Liberalism seldom comes to us in a systematic theology text book. That is likely one of the reasons that Liberalism has advanced so successfully. If Liberalism came to us as Liberalism from a theology textbook one would then be able to point to a Liberal Systematic theology textbook and say, “this is what Liberalism believes.” Instead liberalism advances by being amorphous. It seldom sets out its tenets explicitly, in a Systematic type style, knowing that doing so would mean a wider rejection of it as a belief system. In point of fact, as we shall see, Liberalism, as a belief system, is merely the Sports Illustrated Swim Suit edition of Porn as compared to the Communism of porn magazine, “Hustler.” Liberalism is Marlene Dietrich singing “Black Market” in a cabaret in 1920’s Berlin as compared to the Communism of Miley Cyrus singing “We Can’t Stop” on a M-TV video. Liberalism is the same thing as Communism only in smaller doses. Liberalism suffocates with a pillow while Communism suffocates with a garrote.
One point of contact between Liberalism and Communism is the insistence that man’s nature is either good or at least malleable. Unlike Christianity, which teaches that man’s nature is fallen and so man is depraved through and through, Liberalism teaches that men are born tabulae rasae, blank slates to be written upon as any narrative that a ruling elite might desire. Per J. Salwyn Shapiro in his book, “Liberalism; Its Meaning and History” Man, according to Liberalism is born ignorant, not wicked.” Liberalism, thus eschews the Christian doctrine of original sin holding instead that only the Christian doctrine of original sin could be construed as original sin. It was this view of man that the French Philosophes championed as the guillotine was employed to help men embrace their perfectibility and discover their unlimited potentiality.
From this doctrine of the inherent goodness and perfectibility of man comes the Liberal doctrine of Social Engineering, Utopia, and the inevitability of progress. If men do not suffer from the tragic consequences of original sin, so that they can only be redeemed by the work of a Transcendent God, then these plastic men with inherently good natures can be shaped and fashioned, via social engineering programs, to create a better, if indeed not perfect world. String together enough good men and eventually one will arrive at Utopia. In point of fact, the denial of Original Sin requires Liberals to believe that men can be made better and better via the work of social engineering. This faith commitment was recently demonstrated by an Obama State Department Spokesman Marie Harf in answering questions on how Muslim Terrorists need to be stopped,
“… We cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium to longer term to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups, whether it’s a lack of opportunity for jobs.”
We can work with countries around the world to help improve their governance. We can help them build their economies so they can have job opportunities for these people.”
Note here that the even Terrorists can be socially engineered out of their depraved ways. Terrorists are malleable and only need to have their environments changed in order for them to realize their inherent goodness. Terrorists are perfectible. And if terrorists are perfectible and capable of being redeemed by social engineering how much more so non terrorist Americans? Why, with Social Security, Welfare programs, and Obama-care Americans will be social engineered into a progress that will one day lead to Utopia.
The Liberal conviction of a Social Engineering that can bring us to Utopia leads us to another tenet of Liberalism and that is the conviction that man is what he is because of his environment. Liberalism, refusing to find depravity or original sin in man, instead locates depravity and original sin in man’s conditioning environment. Man, considered singularly is perfectible, inherently good, or at worse ignorant. However, the cultures and institutions that men build are rife with that depravity which explains why men don’t automatically rise to their best selves. Because sin is found in environments that so keeps individual men down, what must happen is the employing of social engineering in order to change men’s environment. The conviction of Liberals is that if the environments of men are changed so that those environments ooze out the juice of Utopia the result will be the sanctified New Liberal Man. It is environment that makes man less then what he might be and it is only a changed environment that will make men all that Liberals are convinced that man inherently is. The Liberal seldom pauses to ask how it is that inherently good men ever built such awful environments.
The Liberal conviction of the absolute necessity to Socially engineer environments that are in their view “wicked” so that the basically good men can discover and embrace their perfectibility unto the building of Utopia explains why Liberalism, when consistently pursued, ends up in the French Revolution Guillotine, The American Civil War Revolution war on civilians, The Russian Revolution Gulag Archipelago, and the American Abortuary. If cultural and institutional environments are the only thing that stands between basically good men and their socially engineered Utopias then breaking a few human eggs to arrive at a Utopian omelette is a small price to pay. So, the Jacobins tortured and killed their Catholic enemies to arrive at Utopia, Northern Transcendentalist Jacobin abolitionists tortured and killed Southerners in order to arrive at Utopia, Jewish Bolsheviks tortured and killed Christian Kulaks and Christian members of the White Army in order to arrive at Utopia and today our Jacobin Government makes provision for Jacobin Mommies to torture and kill their children to the tune of 4000 per day. From the Liberal worldview and belief system all of this is the small price that one pays in order to arrive at Utopia. None of this would have happened or would happen apart from the tenets of Liberalism, (sin in environment as fixed by Social Engineering, allowing man’s basically good nature to shine forth unto the building up of Utopia) being pursued. All of this explains why Liberalism should be thoroughly hated in any man or woman who call themselves “Christian.”
End Part 1
Part II — The Liberal tenets of Rationalism (Self-evident truths), Historical Optimism (Liberal postmillennialism) and Educationalism (Education as malleable man’s Savior).
Mr. Mcatee
This quote is very insightful, I wish more people paid attention to it.
“Instead liberalism advances by being amorphous. It seldom sets out its tenets explicitly, in a Systematic type style, knowing that doing so would mean a wider rejection of it as a belief system.”
I look forward to part two!
Mark Moncrieff
Upon Hope Blog – A Traditional Conservative Future
Excellent article!
All of this explains why Liberalism should be thoroughly hated in any man or woman who call themselves “Christian.”
I call myself a Christian.
What do you call a Christian who aids and abets liberalism in a variety of ways.
Bret,
An excellent post. It goes well with your post on the definition of all of the different “ism’s”, communism, fascism, socialism, etc. All of them use social engineering as a primary tool, most notably Hitler, National Fascism and The German Youth Corp.
I look forward to your post concerning education. Education is foundational in core beliefs. It is sad when R2Kers actually make the argument that education is only concerned with the 3 R’s. Every belief system is stood up for in our school system except for Christian beliefs. That fits with R2K and their outreach into Culture