Political and Cultural essay : Then and Now. Part 3 of 3
Written by Tim Heydon
The new dark ages are already upon us. This time, however, the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time…’Alasdair MacIntyre ‘After Virtue’
Why has Left –Liberalism appeared with such devastating potency in Britain in recent decades? As we have seen in Part Two, there has existed in Western Civilisation a tendency to push forward personal freedom against the restraints of religion and tradition which were relied upon by John Stuart Mill’s Classic 19th century version of Liberalism to continue a civilised society. In the post Imperial era this push on its own might well have resulted eventually in the obliteration of the old morality and social standards, without however, the overwhelming focus on equality which we now see.
The Fall of the Soviet Union
However more was required for the suddenness and completeness of the destruction of the old moral and cultural order, indeed its reversal, which has been the story in recent decades. The impetus for this was provided by the fall of the Soviet Union which had two main consequences for politics in the West in general. This event gave our present social disintegration its strongly leftist, egalitarian flavour.
First it removed a Marxist enemy of the West which was clearly not of the West; it was the exterior enemy. This made many in the West relax their guard as far as internal Marxist dangers were concerned.
Second, leftists now diverted their ideological energies from supporting revolutionary communism and the Soviet Union to other means to ensure the hoped-for Utopia of Equality.
Recapitulation
In Part Two we saw that the radical individualism which is a feature of our society is derived from a sunny view of human nature natural to many liberals, underpinned by the philosophy of Rousseau. We saw that liberals assume that because of this natural goodness, left to themselves in the right conditions people will be able to work things out for themselves. We also saw that the nihilism of many liberals allows them not just to dispense with the social structures of family and so on and to deny the realities of race, sex, culture and religion but to encourage it.
The Poisonous Synthesis of Extremes: Personal Autonomy and Equality
Modern leftism believes all of this also. For both Liberals and Leftists the key is ‘in the right conditions’. But while for Liberals these mean a minimum of state control, for the neo-marxist Left, they imply massive state interference, Political Correctness, to ensure equality of power and of esteem. In the noxious synthesis of Liberal extreme autonomy and Marxist extreme social equality, which is what we know as Left-Liberalism, equality trumps freedom as it must. Thus:-
‘And the answer, frankly, is the vigorous use of state power to coerce and repress…I firmly believe that repression can be a great, civilising instrument for good. Stamp hard on certain natural beliefs for long enough and you can almost kill them off. The police are first in line to be burdened further, but a new Race Relations Act will impose the will of the people on millions of other lives also.’ - Andrew Marr, BBC Journalist
‘Tabula Rasa’: The Environmentalist Fallacy
The environmentalist fallacy that what is required to ensure a just society, meaning a society not of equal opportunity but one of equals (this allows ‘affirmative action’ ie discrimination against whites and the better off) is to adjust social structures is derived from the ‘Tabula Rasa’ or ‘Blank Slate’ theory of the 17th Century English philosopher John Locke which is often seen in the company of Rousseau’s ‘noble savage,’ humans – are- naturally- good theory. Locke said:-
‘Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper void of all characters, without any ideas; how comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store, which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it, with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience: in that, all our knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives itself.’ - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding .
Moving on From Locke
The notion that the mind is a blank slate on which experience writes was early amended by Leibnitz, who said in effect; yes, blank - ‘except for the intellect itself.’ And Kant posited a theory of knowledge in which reality is created in the mind when information from the environment is acted on by its pre-existing characteristics. Kant’s position has been overwhelmingly supported by findings in modern science (including recent discoveries in genetics) which stress the way in which inherited factors in human nature affect an individual’s reactions to experience.
Left-Fascists cling on to the Blank Slate because they long to write on it.
Given that the blank slate and its attendant theories have been largely outdated for so long, why did radicals continue to use it to underpin so much of their thinking? Because, like Andrew Marr quoted above, they were dying to write on these blank slates. The idea of remaking people, of bossing them around - for their own good, of course - is the fundamental impulse of left-liberalism, and the left glories in the idea that human abilities and personalities could be putty in their hands. Their fascist desire to control and mould others and their quasi-religious need for a ‘politics of meaning’ makes them close their eyes to the falsity of their creed.
Because we are Blank Slates we can and should be written on - by Leftism
The idea of the blank slate together with that of the natural goodness of humanity are the basis of the Left-Liberal view that human beings can and should be moulded and ‘perfected’ – be returned to their natural state of goodness – by social engineering. People can be made to be ‘equal’ as they can be made to be good. All the divisions of race, sex, ability, character and indeed any aspect of what sensible people recognise as facts of ineradicable human nature are illusory and can be abolished if the social environment is suitably adjusted. Hence all the inhuman, failed social engineering of Left-Liberalism designed to alter people’s environments whilst ignoring them as human beings with inborn characteristics, plus the thought police of Political Correctness which go with these attempts and are a part of them. Hence mass immigration and multiculturalism and the destruction of Western Civilisation.
Overthrowing Society
The means for the overthrow of Western Civilisation on the fall off the Soviet Union were already strongly established in the West. There was of course Fabian socialism in Britain. More immediately importantly though was the so-called ‘Frankfurt School’, an institute of Marxism, which was set up in pre-War Germany with the specific intention of finding a way to bring about a Marxist victory in the West. It was to do this in the light of the clear failure of the Western working classes to adopt communist ideas of the revolutionary overthrow of society. This group transferred to America on the outset of war where it was attached to the University of Columbia as an ‘Institute for Social Research’. There, it formed a strategy to undermine Christianity and the culture of the West, in anticipation that this would lead to the triumph of the radical left. Adherents of this School, third raters like Horkheim, Fromm and Reich together with the likes of Adorno, Gramsci, Marcuse and others became the heroes of 1960’s radicalism.
Privileged, Pampered Students
The students who flocked to the new British Universities at that time came from the most privileged, affluent and pampered generation in our history. They personally had not had to survive a world war or struggle through the hardships of economic depression as their parents had. In the manner of adolescents and especially those who have been spared the harsh realities of life that had tutored their parents, they fancied themselves better educated and morally superior to the older, wiser generation.
Adolescents Rebelling Against their Parents
They seized on the ideas of these leftists as a stick to beat the older generation with. They thought that through reading them and the higher nonsense of nihilist leftist philosophers like Foucault they had the key to a deeper truth (conveniently overlooking the fact that this philosophy denied the existence of objective truth) hidden from ‘ignorant’ older people. It is those susceptible youngsters, their attitudes preserved in an aspic of delayed emotional adolescence who now form the political and cultural elites of our country and who are destroying it.
The ‘Capture of the Culture’
The strategy for the overthrow of the West and its reconstruction on Marxist lines was to bring it about, not through debate or armed struggle, but by means of the ‘capture of the culture’ by people who shared their views.
In a deliberate reference to Mao Tse -Tung’s historic communist campaign, Gramsci referred to this as the ‘Long March through the Institutions.’ Once their sympathisers were in place in the instruments of opinion formation – the universities, the government bodies, the art institutes, the entertainment industries and the schools - the people of the West could be worked upon by the stealth means of ‘cultural conditioning,’
Critical Theory
The elements of the ‘new Proletariat’ identified by the School; minorities of any and every kind who were said to be ‘oppressed’ by the majority because of power relationships which were claimed to be ‘unfair’ were to be played on, encouraged and harnessed. The tools to be used included ‘Critical Theory’, which is a destructive, constant criticism of all the main pillars of Western Society: Christianity, the nation, the family, tradition. Repetitive negativity alone would engender a sense of cultural pessimism and rejection in the population, counter to its deeper feelings, even when there was every reason to cherish much of what they had.
The BBC and Critical Theory
One can see Critical Theory at work just by turning on the BBC and watching a documentary which denigrates some British hero or aspect of our history or society. Christmas and Easter, the great popular festivals of the Christian Church, are favourite times for programmes seeking to belittle Christianity.
Cultural Marxism in Action
As for the Marxist elevation of their new ‘proletariat,’ this can be see endlessly on film and television: strong women physically defeat or dominate weaker, less capable, foolish or evil men (Sigourney Weaver in the Alien films is a good example). Blacks and other ethnics, preferably women, portrayed as doctors, lawyers, senior policemen and holders of other middle class positions of authority confront the incompetence foolishness, stupidity and criminality of lower class whites, preferably male; ethnic minorities and homosexuals are show as repositories of decency and moral probity as compared to the ignorance and unpleasantness of ordinary whites; corrupt clergymen and well-meaning do-gooders such as the Salvation Army are bested by dropouts; and so on and so on.
The Schools are the main Theatre of Marxist Indoctrination
It’s all lies – pure, mind-bending propaganda. But the most important area for the ‘Long March’ has been the schools. For the Frankfurt School, what children learned was not as important as that they had the right attitude. Children could and should be conditioned to reject their parents’ values as outdated and evil. And it is witness to the success of the strategy of the ‘Long March’ that while they actually know less and less, and behave more and more badly, this is what much of the youth of today thinks of their elders, at least until they mature sufficiently to have the confidence to reject this indoctrination.
Leftist Ideology: A towering Castle of Cards built on a Lie
Upon the lie of the blank slate, mediated now by philosophical nihilism, has been built every leftist notion of the inherent equality of humanity, every initiative of the left to ‘improve’ the rest of us (in their own image). Because they run counter to the truth about human nature, all these initiatives are doomed to failure sooner or later, varying only in the damage they do in the meantime.
On the grand scale, the blank slate as been responsible for the worst mass murders in history by radical regimes in the hands of power maniacs bent on transforming humanity, from the French Revolution through the slaughterhouse that was the Soviet Union to the killing fields of Pol Pot, and the 60 millions dead at the hands of Mao.
It’s all the fault of White Men
On the domestic scale, the blank slate is responsible for every policy which sees the under representation in any area of our society of some ethnic or other group in society as evidence solely of discrimination, or ‘oppression,’ or some other aspect of the social environment, including education, to the complete exclusion of innate factors such as differing abilities, levels of intelligence, temperaments and inclinations which themselves are viewed as products of unequal environments.
Founded on Lies
Left-Liberalism is founded on lies. Its belief in extreme individualism is contradicted by its own adherents in their need for their individualism to be authenticated by others (they tend to be ‘individual’ in the same uniform way) and by the group nature of its neo-marxist analysis. The equality it seeks is an unattainable fantasy that can be approximated only by means of what it is for the present stopping just short of: true Stasi-like oppression.
The Political Correctness and ‘human rights’ it wants to impose as secular substitutes for the fast depleting stock of Christian morality built up over centuries which it assiduously attacks, has no defensible foundation in philosophy without religion or even in the will of the people. As we are seeing, the relegation of traditional morality and customs to the dustbin of history is producing moral squalor and social disintegration on an historic scale.
A Civilisation betrayed by Extremists
It is extremism which has brought about the historic crime which is the agenda of destroying the most successful civilisation that the world has ever known. A truer, better course would have been to steer between the extremes; the course of moderation indeed which Britain above all other societies had succeeded in establishing before it fell into the hands of the weak, the treacherous and the extreme.
Summoning up the Will to defeat this Evil
If the people of our country do not summon up the will to throw off this insidious evil, this pernicious cancer spells the end of us. We will continue to lie like the cowering denizens of the crumbling Roman Empire at the mercy of barbarians bringing with them the new Dark Ages. They will take from us and trample underfoot everything we have known and have loved and cared for and substitute for it –what? Even they don’t know. They just ‘hope’ on the basis only of their fatuous and discredited ideologies. But the reality of what we see so far as morality and traditions crumble and aliens are imported to replace our people is a steep decline in the quality of life and of social relations in what was once the most civilised society of any significance on the planet.
There is about our disintegrating country and the West in general the unmistakable stench of decay. The future seems very dark indeed.
