Culture – Page 36

Leddihn, Lasch, & Berman On The Decline Of The West

“The French Revolution is still with us in every way. Not only are its ideas ever-present, but there is much in its historic evolution that can teach us — in North America no less than in Europe. Its initial period began with the undermining of traditional values and ideas, coupled with the demand for moderate reforms. With Voltaire a whole series of scoffers, facile critics, and agnostics in the literal sense of the term made their appearance. They subverted religion, convictions, traditions, and the loyalties on which state and society rested. The process of decomposition and putrefaction always starts at the top — in the royal palace, the presidential mansion, among the intellectuals, the aristocracy, the wealthy, the clergy — and then gradually enmeshes the lower social layers. In this process it is interesting to notice how the high and mighty develop a sense of guilt and with it a readiness to abdicate, to yield to expropriation, to submit to the loss of privileges, in other words, to commit suicide politically and economically. For this masochist act, however, they are well prepared by the ideological propaganda coming from their own ranks…. The members of the nobility who took active part in the intellectual or political undermining of the ancien regime and then participated in the Revolution are very numerous, without their support the French Revolution is well-nigh unimaginable…. One is inevitably reminded of the fact that, statistically speaking, the natural death of states and nations as well as of classes and estates, is not murder but suicide. However, this act of suicide is usually preceded by a period of delusions and follies. Quen deus vult perdidi prius dementat.

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Lefism — pg. 88

I would only add here that before political and economic suicide can be committed that theological suicide must first be committed, since politics and economics descends from Theology. I would also observe that when Leddihn speaks of “ideological propaganda,” as Christians we should understand that such ideological propaganda is but a form of theological propaganda.

Leddhin’s observation in this quote supports Christopher Lasch’s, inked 20 years after Leddihn, in his book, “Revolt of the Elites.” In that book Lasch lays the deterioration and decline of the West squarely at the feet of the cultural elite. Lasch cites chapter and verse on how the cultural elite had become the cultural despisers of Western tradition and values. Lasch contends that the overthrow of the West was not orchestrated by the masses, contra Ortega y Gasset’s, “Revolt of the Masses,” but that we have been damaged from within by our cultural gatekeepers.

Morris Berman’s book, “The Twilight of American Culture,” also factors into this theme. Berman, like both Lasch and Leddihn, sees the unraveling of American culture although Berman is inclined to lay the fault at the feet of mass-produced cutlure. Still, that mass-produced culture that Berman speaks of, I would contend, comes from those elites that Lasch excoriates and that Leddihn puts in the dock.

Our problem in the West today is that our best and brightest no longer believe in what made the West the West. Leddihn teaches us that the “Un-Westing” of the West began with the French Revolution and has continued unchecked as Biblical Christianity has lost its power to challenge the various incarnations of the French Revolution that have propelled its agenda of “anti-Reformation,” for each subsequent generation.

Berman, in his book mentioned above, believed it was too late for the West to recover.

I hope he was wrong. I fear he is right.

Leddhin & McAtee On Egalitarian Social Orders

“Egalitarianism, as we have already intimated, cannot make much progress without the use of force: Perfect equality, naturally, is only possible in total slavery. Since nature (and naturalness, implying also freedom from artificial constraints) has no bias against even gross inequalities, force must be used to establish equality. Imagine the average class of students in a boarding school, endowed with the normal variety of talents, interests, and inclinations for hard work. The power and dictatorial principle of the school insists that all students of the class should score B’s in a given subject. This would mean that those who earned C, D, or E would be made to work harder, some so hard they would collapse. Then there would be the problem of the A students whom one would have to restrain, giving them intoxicating drinks or locking them up every day with copies of Playboy or The New Masses. The simplest way would probably be to hit them over the head. Force would have to be used, as Procrustes used it. But the use of force limits and in most cases destroys freedom.

A “free” landscape has hills and valleys. To make an ‘egalitarian’ landscape one would have to blow off the tops of mountains and fill the valleys with rubble. To get an even hedge, one has to clip it regularly. To equalize wealth one would have to pay ‘equal wages and salaries,’ or tax the surplus away — to the extent that those earning above the average would refuse additional work. Since these are usually gifted people with stamina and ideas, their refusal has a paralyzing effect on the common weal.

In other words there is a real antagonism, and incompatibility, a mutual exclusiveness between liberty and enforced equality.”

Leftism
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

Leddihn brings out what we need to realize as a culture and that a social order must choose between Liberty and Equality because it can not have both. Liberty and equality are antithetical to one another. Equality requires standardization and so someone (an elite class) to be the standardizers. A social order, given over to equality, can not allow the individual the liberty to move beyond the expected standardization for such a move beyond the standardization as set by the egalitarians would threaten the egalitarian order.

Egalitarianism is often driven by envy and is embraced by many because of the promise that it holds out to people who, if the egalitarian social order is built, then they will no longer have any reason to have envy for the talents and skills of those whom are superior in giftedness in some area. It delivers people from the insecurity, accompanied by Liberty, that someone else might actually excel above and beyond them in some area. And so the plea for an egalitarian social order is supported and championed by those who, being envious of the gifted, and insecure over their real or perceived lack, believe that what they lack can be nullified by insuring that everyone else is required to share in their real or perceived lack since all are required to be equal.

Of course the cult of the equal, as it pertains to social orders, always means the least common denominator equality. In egalitarian orders, the equality does not lift the slightly talented and marginally gifted person up but instead pulls the significantly talented and the greatly gifted person down. A prime example of this is the “The No Child Left Behind” programs in the schools which leaves no Child behind at the cost of insuring that no Child excels. No Child is left behind because all children are left behind. This is what the cult of equality always yields.

I’ve just started Leddhin’s book. The insights here I’ve culled from the first few chapters as combined with what I learned from the book “Egalitarian Envy,” by de la Mora.

“THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.”

Opening Lines from Harrison Bergeron
|Short Story — Kurt Vonnegut

Propositional Nationhood

As long as Republicans support the idea of propositional nationhood you can consider them a Marxist party. Marxist political theory is guided by the putative truism that nations can be held together with the glue of propositions and ideas. Last night Condoleeza Rice gave us, in her speech, that same idea that so many Republicans and Democrats buy into. It is the same propaganda that the American citizenry has had pounded into their head for decades.

This from the speech of Condoleeza Rice last night at the RNC

“After all, when the world looks to America, they look to us because we are the most successful political and economic experiment in human history. That is the true basis of “American Exceptionalism.” The essence of America—that which really unites us—is not ethnicity, or nationality or religion—it is an idea…”

It is not possible for a nation to be a nation unless the citizenry share ethnicity, and religion, as well as sharing a History, literature, music and heroes. Also, the fact that a educated person could say that the essence of America (that which defines us as a nation) is not nationality is mind boggling. How can nationality not define a nation?

Well, one reason I suspect that Republicans and Democrats both thump the idea that nationality can’t define a nation is that nation itself is defined as, “a large aggregate of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory.”

That this is true in our own founding is seen in the reality that America was founded by those of the British Isle who had a firm understanding of the Rights of Englishmen, and further who shared, Maryland excepting, a Protestant religion. The essence of America in its founding was most definitely not, contra Dr. Condoleeza Rice, an idea or series of propositions. Now, propositions may have eventually been part of the equation but it was only part of the equation after a shared ethnicity, religion, and culture was already in place. That this is so can be seen by our own US Constitution.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Note that both the Founders and Ratifiers of the US Constitution founded this country upon the premise that it would be for them and their posterity. They did not premise it upon a idea or proposition. I know it is not PC to say it but they and their posterity were all Northern Europeans. They all believed in the Rights of Englishmen. They all believed in English Common law. They did not create a propositional country.

It’s acceptable if Japan is occupied by Japanese. Very few people argue that Japan should be a propositional nation. It’s acceptable if Kenya is occupied by Kenyans. Very few people argue that Kenya should be a propositional nation. It’s acceptable if Saudi Arabia is occupied by Saudi Arabians. Very few people argue that Saudi Arabia should be a propositional nation. But American has become a International nation … a nation without borders and so what has been forced upon us is the silly idea of propositional nationhood.

That such an idea is quickly falling apart can be readily seen by those with eyes to see.

And to be precise … if it is true, Per Condoleeza Rice, that we are united based on that idea (proposition) that Condi gives, that idea thus becomes our religion so that we are indeed united by religion.

Appendix

Below is the original proposition upon which Marxist nations are united.

The fundamental proposition of the Communist Manifesto

In the words of Frederick Engels:

The Manifesto being our joint production, I consider myself bound to state that the fundamental proposition which forms its nucleus, belongs to Marx. That proposition is: That in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class struggles form a series of evolutions in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and oppressed class—the proletariat—cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class—the bourgeoisie—without at the same time, and once and for all, emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions, and class struggles.

From the 1888 Preface of The Manifesto

The Marxist propositional theme that united their Nations, as the Nation became merely an extension of the State, (they eventually wanted to eliminate Nations in their movement towards globalist utopia), was upon the Hegelian proposition of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis. That was the idea (proposition when stated) upon which they based the nation they were seeking to eliminate. So they were and remain propositional nations,

The Marxist nation-states were not united by ethnicity. The Marxists consistently try to eliminate that by either amalgamation or outright destruction. The Marxist leaders would insist that the nation-state was not united by religion (though it actually was to a degree — the religion of Marxism). The only thing left to unite a nation at that point, is either a proposition or brute force. Now, brute force is actually what keeps Marxist nation-states together but when they advertised themselves they will never admit that and so the only thing left for them to admit, as to what holds their nation-state together, is a proposition.

The Psychological Culture — A Few Thoughts

Imagine a core that radiates heat. Around that core are concentric circles that are conduits for the same heat that pulses at the core. Each succeeding concentric circles provides warmth for all living within the psychological culture. As each subsequent concentric circle is further away from the core the heat is less intense though remaining of the same nature. In their living people move closer to and further away from the core but nearly all of them are conditioned by the heat of the core.

This is the way the psychological functions in our culture. The core that is white hot is Psychology / Psychiatry proper. First developed by Wihlem Wundt but turned into a core of white hot influence by a combination of Wundt’s disciples and the heavy financing of the Robber Barons and / or their Foundations (Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, etc.) this heat then radiated into almost every other discipline. In the States it begins with G. Stanley Hall who brought Wundt’s presuppositions and methodology to the States. From there Disciples of Hall such as Dewey and Thorndike arise, followed by many many others.

The main presupposition of the Psychological remains that man is a animal that is trained on the basis of stimulus and response. Wilhelm Wundt and his disciples believed that in a child there is nothing to begin with but a body, a brain, and a nervous system. As such, training must be achieved by inducing sensations into that nervous system. The Child is not thought capable of volitional control over his actions, or of deciding whether he will act or not act in a certain way. Wundt and his disciples believed the child’s actions were preconditioned and beyond his control precisely because the child was a stimulus response machine. Because this premise ruled stimulus used looked to create a certain experience for the child while seeking to draw out the proper emotions. The presence of the Psychological can be observed by the continued emphasis on the experience and the emotions. Men are not trained to think but are conditioned into the proper experience by just the right stimuli playing upon their emotions seeking to evoke certain proper emotions. People are trained and that training is reinforced at every turn.

You find the core in Academia especially but also wherever the Psychological is practiced as a trade or craft. The first concentric circle that is produced by the psychological and shares its now only slightly diminished heat is the Teaching profession. It is the case now that what you find in someone trained to be a Teacher is someone who has been saturated in a non-Biblical way of thinking. The whole premise of the teaching profession is the Psychological — Wundtian in one form or another. This is not to say that teachers cannot be Christians but it is to say that teachers, generally speaking, (and generally speaking allows for exceptions folks) don’t think Biblically because they have been saturated in the premises and presuppositions of the Psychological. So great as the Psychological been upon the teaching industry (Teaching Colleges) that the trade of “Teacher” and “Psychologist” and the mindset trained in those trades is nearly identical.

Of course another concentric circles is the whole Sociological. Here you find the social workers that we are besotted with as a people. From “Welfare worker,” to “Friend of the Court,” to those working as School Counselors, to those contracted to choose our Pastors and Missionaries, and in a thousand other capacities the Social Worker does their bit to continue to insure that our culture is defined by the Psychological.

Another concentric circle would be the Church where people are not taught their undoubted Catholic Christian faith so much as they are trained into a Faith that is naught but a baptism of the Psychological. Conversion is sought for by setting up just the right conditions that will produce the proper stimuli that will produce the necessary emotion to “get folks saved.” The is one reason why the Emergent Church (and the Church Growth movement before them) is so popular. The Emergent Church is predicated upon giving people the stimuli that they have been conditioned to covet 24-7.

The evidence of the success of the culture of the Psychological is seen in the way in which we are advertised to. The appeal is intended to be stimuli that is to evoke a certain trained response. There is no appeal to the mind. Advertising then is another concentric circle. In point of fact, most communication in our culture, from talk radio, to mainstream media, to print media, to television, to Movies, to many of the books printed, to the political speech, are nothing but glorified advertising. Propaganda via advertising is how the Psychological culture communicates. We have become the mob and the mob is communicated with via propaganda and propaganda is best delivered by advertising.

The culture of the Psychological results in a dumbed down citizenry as citizens are now manipulated by those elites who know what stimuli buttons to push to get a conditioned result that people have been trained into.

One consequence of all this is that those who have been educated, according to an earlier model where critical and analytical thinking are developed, are now those who are like the last remaining survivors in the Donald Sutherland movie, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” There is no safe place for them that allows them from being attacked by the psychological pod people.

The New World Order And The War Against God Ordained Distinctions

“The age of boundaries is closing, and we are approaching a nobler era when nations shall be no more; when the lines of race and caste shall be wiped out; when the whole earth shall be under one order, one government, one administrative body.”

~Manly P. Hall
“Lectures on Ancient Philosophy,” published by the Philosophical Research Society Inc, Los Angeles (1970)

“God’s plan is dedicated to the unification of all races, religions, and creeds. This plan, dedicated to the new order of things, is to make all things new — a new nation, a new race, a new civilization, and a new religion, a nonsectarian religion that has already been recognized and called the religion of “The Great Light.”

~C. William Smith
“God’s Plan in America”, The New Age – Sept. 1950, Official journal of the Supreme Mother Council, 33 degree, of the Scottish Rite

From the French Revolution, to the War of Northern Aggression, to the Communist Revolution in Russia, and everywhere in between where you find various expressions of ontological Revolution against the God of the Bible, there you find the desire to erase God ordained distinctions as one of the methods used to attack the God of the Bible.