am saying. What I say, my own position, is that the law is not applicable - that's clear. But today, I speak to Muslims around the world and I take part, even in the United States, in the Muslim world ... You should have a pedagogical posture that makes people discuss things. You can decide all by yourself to be a progressive in the communities. That's too easy. Today my position is, that is to say, "We should stop."

Sarkozy: Mr Ramadan, if it is regressive not to want to stone women, I avow that I am a regressive.

"You should have a pedagogical posture that makes people discuss things" such as stoning women, Ramadan insisted, which is to say that were he to condemn violence against women outright, he would be unable to speak to Muslim communities.

That is Williams' source. Coming from the leader of a major Christian denomination, this depth of hypocrisy is satanic, if that word has any meaning at all.

I have written about women and Islam multiple times (see here, here, here or here for example), but it is worth going over the psychodynamics of the sort of vicious misogyny that many on the left just can't bring themselves to condemn, one more time.

In "The Boys of the Taliban", Jamie Glazov wrote about one particular rule (rule 19) of the new Taliban "code of conduct" for its fighters in Afghanistan:

But there is a curious rule that the Western media has typically ignored. Rule No. 19 instructs that Taliban fighters must not take young boys without facial hair into their private quarters....

Aside from the question of what is permitted if a young boy does happen to have facial hair, this new Taliban commandment brings light to a taboo pathology that underlies the structures of militant Islam. And it is crucial to deconstruct the meaning of this rule -- and the horrid reality that it represents -- because it serves as a gateway to understanding the primary causes of Islamic rage and terror.

Rule No. 19 obviously indicates that the sexual abuse of young boys is a prevalent and institutionalized phenomenon among the Taliban and that, for one reason or another, its widespread practice has become a problem.

The fact that Taliban militants’ spare time involves sodomizing young boys should by no means be any kind of surprise or eyebrow raiser. That a mass pathology such as this occurs in a culture which demonizes the female and her sexuality -- and puts her out of mind and sight -- is only to be expected. To be sure, it is a simple given that the religious male fanatic who flies into a violent rage even at the thought of an exposed woman’s ankle will also be, in some other dysfunctional and dark secret compartment of his fractured life, the person who leads some poor helpless young boy into his private chambers.

The key issue here is that the demented sickness that underlies Rule No. 19 is by no means exclusive to the Taliban; it is a widespread phenomenon throughout Islamic-Arab culture and it lies, among other factors, at the root of that culture’s addiction to rage and its lust for violence, terror and suicide.

There is a basic and common sense empirical human reality: wherever humans construct and perpetuate an environment in which females and their sexuality are demonized and are pushed into invisibility, homosexual behaviour among men and the sexual abuse of young boys by older men always increases. Islamic-Arab culture serves as a perfect example of this paradigm, seeing that gender apartheid, fear of female sexuality and a vicious misogyny are the structures on which the whole society functions.

Glazov goes on to argue that Islamist terror can be thought of in part, at least, as a response to sexual rage, frustration, and the humiliation of being connected to a "degraded mother." Thus the men in the culture must constantly assert their masculinity, defend their masculine "honor", and strike out in rage against any who "shame" them.

This is apparent in the sexual mutilation of terror victims who are perceived as "inferior" by the Islamists, and on a par with women of their own culture. It is also seen in the Freudian symbolism of the barbaric act of beheading; as well as in the ubiquitous rape of non-muslim women around the world.

To some extent, such behavior has been seen in all cultures that debase or oppress women. In misogynistic cultures (and individuals) there is usually both the revulsion of the "whore" combined with a perverse obsession with, attraction to, and idealization of "perfection" in a woman (the "madonna" complex). In order to be idealized, women must be stripped of any hint of sexuality.
As a culture, the Arab-Islamic world has perfected this "stripping" to a nightmarish art form of shapeless, individualess, blank nothingness.

Misogyny can be defined as an unreasonable fear or hatred of women. Ever since Eve tempted Adam, women have been reviled in many ways and for many overt reasons around the world and in various cultures. They are hated and feared for their bodies, which tempt men to give into their "base" instincts; They are feared and considered "unclean" because of their monthly cycle of bleeding; they are hated for their unique feminine abilities, which are invariably considered malicious--or worse, evil--by the misogynist individual or culture.

There are three basic motivations underlying why men fear/hate/vilify women (and they are not mutually exclusive, but may exist in various combinations or all at the same time) :
-sexual frustration;
-castration anxiety, and
-resentment and anger at being dependent on women, especially the mother.

The idealization of women, on the other hand, originates from the innate desire of all humans, male or female, to return to the perfect union with the mother that each experienced in the womb.

There are also multiple reasons why women might hate other women on both an individual and societal level, and thus are often complicit in their own subjugation in misogynistic societies.

Many women hate or envy other women whose existence lowers their own status with men, i.e., other women who are more attractive than they are either in looks or accomplishment, depending on the cultural expectations. For example, in one culture a woman might attract men because of her beauty; in another because of her purity or religious devotion. A corollary to this is that the aging woman will increasingly become aware of her diminishing attraction to men or usefulness to a society that only values her reproductive capability. This sets up a dynamic tension between old and young women. In all cultures where female genital mutilation occurs, while it is the male-dominated society that mandates it, the operation itself is performed by older women on younger women; and has the direct effect of decreasing the sexual capabilities/responsiveness of the younger--thus "leveling the playing field" by some accounts. Older--"useless" women--can become societal heroes only by embracing the violence and rage of the sexually frutstrated and fearful men.

Needless to say, the family dynamics in viciously misogynic cultures like those dominated by Islamic extremists, create severely impaired girls and boys. It has been noted by many researchers and observers that children of both sexes are routinely physically and sexually abused by male relatives (indeed there are religious rules in Islam that designate under what circumstances babies may be used for sexual gratification by adults) . The boys are publicly circumcised and the girls clitoridectomized. Since a woman's behavior is the source of all shame and dishonor for the men in Islamic society, women must be ruthlessly controlled. The degree of control is proportional to the degree of sexual repression and frustration (and hence rage) that is mandated by the culture/religion.

In normal societies, the act of "mothering", which is almost always relegated to the female, may be accomplished by either females or males as long as they provide that early and continual nurturing, acceptance and security that a baby needs. The role of "fathering" can also be taken on either by females or males, particularly to the offspring of the same sex and that role usually begins at about the toddler (age 4 give or take). To raise a healthy child, healthy males and females are essential. But in misogynistic societies, the cultural debasement and humiliation of women has a profound impact on both female and male children.

Male children in societies that demonize or debase women must overemphasize their "maleness" in order to separate from the mother. As grown men, far from being able to mitigate the aggressive impulses of a child, such men will encourage these impulses in order to "prove" to the world at large that they (and later, their sons)have not been "feminized". Cultures where women have extremely low status almost always encourage the development of inadequate, "macho" men, who need to prove their manliness and constantly.

In "Where Have All The Mothers Gone?" I commented about a study which demonstrated the power of "good" mothers --i.e., normal, healthy, functioning and unoppressed by their culture-- in overcoming aggression or "bad" behavior in children. Researchers discovered that "good" mothering was able to prevent aggressive and self-destructive behavior in at-risk monkeys. In human terms, "Good" mothering provides a child with respect, love, and security-- the basic aspects of "nurture" that are essential for normal development.

The findings of this and other landmark research studies suggest that without an early mothering influence children were much more likely to grow up to be aggressive and antisocial.

From a psychological perspective then, the freedom and empowerment of women in society are absolutely critical because women are responsible for the earliest environmental influences on children--influences that will impact the child throughout his or her life. If the society has little respect for women and regularly demonizes, debases or humiliates them, the impact will ripple for generations. This is the primary reason why encouraging and promoting women's rights around the world ought to be a high priority of US Foreign Policy.

Women subjected to institutionalized, societal abuse (such as what is seen under the Taliban; and what we see to a greater or lesser extent in almost all Islamic countries--where physical abuse is sanctioned; where women are sexually demonized; where they are deprived of education, as well as physical, social, economic and political freedom) are hardly in a psychological position to be able to provide effective "nurturing" to children.

Women whose own aggressive impulses have been savagely constrained by society and who have few options to sublimate those impulses, are at grave risk of encouraging aggressive and violent "acting out" on the part of their children on their behalf-- especially the male child who must be seriously conflicted about his love for and identification with a lowly-regarded woman.

In other words, such women will hardly prevent inappropriate aggression in their offspring, when such aggression vicariously meets their own needs. And the male children will have to assert their separation and distance from the debased female that is their mother, as aggressively and violently as possible. The father, who might undo some of this early pathology is himself also in the grip of the dysfunctional societal demands, and he must constantly deal with subverting his own normal sexual drives which can only find expression through sanctioned deviancy (as exemplified in Rule 19) and aggression toward women who dare to challenge the societal taboos(i.e., unveiled women, "uppity women", or any infidel women).
Is it any wonder sexual impulses become so perverted and directed toward children? Or that child sexual abuse becomes the only societal outlet for sexuality? Or that the residual aggression is expressed in a barbaric, uncivilized manner?

Family dynamics obviously play an extremely important role in the development of personality, especially in providing values and role-models. The dysfunctional family of Middle Eastern Muslims, where women are hidden and oppressed; prevented from ever being able to grow up normally, while the sexually repressed and enraged men must avoid the shame of the feminine and must aggressively defend their honor and manhood by controlling and debasing anyone who threatens it.

Under the Taliban, which arguably is the most malignant iteration of Islam's dysfunction, women were actively oppressed and beaten for any attempt to express themselves. Even today in the 21st century, mainstream clerics in Islam discuss the "honor" of beating one's wife; and there are actual "debates" about wife-beating.

That we in the West do not sesolutely and clearly condemn such practices out of hand, shows how deeply the "multicultural/diversity" meme has penetrated and poisoned our rational thought processes and diffused appropriate moral outrage.

Finally, it is important to note that sexuality is an essential part of each individual human being. The debasement of women and female sexuality in Islam is destructive to the normal development of personality in both males and females. Psychopathic traits in males are societally encouraged, while females are conditioned to be willing victims and feel "honored" when they are beaten and abused. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to appreciate that when women seek to be the "equal" men by blowing themselves to kingdom come, there is some sort of societal psychopathogy at work--not some sort of "gender liberation".

Ask yourself how will a child can grow up normally knowing their mother thinks of them in this way? This is the ultimate consequence of "honoring" women by beating them.

Is it very surprising that a culture or religion that takes such pride in being viciously misogynistic produces both women AND men who are severely dysfunctional in almost every sphere of human activity?

RATIONALIZING SOCIALISM'S FAILURE

...And, who could do it better than Cuba?
It's all America's fault!

John Hood writes:

Cuba to Downsize Government, Expand Private Sector

The leaders of Cuba are about to embark on a program of reform, government downsizing, and privatization of some industries and services. How do I know? Because I’m such a faithful reader of the Marxist media. According to the online organ of the Party of Socialism and Liberation, the Cuban reform plan doesn’t signify a failure of socialism. It is merely a reaction to American perfidy:

The single biggest and most enduring problem for Cuba, however, is the unceasing war waged against the heroic island nation by the most powerful Empire in history. So, what can we do here? It is by intensifying the revolutionary struggle of the working and poor people in the United States against the Empire that we can render the greatest service to our inspiring and steadfast counterparts in the land of Marti.

Regarding Cuba’s past, limited expansions of private farming and enterprise, you’ll have to read the PSL’s rationalizations in order to believe them. And as for the future, somehow I doubt the pathetic kleptocracy running the island will do anything to endanger its own power — or its subsidies from Hugo Chávez.

At the rate Chavez is beggaring his own country, you'll have to wonder how long Venezuela's communist thugs can subsidize Cuba's. You can bet that it will be America's fault that Venezuela's socialist paradise falls apart, too.

Funny how the left keeps rationalizing socialism's failure to produce wealth. Admittedly, they are rather good at redistributing it (much of it into the leaders' pockets),so that everyone is poor; but the goons in charge just haven't grasped the concept that wealth production is just not something the government is able to do; and it gets harder and harder as time goes by to "redistribute" nothing--which is what you get when you demonize and/or kill off (literally and figuratively) those individuals who actually create wealth in your society.

Over the last hundred years, the letist apologists for socialism and communism have had to face disappointment after disappointment as they watched the unraveling of every Marxist prophecy about the demise of capitalism; and then had to deal with multiple socialist nightmares in the real world; instead of the fantasy dreamworld they imagined. In both theory and practice, socialism's battle for supremacy with capitalism had been decisively lost.

In every empirical test in the real world, capitalism has worked better than socialism and once and for all completely debunked all the original Marxist claims about socialism's supposed superiority.

--Instead of exploiting people, capitalism has empowered them, while socialism made them poor, miserable, and oppressed.
--Instead of increasing poverty, capitalism has mostly eliminated it. The rich get richer indeed; but the poor get richer, too. Under socialism’s yoke, everyone became poorer except the corrupt.
--Instead of being more humane and peaceful, socialism has almost always deteriorated into dictatorship and oppression; and then became aggressive and violent toward other countries

But the confrontation between capitalism and socialism in the last century was only the most recent in a long series of historical battles between the forces of freedom and individualism on the one hand; and the forces of tyranny and collectivism on the other.

We are in the middle of a battle in that long war right now in the U.S. The forces of tyranny and collectivism have a rather bland--even benevolent-- face here (except for the botoxed and artificial features of Nancy Pelosi, who looks rather scary). But under the mask, the Obama's Pelosi's and Reid's of today are not very different from the Castro's or the Chavez's in fundamental principles--or rather the lack of them. They embrace the same discredited ideas and disguise them with the do-gooder's grotesque smile. The joke is on you.

The ideas they espouse all perfectly fit into that tired old Marxist framework that thinks only in terms of the dialectical of "oppressed vs. oppressors". This framework allows the left to continually fan the fires of class warfare and victimhood and thus become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Socialism and Communism cannot fail--they are merely victims of a vast capitalist/American/Jewish conspiracy!

This is a remarkably convenient intellectual and moral escape clause for any ideology that doesn’t actually possess any solutions to real world problems.

And, this is the essence of the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of today's political left. To make their systems even function minimally, they have to steal ideas from those they despise (think of the gun put to John Galt's head in Atlas Shrugged where the statists try and force him to save them from the consequences of their own policies). These bozos want to have the wealth and eat it too.

How long do you suppose it will take for this idea to catch on with our very own bozos in the White House and Congress? Not long, I suspect, because they fundamentally believe that YOU belong to the STATE. So, for them it's just the natural extension of what they're doing now; no big deal.

And when these financial wizards, like Fidel, run out of other people's money to spend, they will keep on rationalizing that it wasn't their fault; it was capitalism's; it was America's; it was the Jews; it was...George Bush's!... and so on and so forth ad infinitum.

The only people they won't blame is themselves; and the only ideas they won't demonize are their own. They are the undead; and they won't ever die--and this war will continue-- until once and for all a stake is hammered into the heart of their misbegotten ideas.

DELUSIONAL OPS

Combat Ops:


[Political cartoons by Ken Catalino]

Economic Ops:



[Political Cartoons by Lisa Benson]

SOCIAL JUSTICE: THE PROGRESSIVES' "GREAT LEAP" BACKWARDS

In a recent column, Thomas Sowell discusses the concept of "social justice":

Warm, fuzzy words and phrases have an enormous advantage in politics. None has had such a long run of political success as "social justice."

The idea cannot be refuted because it has no specific meaning. Fighting it would be like trying to punch the fog. No wonder "social justice" has been such a political success for more than a century — and counting.

While the term has no defined meaning, it has emotionally powerful connotations. There is a strong sense that it is simply not right — that it is unjust — that some people are so much better off than others.

For a phrase so warm,fuzzy and vague, "social justice" has become a critical lynchpin in the economic and social policies put forth by the left.

As it happens, Sowell has written extensively on "The Search for Cosmic Justice". (also in book form) Let me quote a bit from the essay he has written summarizing the book:

...[T]he vast ranges of undeserved inequalities found everywhere are the fault of "society" and so the redressing of those inequalities is called social justice, going beyond the traditional justice of presenting each individual with the same rules and standards. However, even those who argue this way often recognize that some undeserved inequalities may arise from cultural differences, family genes, or from historical confluences of events not controlled by anybody or by any given society at any given time. For example, there was no way that Pee Wee Reese was going to hit as many home runs as Mark McGwire, or Shirley Temple run as fast as Jesse Owens. There was no way that Scandinavians or Polynesians were going to know as much about camels as the Bedouins of the Sahara-- and no way that these Bedouins were going to know as much about fishing as the Scandinavians or Polynesians.
In a sense, proponents of "social justice" are unduly modest. What they are seeking to correct are not merely the deficiencies of society, but of the cosmos. What they call social justice encompasses far more than any given society is causally responsible for. Crusaders for social justice seek to correct not merely the sins of man but the oversights of God or the accidents of history. What they are really seeking is a universe tailor-made to their vision of equality. They are seeking cosmic justice....

Socially counterproductive policies are just one of the many costs of the quest for cosmic justice. The rule of law, on which a free society depends, is inherently incompatible with cosmic justice. Laws exist in all kinds of societies, from the freest to the most totalitarian. But the rule of law-- a government of laws and not of men, as it used to be called-- is rare and vulnerable. You cannot redress the myriad inequalities which pervade human life by applying the same rules to all or by applying any rules other than the arbitrary dispensations of those in power. The final chapter of The Quest for Cosmic Justice is titled "The Quiet Repeal of the American Revolution"-- because that is what is happening piecemeal by zealots devoted to their own particular applications of cosmic justice.
They are not trying to destroy the rule of law. They are not trying to undermine the American republic. They are simply trying to produce "gender equity," institutions that "look like America" or a thousand other goals that are incompatible with the rule of law, but corollaries of cosmic justice.
Because ordinary Americans have not yet abandoned traditional justice, those who seek cosmic justice must try to justify it politically as meeting traditional concepts of justice. A failure to achieve the new vision of justice must be represented to the public and to the courts as "discrimination." Tests that register the results of innumerable inequalities must be represented as being the cause of those inequalities or as deliberate efforts to perpetuate those inequalities by erecting arbitrary barriers to the advancement of the less fortunate.
In short, to promote cosmic justice, they must misrepresent what is happening as violations of traditional justice-- as understood by others who do not share their vision. Nor do those who make such claims necessarily believe them themselves. As Joseph Schumpeter once said: "The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie."
The next thing the idealist will do is character assassination. All those who disagree with the great vision must be shown to have malign intentions, if not deep-seated character flaws....

Ironically, the quest for greater economic and social equality is promoted through a far greater inequality of political power. If rules cannot produce cosmic justice, only raw power is left as the way to produce the kinds of results being sought.[emphasis mine]

And, of course, since they cannot ever truly achieve their social justice in the real world, what is left to them is the exercise of "raw power" in a vain and ongoing narcissistic attempt to achieve the results they want.

Let us now turn to what that exercise of raw power--that is, the implementation of "social justice"--has led to in the real world.

Here is one example :

Mao Zedong, founder of the People's Republic of China, qualifies as the greatest mass murderer in world history, an expert who had unprecedented access to official Communist Party archives said yesterday.

Speaking at The Independent Woodstock Literary Festival, Frank Dikötter, a Hong Kong-based historian, said he found that during the time that Mao was enforcing the Great Leap Forward in 1958, in an effort to catch up with the economy of the Western world, he was responsible for overseeing "one of the worst catastrophes the world has ever known".

Mr Dikötter, who has been studying Chinese rural history from 1958 to 1962, when the nation was facing a famine, compared the systematic torture, brutality, starvation and killing of Chinese peasants to the Second World War in its magnitude. At least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death in China over these four years; the worldwide death toll of the Second World War was 55 million.

And how about the paradise created by Kim Jung Il for North Korea?

Nor, should we forget Lenin's "great leap forward" in the USSR. In fact, here's a body count of the "socially just" communist/socialist regimes of the 20th century. All of them ostensibly on the quest for cosmic justice, making those "great leaps forward" to advance humanity...even as they wiped out large number of us mere mortals. Some humans stood directly in the way of their goals; most were just the collateral damage that was willingly paid to sustain the overweaning narcissism that drives the purveyors of social justice. As I have stated in an earlier essay on social justice and malignant narcissism (paraphrasing):

The [malignant narcissist] does not see other people as distinct individuals with needs and desires of their own, but only as fodder for the expression of an IDEAL; or as pawns for the wishes of a deified [grandiosity]. People with this narcissistic defect completely reject the needs of the individual and enslave him or her to the service of their IDEAL. Eventually, the enslavement--whether religious or secular--snuffs out human ambition, confidence, energy, self-esteem, and life.

Sowell, as usual, is spot on in his analysis. If we look at the actual, real world results of all the "social justice" crap that the left has been pushing for a hundred years,it seems only socially just to define it as: malignant social policies, which originate from the narcissistic core of the postmodern political left; in which humans are forced into a Procrustean bed of 'equality' using ruthless or arbitrary means.

And, please note that the totalitarian and authoritarian regimes which have most touted their "social justice" are the regimes most beloved by leftist intellectuals; and all their evil is rationalized by them. In fact, these intellectuals actually consider all the murderous regimes and the thugs who lead them as superior to the evil capitalist system of the U.S! It has always boggled my mind to see this in practice. When I was in college I knew people who positively revered Mao and even had posters of him in their rooms. And not just Mao. Che Guevara and Fidel Castro enjoyed the same slobbering worship; and it is exactly the way the left today slobbers all over itself in their enthusiasm for the likes of Hugo Chavez.

In fact, our social-justice-seeking progressive left has an almost unbroken string of supporting the most vile, anti-human regimes of modern times. It is the one consistent thread that runs through their irrational ideology.

Victor Davis Hanson notes:

Survey the world’s statist systems of every stripe, from soft to hard. One sees either failure and misery or stasis and lethargy. At the most extreme, a North Korea is turning into a Neanderthal society where subjects eat grass. Castro’s Cuba is imploding, and the Great Leader in his dotage is now renouncing his communist catastrophe. Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela proves that an even an oil-rich exporter can destroy itself with self-imposed socialism.

Read it all. All these societies and their "great leaps" have "progressed" backwards toward what used to be the norm in medieval times: death, poverty and misery.

Hanson notes that in general, these so-called "progressive" societies are now stampeding back toward the free market and more individual freedom--except, of course, in the U.S., where Obamanomics and Obamacare have thrust us forcefully into the standard failure mode of the political left.

Much to the puzzlement and rage of leftist intellectuals, in those places in the world where socialist and communist theory have triumphed, wealth is disappearing; initiative is in decline; and the human misery index is steadily climbing. This is the legacy of Marx's "social justice".

Instead of creating a 'utopia for the proletariat', Marx and his theories only generated the necessary conditions for societal suicide and/or societal homicide.

This is why any any advertised "great leap forward" by the progressive, postmodern political left is really a leap backwards into the primitive and uncivilized past of humanity, where human life is cheap and the State is dear.

Malignant Narcissism + Nihilism + Postmodern Politics = The Quest for Social Justice

UPDATE: For further evidence of the above equation, check this out:

Prof. Fred Gottheil told Front Page Magazine that he compiled a list of 675 email addresses from 900 signatures on a 2009 petition authored by Dr. David Lloyd, professor of English at the University of Southern California, urging the U.S. to abandon its ally, Israel. Prof. Gottheil discovered that six of the signers, who hailed from more than 150 college campuses, were members of his own faculty.

“Would these same 900 sign onto a statement expressing concern about human rights violations in the Muslim Middle East, such as honor killing, wife beating, female genital mutilation, and violence against gays and lesbians?” he wondered. “I felt it was worth a try.”

The results? “Almost non existent,” he told Front Page editor Jamie Glazov. Only 27 of the 675 “self-described social-justice seeking academics” agreed to sign Gottheil’s Statement of Concern – less than 5 percent of the total who had publicly called for the censure of Israel for human rights violations.

The refusal of women’s studies professors to publicly condemn honor killings, or academic advocates of gay rights to speak out against the treatment of homosexuals in Muslim countries, is just about as hypocritical as it gets. Their loathing (dare we call it hate?) of the UN-created Jewish state is so deep that it “trump[s] their professional interests,” leading them into a “ideologically discriminatory trap of their own making,” Prof. Gottheil added.

“The academic Left may be just a little more sophisticated [than the non-academic Left] in their loathing of Israel, but scratch the surface and it’s all the same…It turns out that with all their professing of principle, they are sanctimonious bigots at heart.”

BAD BEHAVIOR SIMPLY EXPLAINED

Evelyn Gordon at Commentary has the explanation for Hamas' escalating violence during 'peace talks'--and it isn't the explanation of conventional 'wisdom' put forth by our politicians:

Israel has suffered almost daily rocket and mortar fire from Hamas-run Gaza this week after 19 months of quiet. Yesterday, for the first time, Gazans launched phosphorus shells at the Negev. And Hamas has twice attacked Israelis in the West Bank this month, again following a long hiatus.

The response from American, European, and Israeli officials has been predictable: Hamas is escalating the terror to foil Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. But this conventional wisdom is false. And this falsehood has been undermining prospects for peace for the last 17 years.

Hamas does oppose a peace deal. But because almost nobody in either Israel or the Palestinian Authority thinks the current talks will produce one, the idea that Hamas leaders are driven by fear of the talks’ success is risible. Hamas knows quite well that the talks will fail even without its help....

So what really motivates Hamas? It’s no secret; Hamas officials proclaim it repeatedly: their goal is Israel’s eradication, and their method is armed struggle. Therefore, they will attack whenever and wherever it’s feasible.

Viewed through this prism, the pattern of Hamas’s terror activity is easily explained: terror escalates whenever Hamas officials think they can get away with it and de-escalates when the danger of a devastating Israeli response becomes too great.

Read it all.

And why is that they think they can get away with this behavior? Because they know that if Israel retaliates during any so-called 'peace negotiations', that ISRAEL will be blamed for everything and Hamas will get off scott free simply because the international community, including America, will let them. That's how it's always worked in the past and it is no different now--in fact, it is much easier to get away with it as the Obama Administration has publicly made known its hostility to Israel.

The conclusion: In short, it’s not the peace talks that cause terror to escalate but the world’s insistence that Israel refrain from responding so as not to “disrupt” them. And by taking this attitude, the world has effectively made “peace” synonymous with stepped-up terror.

For Hamas, it's a win-win situation. They get to kill Israelis AND they get International condemnation of Israel should Israel decide to retaliate.

Rewarding bad behavior always causes that behavior to escalate...any good parent or teacher can tell you that--of course, when it is a child it is one thing; when it's a terrorist organization, it's another....

2010 IS THE NEW 1984

Glenn Reynolds writes:

WAIT, I THOUGHT THE BIG THREAT WAS “CHRISTIANISTS:” Molly Norris, the “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” cartoonist, is “going ghost.” “There’s a big Metafilter thread about it, which I’m reading after writing that. A surprising number of people are blaming Norris for bringing the death threats on herself.”

Blaming the victim is what people do, when they’re scared and don’t want to do anything about what’s scaring them.

Meanwhile, David French at The Corner discusses "The Beheaders' Veto"- the new constitutional 'right' recognized by a certain Supreme Court Justice:

In response to Justice Breyer’s comments that Koran-burning may be likened to yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater, I’d like to indulge in a bit of dime-store psychology

Typically, American hecklers will merely shout down speakers, throw pies at them, issue largely empty threats, and vandalize. True political violence is (thankfully) quite rare. Consequently, when courts condemn the “heckler’s veto,” they’re simply codifying constitutional common sense. How can your speech be free if petty disruptions can silence you? Why not use law enforcement to protect free speech?

The violence from Islamic radicals, on the other hand, shocks the conscience. Thousands rioting? Dozens dying? Beheadings? Torture? This level of violence is terrifying. It’s orders of magnitude beyond heckling. The manageable heckler’s veto becomes the unmanageable beheader’s veto, and judges have trouble formulating a response that protects speech and human life.

But here’s the sad reality: The violence exists no matter what we do (or don’t) say.

Indeed. And these two posts expose the kind of shoddy thinking indulged in by the postmodern political left. Let's take Michael Moron Moore, as a typical example of the shoddy thinking (as discussed by Jay Nordlinger Jay Nordlinger):

Michael Moore is all for the Ground Zero Mosque. More than that, he would like to see the mosque on Ground Zero, not just next to it. I mention this in Impromptus today. What I do not mention — and add here — is that Joe Klein of Time magazine takes the same position. Last month, he wrote, “I am, admittedly, a bit radical on this subject: I think Ground Zero itself — not a building two blocks away — would be a terrific site for a mosque, as a demonstration of American freedom, one of the truly superior qualities our nation offers the world.”

As I say in my column, why not a mosque on the Pennsylvania field? And maybe we could do something about the Pentagon?

This debate long ago got very weird. For one thing, support of the Ground Zero Mosque has become a test of patriotism and Americanism: If you object to the mosque, you must hate James Madison, the Liberty Bell, and Betsy Ross.

Klein wrote, “. . . you don’t have to agree with me. . . . You just have to like the Constitution. I love it.”

Yeah, yeah: Well, as a Constitution-hater, let me say that there’s a heavy dose of McCarthyism in the rhetoric of the Left, particularly as the Left speaks about the mosque....

The thread that runs through all these links is, as two of them directly mention, a certain deranged psychology that impairs the rational faculty. Interesting, isn't it, that those who are blaming Molly Norris, or the NJ Transit Worker who was fired for burning a Koran in his spare time; or who are accusing those opposed to the GZM of 'hating the Constitution' all seem to be completely ignoring the real problem?

Let's see if we can identify the real problem:

ITEM: Cartoonist goes 'ghost' because of threats from the peaceful followers of Islam

ITEM: Supreme Court Justice thinks constitution protects peaceful followers of Isam who might get violent because someone somewhere burns Koran

ITEM: Michael Moore thinks that we should erect a monument to the peaceful followers of Islam on the site where the peaceful followers of Islam killed thousands of American and destroyed two symbols of America; and that anyone who opposes such an idea must hates the US Constitution.

ITEM: The NJ Transit Authority fires a man because he burned the holy book of the peaceful followers of Islam.

Gee. What could be the common thread in all this?

In every case, the so-called 'peaceful followers of Islam' meme trumps the constitutional right to freedom of speech.

So, who are the ones making a mockery of the U.S. Constitution? Who are the ones who are and have been grotesquely violent? In every case, the postmodern political left has displaced a rational fear of the so-called 'peaceful followers of Islam' and instead have chosen to irrationally fear the actions of the "everyone draw Mohammed' cartoonist; they retaliate against someone who burns a book he doesn't like; and they insist that people who oppose the building of a mosque on sacred ground are haters of the Constitution.

All these actions indicate a combination of psychological displacement and psychological projection. These are two defense mechanisms that I have discussed many times before in this blog; and when used, they tend to distort rational thought and make reason and truth go through wierd contortions so as to allay the defender's intense anxiety.

In displacement, fear of something truly frightening is displaced onto a less frightening alternate: i.e., you blame a victim of violence (or threat of violence) instead of those who actually are violent or who threaten violence.

In projection, you take your own unacceptable or irrational feelings and project them onto someone else; i.e., you are busy shredding and trampling on the Constitution yourself by limiting others' freedom of speech, but you accuse them of it.

As Reynolds suggests, people do this sort of thing because they are afraid of something and they don't want to do anything about it. I would suggest that they do these sorts of things because their behavior is completely consistent with the bizarre and distorted view of reality promulgated by their ideology.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
- 1984, George Orwell

FFREEDOM IS BEING 'TRAMPLED TO DEATH'

So, this is the way that freedom ends...not with a bang but a whimper. All our enemies have to do is threaten us with violence:

The Limits of Speech

George Stephanopolous talks to Justice Stephen Breyer:

Last week we saw a Florida Pastor – with 30 members in his church – threaten to burn Korans which lead to riots and killings in Afghanistan. We also saw Democrats and Republicans alike assume that Pastor Jones had a Constitutional right to burn those Korans. But Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told me on “GMA” that he’s not prepared to conclude that — in the internet age — the First Amendment condones Koran burning.

“Holmes said it doesn’t mean you can shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater,” Breyer told me. “Well, what is it? Why? Because people will be trampled to death. And what is the crowded theater today? What is the being trampled to death?”

So, the upshot of this is that if more people rioted and killed people after idiots burned the American flag, it might be constitutional to ban flag burning too. Good to know, I suppose.

Yes, good to know, isn't it, that our fundamental freedoms are dependent on the good behavior of Muslims around the world. We all remember, for example, how well the 'ummah' behaved after some cute little cartoons were drawn. Or how Theo van Gogh experienced their rational discourse regarding his film.

Nice to know that human freedom is at the mercy of an irrational, violent, religion with no tolerance or mercy to those who disagree with it. And you thought we'd moved on from medeival times! That your life, your liberty and the your pursuit of happiness had been guaranteed to you in the Constitution of the U.S. Silly you.

It's also nice to know that our 'leaders' are willing to bow to threats of blackmail and surrender western civilization at a moment's notice.

THAT WAY LIES MADNESS

The 9th commenter on this post at Belmont Club makes an exceedingly important point:

To have a discourse there has to be some shared notion of reality, rationality, cause and effect, logic. Lacking some common parameters for the understanding of the universe there can be no discourse. Unless it is considered “discourse” to babble along with the mad in a madhouse.

This is said in reference to the idea that, "...if each side could restrain its radicals, then 'moderates' could dominate the discourse."

As the astute commenter notes, discourse requires certain fundamental shared notions. Indeed, this is the nub of the crux of the gist of the matter.

Gagdad Bob [note: corrected my error since Bob does continue to blog!]once tackled this important metaphysical issue. He wrote:

There is no question that reality is "ambiguous" and subject to multiple interpretations. However, that should not be taken as an excuse to believe that all interpretations are of equal value. Nevertheless, this latter belief is the hateway drug into the various pneumapathologies of the left, e.g., multiculturalism, moral relativism, the "living Constitution," etc.

Again, if there is no objective way to arbitrate between competing versions of reality, then it comes down to a matter of raw power. Or, as Obama put it, "I won."

This is obviously how political correctness has slithered its slithery way into every corner of reality. In the world of political correctness, it is always 1984. Take the example of Miss California. Because even beauty pageants are run by tyrannical leftists, all points of view are of equal validity. However, if you voice the incorrect truth, then you are punished. You see? Perfect nonsense -- not the liberating kind, but the oppressive kind, AKA hell.

And it is hell, quite literally, for hell is anyplace that is beyond the rule of reason -- where reason, quite simply, does not apply. ...

Actually, it is possible, so long as you create an impossible world. And the world of the left is most assuredly an impossible world, since it is literally detached from its source, its archetype, its origin, and therefore its purpose. To put it even more simply, the "absolutely relative" is an ontological impossibility, and is therefore guaranteed to generate absurdity.

This metaphysical confusion which trashes objective reality and truth has all sorts of consequences, because all the branches of philosophy are dependent on Metaphysics, which describes existence. Metaphysics leads directly to Epistemology, which concerns itself with knowledge.

METAPHYSICS (What is existence?)----> EPISTEMOLOGY (How do we know it?)

The answers derived from these two branches lead directly to the Ethics (how should we behave?) that one chooses to adopt and to the Politics (what degree of force is permissable?) that one practices.

For those of you who think all this philosophy business is too esoteric, abstract and irrelevant to your life; you are very very wrong.

Catastrophically wrong.

These ideas have everything to do with your life and how you live it. They are also the crux of why the world we live in seems to be more and more incomprehensible and insane. When you start off with the belief that reality doesn't exist outside your own head, then, it is just a very short--and minor--leap to accepting that words don't matter and can change meaning; or that it doesn't matter how you behave; that everything is relative anyway, including truth and morality. It is only a short step away to using coercion, force and ultimately violence to enforce your beliefs, since they do not conform to reality. All who point this out must be silenced or eliminated.

As Bob points out, just because reality is ambiguous and sometimes difficult to determine; it hardly gives us carte blanche to say that every interpretation is of equal value and should be treated as such. That way lies madness...and madness is exactly what we are dealing with in today's world.

Ideas matter.

Here is a perfect example of how the postmodern political left deal with reality:



And, here is how Islam and the jihadist mindset deal with it:



An individual ignores reality at the peril of his own life. Many people prefer to hold onto ideas that are anti-reality; anti-truth; anti-reason--even if it means death. Truly, they prefer to die rather than abandon their sense of superiority and the accompanying moral preening and power they exert over others. And, when a society becomes mostly made up of individuals like this; that society will always find refuge in violence and coercion directed toward those who point out their irrationality by having ideas that threaten their view of the world. In their world view, you simply silence the critics. For them, truth does not matter; all that matters is that people believe something is true. Thus it becomes necessary to destroy all those who do not believe as you do.

Beheading is actually the perfect metaphor for this ultimate betrayal of reality, since it demands that you suspend your rational mind and disconnect it from reality. The only difference between the postmodern left and these Islamic fanatics is one of degree--most of these Western pseudo-intellectuals on the left live in an ivory tower and haven't quite figured out what they must do to impose their own intellectual sharia on others--but do not doubt that they are working on it. And they will eventually come to the same conclusion as the Islamists.

METAPHYSICS ---->EPISTOMOLOGY---->ETHICS---->POLITICS

UPDATE: The madness begins, and it demonstrates exactly my point that metaphysics (one's basic premises about reality) determine politics--in this case, a certain type of political strategy we refer to as terrorism:

With European governments paring back the social safety net, and businesses blamed for creating a crisis, left-wing terrorism in Europe is on the march, according to a new report from EuroPol (the European Police Office).

EuroPol:
Spain, Greece and Italy reported a total of 40 attacks by left-wing and anarchist groups for 2009. This constitutes an increase of 43 % compared to 2008; the number of attacks more than doubled since 2007.

As in previous years, most attacks were carried out successfully and mainly targeted government and business interests.The majority of these attacks were arsons, reported by Spain, and caused only property damage.

The percentage of IED attacks decreased from 43 % in 2008 to 20 % in 2009; the majority of these bomb-ings occurred in Greece. In Greece, six left-wing terrorist organisations carried out a total of 15 attacks in 2009.

As this chart shows, left-wing terrorism dwarfs right-wing terrorism in Europe -- perhaps surprising given the attention paid to Europe's far right. Islamist and Separatist terrorism, however, remain the largest categories.

Read it all. Then examine your own premises about the initiation of the use of force to coerce others to accept your ideas and beliefs. Here is an example of our current administration doing exactly the same thing to try to prevent the catastrophic consequences of their own irrational policies. The next step for them is to begin to act like a third world dictator-controlled state, since reasoned argument is forbidden on the topic. These two links are examples of same false metaphysics in action--both ignore external reality and both are examples of the use of force to shove misbegotten ideas that cannot work in the real world down the throats of others.

PRICELESS

So, everyone, please shut up about the Quran-burning religious nuts at that ridiculous church (who at least don't behead or imprison people of other faiths for not being of their own). The freedom to be insensitive to others is part and parcel of freedom of speech. It's no different when talking about building mosques at Ground Zero; burning American flags; or whatever. Feel free to protest and even despise what you don't approve of.

Personally, I am far less offended by their insensitivity than I am by the flag-burning, America-hating subset of the political left (who believe in free speech for themselves and their special interests; but not for you if you disagree with them). In fact, they will defend to the death their right to keep you silent.

But, there is nothing more...American... than defending some clueless moron's right to make a complete fool of himself or herself.

Or, to model himself after one specific clueless leftist moron, perhaps Terry Jones could just put the Quran in the dirt somewhere and stomp on it? [link]



Just sayin'....

UPDATE: Hoist by their own petard indeed. Funny that they don't see how their argument is reduced to absurdity, isn't it?

FANTASY VS REALITY

Here are some perfect illustrations on the use of fantasy as a defense against the unpleasant truth of reality....

On the Economy:


[Political Cartoons by Bob Gorrell ]

On Afghanistan:



[Political Cartoons by Chuck Asay ]

On America's supposed 'racism':



[Political Cartoons by Michael Ramirez ]

On the November elections:


[Political Cartoons by Gary Varvel]

But, as a psychiatrist I understand how nice it feels to live in a fantasy world...I see patients all the time who have a rather difficult time dealing with reality.

FLAMING QURAN

I am not in favor of burning books--ANY book. So, I propose that instead of actually burning a Quran, we drink to the demise of fundamentalist Islam using this recipe:

THE FLAMING QURAN

1. Layer Arak* and rum in a shot glass with the rum on top.
2. Fill a beer mug halfway with the beer (preferably an American brand).
3. Proudly recite the following from the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
3. Light the rum, let it burn for a bit,
4. Then dunk the shot glass in the beer and chug.



*Arak is a Middle Eastern annise liquor or aperitif.

FROM HIS LIPS TO GOD'S OBAMA'S EARS

The Chamber of Commerce gets it:

The U.S. Chamber will support any proposal that spurs job creation, bolsters both short- and long-term economic growth. We will not support an approach where the government picks winners and losers—providing tax credits and incentives to politically favored industries and groups while sticking others with the bill. This is ultimately self defeating and puts politics ahead of sound economic decisions that can create jobs. Bottom line: This president and administration have had nearly two years to help turn around our economic situation. Their agenda of more taxes, regulations, and mandates clearly isn’t working. In fact, it has created tremendous uncertainty and delayed and weakened the recovery.

Unfortunately, this kind of common sense and rel-world knowledge about economics and how the market works will never win a Nobel Prize. No, the Nobel Committee saves that honor for the morons who can't quite seem to grasp economic reality and continue to argue that the reason Obama's first economic stimulus didn't work was that it wasn't big enough.

$3 trillion in debt now, and that's not enough! Krugman won't be happy unless the trillions pile up even more. And what do we have to show for the $3 trillion so far? NADA. In fact, the unemployment rate has actually gone up since the stimulus was passed:



Simple math though, should remind him that 10 X 0 = 0; 100 X 0 = 0; 1000 X 0 = 0; and even 1,000,000 X 0 is still gonna equal NADA.

But to the political left, ideology is EVERYTHING.

SCHOOL DAZE

Victor Davis Hanson , who has spent some time in academia, says that we are being "ruled by professors". He goes on to describe lessons he has learned from his association with the ivory tower:

First was the false knowledge — odd for an institution devoted to free inquiry. The university runs like a 13th-century church in which the heliocentric maverick is a mortal sinner. So too on campus the Rosenbergs never spied. Alger Hiss was a martyr. Mao killed only a few who needed killing (see Anita Dunn on that one).

Che was not a murderous thug, but a hair-in-the-wind carefree motorcyclist. Minorities supposedly died proportionally higher in Vietnam — as they supposedly do now in Iraq and Afghanistan. Women are underrepresented as both undergraduates and as humanities graduate students. Anyone with an accented name obviously had picked grapes or was denied voting rights. Adlai Stevenson was an American saint, even more so than George McGovern. Only the unhinged even discussed doubts about global warming. Don’t question any of the above; it was all gospel — as we see now in D.C., from Keynes to Gorism to Cordoba as the beacon of Islamic tolerance during the Inquisition. (Doubt any of that, and that laid-back elbow-patched joking prof who told the class “Call me Bill,” in a flash, Gollum like, turned into a snarling jackal, screaming, “I am Doctor Jones, with important publications on climate change and a doctorate from Berkeley! How dare you question me!”)

The above is just a tidbit from a great piece, make sure you read it all. Hanson goes on to talk in detail about the 'mock heroics' of the academic elite and their general cluelessness about the material world.

Like Hanson, I have spent much of my adult life in the bizarro world of academia. And, like Alice in Wonderland, I have noted over my years at various institutions that things have only gotten "curioser and curiouser" as the intellectuals in these citadels of supposed learning grew ever more out of touch with the real world. Yet I have chosen to remain in this environment because I love to teach.

Perhaps I am a bit mad.

[Alice: But I don't want to go among mad people.
The Cat: Oh, you can't help that. We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.
Alice: How do you know I'm mad?
The Cat: You must be. Or you wouldn't have come here.]

I suppose, being a psychiatrist, I should have anticipated that I would spend a considerable amount of time among mad people..., but sometimes I can't help but think that the physiologically insane people that I deal with in my profession are far less intellectually and morally delusional than the elitist professors who think they know it all.

What goes on these days in many of our universities and colleges is a real travesty. If we continue to support and enable these so-called intellectuals who are undermining our childrens' rational faculties and send money to the universities that employ them, then we will have lost yet another generation to the mindless and vacuous postmodern political left.

Recall back a few posts where I discussed the intellectual and ethical strategies that have fueled the socialist/communist/collectivist revival in this country, and you will understand how important it is that we support diversity on our campuses--but in this case, I am not talking about mlticultural diversity (which means nothing), but the diversity of ideas that is necessary for true academic freedom. Right now, the left has a stranglehold on what ideas are permitted and taught to our children; and, as we have seen repeatedly, the last thing they want is to have any of their precious dogmas challenged.

Hiding behind the concept of "academic freedom", these academic purveyors of thought oppression have gained control of education in this country. The first step in dealing with this situation is to reconsider the notion of tenure and put an end to the lack of real-world consequences for academic activities. Once upon a time, tenure may have encouraged new ideas and stimulated vigorous, and even unconventional debate, but now the tenured professoriate all march in intellectual lock-step and make sure that no one with a different opinion ever gets into their elite club or rocks their club boat.

Next, the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of those overly-prized qualities of "diversity" and "multiculturalism" must be thoroughly and painstakingly exposed for what they are: the politically correct posturings of incompetent social engineers who wish to impose their own mediocrity on all aspects of society. These intellectual 'giants' only champion a new kind of oppression (the oppression of the 'competent') under the benign guise of "political correctness". If your ideas merely hurt their feelings, you can be sent to their gulags.

It is time to begin the painful task of treating this "hardening of the intellectual arteries"; this scholarly daze, that has led to madness and dementia on our college campuses. Like end-stage Alzheimer's, soon the professoriate will no longer be able to even understand or respond to any aspect of the real world and will dwell only in the wild imaginings of their squalid little circumscribed minds.

Hanson at the end of the piece quoted above:

I could go on, but you get the picture about the strange habits that arise when you ensure someone lifelong employment, institutionalize unaccountability and groupspeak, and create artificial hierarchies of respect that are not necessarily earned by either teaching excellence, scholarship, or value to the community. After the pension meltdown, a great reckoning is coming to academia and it won’t be pretty.

Reality can be a bitch, particularly if you've been living in a bubble of denial; and soon the professors that think they rule us are going to come face to face with the real world--and I don't think they will survive the experience.

NOT MUCH HOPE, EITHER....

[ Political Cartoons by Eric Allie ]

Thomas Sowell once wrote that the that political left have a major "investment in failure":

It is not just in Iraq that the political left has an investment in failure. Domestically as well as internationally, the left has long had a vested interest in poverty and social malaise.

The old advertising slogan, "Progress is our most important product," has never applied to the left. Whether it is successful black schools in the United States or Third World countries where millions of people have been rising out of poverty in recent years, the left has shown little interest.

Progress in general seems to hold little interest for people who call themselves "progressives." What arouses them are denunciations of social failures and accusations of wrong-doing.

One wonders what they would do in heaven.

We are in no danger of producing heaven on earth but there have been some remarkable developments in some Third World countries within the past generation that have allowed many very poor people to rise to a standard of living that was never within their reach before.

The August 18th issue of the distinguished British magazine "The Economist" reveals the economic progress in Brazil, Argentina, and other Latin American nations that has given a better life to millions of their poorest citizens.

Some of the economic policies that have led to these results are discussed in "The Economist" but it is doubtful that members of the political left will stampede there to find out what those policies were.

Go on! Take a wild stab at whether the policies discussed in that issue of "The Economist (200allowed the "selfish" free market to operate; or whether they represented the latest in "selfless" tyranny.

Coincidentally, America is now reaping the bitter fruit of the "selfless" tyranny of complete leftist rule. We have the selfless-tyrant-in-chief, whose every move is calculated for our very own good--and, only incidentally, to keep himself in power by stacking the political deck (think ACORN, the recently articulated goals of the NEW, IMPROVED! Injustice Department, and all the usual double dealing and payoffs that America has come to associate with Chicago-style thug/politicians, who are easily mistaken by the left as god-like and worshipped).

In the same piece quoted above, Sowell went on to note:

Despite whatever the left may say, or even believe, about their concern for the poor, their actual behavior shows their interest in the poor to be greatest when the poor can be used as a focus of the left's denunciations of society.

When the poor stop being poor, they lose the attention of the left. What actions on the part of the poor, or what changes in the economy, have led to drastic reductions in poverty seldom arouse much curiosity, much less celebration.

The failure of these leftist policies is due to the pervasive intellectual and moral bankruptcy that drives them. Obama is the poster boy for this bankruptcy; and he carelessly and stupidly repeats all the mistakes of the left's past. This time around, he firmly believes that everything will all work out because HE is the one in charge and he has cleverly repackaged all those failed policies in ribbons of hope and boxes of change. He has been aided and abetted in this perverse marketing campaign by a complicit media.

But the disastrous policies he and the Democrats have rammed down America's throat remain out of touch with reality; and like all the despots before him, Obama will deliberately and callously ignore the actual consequences to real people. Like most on the left, he is truly only concerned with two main issues:
(1) Feeling good about his moral superiority over the common folk (along with all the attendant preening self-righteousness and moral lecturing); and
(2) Keeping power over the lives of others (for their own good, of course, and society's).

America is starting to awaken from the left's latest utopian nightmare, which at its core is is regressive, rather than progressive. As for the left's claim of being "reality-based"....the only time they see reality is when they watch it in their rear view mirror disappearing into the distance behind them.

By the way...HAVE A GREAT LABOR DAY WEEKEND, EVERYONE ! And, take a minute or two sometime over the next few days to contemplate how jobs and wealth are created; and how progress is actually achieved.

POSTMODERNISM AND THE LEFT: A PERFECT STORM

Thomas Sowell is worried. Very worried:

Last Tuesday, Dr. Thomas Sowell was interviewed on The Rush Limbaugh Show by Walter Williams, who was serving as guest host. During this interview, Williams inquired about Sowell's opinion of direction that America is heading in . "Are you optimistic or pessimistic?" Williams asked. "Pessimistic, and I am fighting off becoming despairing," replied Sowell.

Sowell's words should not be taken lightly. As a recent Investor's Business Daily editorial about Sowell said, "Doomsters are a dime a dozen. But when a leading economist who's been called "the nation's greatest contemporary philosopher" sees serious trouble ahead, we'd better listen up."

The editorial went on to explain:

Sowell sees the national equivalent of a "perfect storm," a gathering of "dangerous forces (that) have been building .. . for at least a half-century."

Yes, he says, our great nation has weathered many storms. But, he quickly notes, so did the Roman Empire before it collapsed. "Is that where America is headed?" Sowell asks upfront. "I believe it is. Our only saving grace is that we are not there yet - and that nothing is inevitable until it happens."......

The Obama administration "is not the root cause of the ominous dangers that face this country at home and aboard," Sowell says. But "it is the embodiment, the personification and the culmination of dangerous trends that began decades ago. Moreover, it has escalated those dangers to what may be a point of no return."

What are these "dangerous trends that began decades ago"? To understand what is happening in the world today, one must understand the a philosophy that has taken root in Western Civilization and brought us to this point in history--and, yes, ideas really matter; and when you are basing your society on bad ones, then you can expect bad things to happen.

The philosophy that is behind these dangerous trends is Postmodernism; and Barack Obama represents the culmination and embodiment of the perfect postmodern demagogue.


POSTMODERNISM as defined by Wikipedia:

Postmodernism is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the rejection of objective truth and global cultural narrative. It emphasizes the role of language, power relations, and motivations; in particular it attacks the use of sharp classifications such as male versus female, straight versus gay, white versus black, and imperial versus colonial. Postmodernism has influenced many cultural fields, including literary criticism, sociology, linguistics, architecture, visual arts, and music.

Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from modernist approaches that had previously been dominant. The term "postmodernism" comes from its critique of the "modernist" scientific mentality of objectivity and progress associated with the Enlightenment.

Where modernism is based on reason, truth and the acceptance of an objective reality; postmodernism and it metaphysical and epistemological foundations, in contrast, is based on emotion and whim; subjective or relative "truth" and a belief that reality is whatever you believe it to be.


If you have noticed that Western Civilization no longer seems to be able to defend and stand up for itself--either intellectually or culturally--and that insanity and irrationalism reign, then you need look no further than this anti-modern and anti-progress mind-set and how it has infected almost every aspect of Western culture, politics and thinking.

Postmodern 'thinking' (and I use the term loosely) and rhetoric is the direct cause of the West's descent into the abyss of political correctness and cultural relativity (i.e., the dogma of multiculturalism).

The dual insanity and subversivenss of these two key components of leftist/progressive thought are brought together in the following common, but wholly contradictory, threads of politically correct postmodern rhetoric: On the one hand, all cultures are equally deserving of respect; on the other, Western culture is uniquely destructive and bad.

These two mutually contradictory postitions are both firmly held beliefs--one might even say they are considered holy writ by the acolytes of the liberal left.

For years now, this contradiction has trickled down into the consciousness and belief system of the West. It has quietly been integrated into the K-12 curriculum and is forcefed to students at most univeristies (where free speech is no longer tolerated if it happens to "hurt" someone's feelings); it is regularly integrated both directly and symbolically into popular movies, books, and into the news tickers for the mainstream media.

And, Postmodern's PC/multicultural dogma has now been duly enshrined into the national platform for at least one of our major political parties; and it even has begun to eat away at the values of the opposing political party--both realities which have led to the rise of the Tea Pary movement and the grassroot anger directed at both Democrats and Republicans. Both parties have forgotten real American values: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Stephen Hicks in his book says that Postmodernism has, "become the activist strategy against the coalition of reason and power." He quotes Frank Lentricchia, a noted Duke University literary critic. Postmodernism, says Lentricchia, "seeks not to find the foundation or conditions of truth but to exercise power for the purpose of social change."

It is because of the pervasive influence of postmodern philosophy and the ubiquitous use of postmodern rhetoric by the political left that America and all it stands for is now on the brink; and this should make you, like Thomas Sowell, very worried.

Rather than setting you free, in the postmodern world, truth just keeps you from believing what you--or someone else--wants to believe; and therefore it must be banned from polite conversation.

In this "innovative", postmodern world view you are permitted-nay encouraged!--to break free from the oppressive shackles of reality and venture into the realm of a "higher" reality, where fools like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barney Frank are taken seriously. And where a grandiose and glib, but charismatic man deeply immersed in the contradictory discourse of postmodern rhetoric and the collectivist ideology of "social justice" can be elected President of the U.S.

In order to survive their crushing defeat in the Cold War, the remnants of Soviet communism, along with failed Marxist, socialists and communists around the globe had to evolve and mutate into a form that would not be easily recognized; but the fundamental toxicity of their ideology remained as potent as ever. And it is these various mutations that are truly the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War.

In postmodern philosophy and rhetoric, they found the perfect epistemological, ethical and political vessel to reassert their poison. And that is why, despite the untold misery and the millions of dead that were the result of the implementation of their political policies, their ideology never quite made it to the garbage dump of history.

The politically useful concept of "social justice" is now the dominant philosophy forced down the throats of teachers, who obediently spoon feed it to their students from kindergarden through college; while in academia they use "science" to demonize their enemies.

As a vehicle for obtaining political power, postmodern philosophy and its attendant rhetoric are unparalleled in today's academic world. Through the deliberate manipulation of reality, truth, and reason, the children of postmodern nihilism have figured out a way to win any and all arguments. They have pretty much taken over the curriculum from kindergarden through college and thus no major area of that curriculum is now free from political interference.

And, in addition to the toxic dogmas of political corectness and multiculturalism; it is postmodern philosophy that is at the heart of radical environmentalism. Combined these poisonous ideas make up three of the four pillars of the socialist/communist--or, more accurately, the neo-Marxist--revival that has been staged in this first decade of the 21st century. This is the perfect storm in which we find ourselves.

Remember that postmodernism eschews truth and those who adhere to its ideas prefer to exercise power to force social change. They live in a world of contradiction and emotion. Their strategy is not to persuade people to accept their ideas, but to confuse them; to distort the truth, propagate lies and smears; and to use whatever rhetoric is necessary to accomplish their purposes. And when rhetoric fails, they will force through their social change anyway.

Since rhetorical skill is essential to accomplish their purposes, it is little wonder that a trancendently inexperienced but rhetorically gifted nobody like Barack Obama could rise to the top of the [garbage] heap. His career was meteoric, and is based entirely on words, not deeds or accomplishments. In truth, he is the quintessential political postmodern demagogue; skilled in the neo-Marxist/fascist talking points and easily able to convince all who hear him of his passionate committment to "social justice," (better understood as the redistribution of wealth) and universal peace and brotherhood (better known as the appeasement and enabling of evil).

Nothing that is going on now makes any sense, unless you understand that "sense" is not a useful concept when one is talking about postmodernism. That's why to get out of debt we are spending more money and digging deeper; that's why to defend against war we are disengaging from the enemy and enabling them; that's why the "doublespeak" is used over and over again in this Administration.

Truth does not matter; all that matters is that people believe it is true.

But you can make sense out of what the political left is doing. It just so happens, that their basic tenets are the foundation of an evolving epistemological, ethical and political strategy that the socialist/Marxist and communist remnants around the world have siezed on and are using to prevent their ideology from entering the dustbin of history.

As I have written before, the fourth pillar of the overall strategy is Terrorism. I believe this last pillar is mostly an unconscious one in the nearly brain-dead minds of the Western elite; but it is why they make common cause with Islam who acts out their own unconscious fantasies.

We can think of the four pillars--POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, MULTICULTURALISM, RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM, and TERRORISM-- as the foundation for both the socialist revival (particularly in the Western hemisphere recently) and for the rapid advancement of the Islamic Jihad and Islamic fundamentalism.

Below is a flow chart that has been adapted from Stephen Hick's book, Explaining Postmodernism (p. 173), which summarizes the evolution of these four strategies/pillars of leftist/progressive thought; and though I have written about it before, it is well worth repeating over and over again as the perfect postmodern storm that swirls around approaches a Category 5; and as reason, truth, and reality are belittled and ignored by our leaders:

SEEKING REFUGE IN SELF-DELUSION

Sometimes, the only way that the denial of reality can be maintained is through self-delusion....



[Political Cartoons by Glenn McCoy ]

So let's talk about self-delusion for a moment.

Engaging in "self-delusion" is the act of deceiving one's self about some aspect of reality; i.e., it is a form of psychological denial.

As I have noted in previous posts, we humans have quite a number of psychological strategies with which we are able to deceive ourselves about the external world.

Just a few examples to show what I mean by this:

- by using projection some very violent and angry people are able to convince themselves that they are working for peace and harmony.

- by using delusional projection some religious fanatics who behead innocent people are able to convince themselves that they are pure and holy, while" infidels" like Jews are monsters who "eat babies" and decend from "pigs and monkeys"

- by using displacement, some people are able to convince themselves that there is a devious plan to imminently replace our secular government with a Christian theocracy; while they are singularly unconcerned about religious fanatics actively waging war on the U.S. and the rest of the world trying to institute an Islamic theocracy.

- by using fantasy some people are able to convince themselves that these particular religious fanatics are reasonable and sensible people, amenable to negotiation and moderation.

- by using denial some people are able to convince themselves that Obama's economic policies are creating jobs and improving the economy.

- by using repression some people would like to eliminate all personal feelings about 9/11 and wipe it from the American collective consciousness; thus supporting the building of a mosque at Ground Zero while we are still in a protracted war with Islamic fundamentalists.

When dealing with well-defended people like this, one of the refrains commonly heard when you point out their defense to them, is that it is not they who are in denial about reality--it is you! It is not they who are projecting, it is you! It is not they who fail to see the danger, it is you!

You think you are living in a democracy but you are wrong, the members of this "reality-based" community say; only since their candidate was elected do we have a true democracy! Before that, we are living under a fascist regime.

For them it is simply a matter of opinion whether or not a person is out of touch with reality; and their opinion is just as good as yours, thank you very much.

But let's examine that interesting perspective (usually they convey it with a sneer, as in: "That's just your opinion.")

Probably the first prerequisite for accusing someone of engaging in self-delusion is that one must accept that there is an objective reality, external and independent to one's self; one's beliefs or one's emotions/feelings. Without such a fundamental epistomological foundation, it is completely meaningless to accuse anyone of self-delusion, althought postmodern intellectuals do it all the time.

For the record, self-delusion is an equal opportunity political defense. Both sides of the political spectrum are able to delude themselves fairly easily when the occasion demands it. But I am always impressed at the pervasive self-delusion that is the hallmark of modern leftist thought. No amount of reality is able to touch it.

As they wallow in their preferred form of social subjectivism, it is perfectly "reasonable" (if that is the word) from their perspective to impute delusion to others--even if every time they do so, they effectively demonstrate the invalidity of their own philosophy. That is why it is so amusing to observe their appropriation of the term "reality-based community" -- when they don't believe in any reality except for their own emotions!

It gets excessively wearisome to constantly point out to them that there is a world that exists outside their heads and outside their emotions; and that the entire purpose of reason --which they reject in favor of feelings --is about understanding that world.

Their social subjectivism posits that our minds are disconnected from reality to begin with. How then is it possible for them to accuse anyone of "self-delusion"? One simply has a differing POV that is by their definition as real and true as anyone else's.

After all, that is the basis of the multiculturalism and the "politically correct" relativism that they persistantly espouse.

You see, progressives feel that they can get away with their interpretations simply because they don't have to deal with external reality --if they feel it, it must be true! QED. The actual worsening of the economy under their watch despite driving the country into unbelievable amounts of debt is not something they care to think about. Instead, Nobel Prize winning economic morons like Paul Krugman explain the failures away by saying that the stimulous wasn't big enough! He won't be satisfied until the entire economy is destroyed; and then I'm sure he will blame the ultimate scapegoat for his failure to think: human nature.

Or, note the behavior of "peaceful" and "compassionate" and "toleratant" antiwar demonstrators like the Code Pinkpunks. Note in particular that in the real world, what they say they are for and how they actually behave are somewhat out of sync (assuming the usual meanings of the words "peaceful" and "compassionate" and "tolerant").

This is pretty much the same way that a child who doesn't yet understand about causation or responsibility or even truth, is behaving when they angrily retort to someone who accuses them of something they don't want to take responsibility for ("you broke that lamp!" "No, you broke it!" "No, you did!") Those who do not believe in an external reality--or personal responsibility or truth --may freely accuse those with whom they disagree of the same kind of distortion and blindness.

How fortunate that most adults have developed cognitive capabilities that enable them to determine causation--even if a child (or the adult currently flushing our country into the toilet, for that matter) doesn't understand the concept. A series of questions are asked and answered-- Who threw the ball that broke the lamp? Whose fingerprints are on the ball? What direction did it come from? Who was in the place where the ball was thrown; were there witnesses?-- and, in the example of the broken lamp, truth is fleshed out and responsibility assigned.

For all children--and sadly, many adults these days-- "reason" is nothing more than a creative process, and is disconnected from cognition and/or perception. As I have mentioned in previous discussions, children in particular, tend to use the more "primitive" psychological defenses, because their minds are not yet mature enough for optimal cognitive functioning.

As they grow and mature both physically and mentally, they do not need to lose that creative process that utilizes their emotions as perceptual tools -- they only need to learn to subordinate it to their cognitive faculties and to appreciate external reality.

[**Brief Note: Most artists, for example, depend on access to both faculties--emotion and cognition. One would never appreciate this with the high number of Hollywood actors and actresses who completely shun the cognitive process in favor of solely using their creative and emotional facilities in understanding the world around them. This is not usually important, except insofar as such individuals are looked up to and given almost godlike status in our culture. Nevertheless, they really only cause a lot of trouble when they try to make others accept their--shall we say--creative interpretations of reality? Truly brilliant artists who stand the test of time are exactly the ones who have subjugated their creativity to reason, and managed to bring forth a work of art that is meaningful to others, as well as themselves. If they cannot do this, they never amount to anything more than a second- or third-rate artist, irrespective of medium.]

Now, getting back to the concept of "self-delusion". When both sides are convinced that the other side is deluding themselves, it becomes extremely important that SOME ADULT SOMEWHERE examine the external reality and follow a process of reason to assess the truth.

Much as the politcal left (who as a group are heavily invested in the whole postmodernistic touchy feely thingy) would like to believe that they have exclusive rights to the truth, they have actually dealt themselves out of any contest for discovering truth by insisting that truth is relative. If it IS relative, then they they must agree that I am as correct in what I think as they are. Tsk Tsk.

OTOH, if truth is NOT relative, but exists outside of whatever one side or the other feels is true, then by all means, let's get down to the evidence which will prove which side is correct. I'm game.

Do you begin to see what a house of cards they have built for themselves? If truth is relative, then by their own standards, it is not possible for anyone to be self-deluded-- since self-delusion (they call it "emotional truth" ) is their only reality.

What is most laughable is that their entire way of dealing with the world is based on a fundamental self-delusion - the denial of external reality.

When you live in a world where objective reality is unacknowledged, is it any wonder that from your perspective no one can every prove that what you feel is true, isn't really true? That is why the same distortions and creative fabrications resurface time after time in political discussions these days. The entire "the economy is all Bush's fault" for example. No matter how many times this is debunked, (or, I suspect, no matter how many years into Obamanomics we are) it will be recycled by the reality-based, or rather, the reality- deprived community.

To them, Obama may be fading as a leftist messianic superstar, but only because he is not going far enough in shoving their policies down America's throat. Certainly not because those polices don't work and never have worked! Let's see what happens when America thoroughly rejects their ideology in November.... I predict that the left will not be abashed; nor will they even consider re-examining their political --let alone their philosophical premises. No, they will whine loudly; scream hysterically; become agressive and probably violent, and insist that their policies were sabotoged by the likes of you and me (i.e., racist bigots who are homophobic, Islamophobic, and sexist to boot); that we are the ones who will not face reality, and so on and so forth ad infinitum.

Self-delusion, anyone?