Sunday, February 21, 2016

A clarification of my rejection of the "Dastardly Leftists" explanation

http://www.bluelinepro.com/Merchant5/graphics/00000001/3pencils_NPB_lg.jpg

In my previous essay, PC MC TV, and in many essays I've written over the years, I've made a case for broadening out the analysis of the Problem of the Problem (the Problem, that is, of the West's persisting myopia to the Problem of Islam) to a more amorphous cultural & sociological phenomenon, where Leftism is only one factor.

Indeed, I developed the term "PC MC" (Politically Correct Multi-Culturalism) precisely as an alternative to "Leftism" (or "liberalism"), in order to do analytical justice to what seemed evident to me: the fact of millions of non-Leftists who inhale and exhale politically correct opinions about Islam, thereby contributing to the climate change in the cultural atmospherics -- the paradigm shift in worldview -- that has occurred over the past half century or more (with historical roots going back a good century or two before that).  And by so doing, these non-Leftists who ingest and regurgitate PC MC memes help reinforce the Leftist agenda; and without the non-Leftists enabling them, the Leftists wouldn't stand a chance to influence Western society.

This, of course, presumes two things about Leftists:  1) that they are a relatively small minority in the West; and 2) that they do not have supernatural powers to control the vast majority through diabolical manipulation of all cultural & sociopolitical institutions.  And, in turn, it presumes two things about the non-Leftists: 1) that a critical mass of them are not stupid sheep; and 2) that they sincerely believe in the PC MC memes they recycle into the cultural atmospherics.  I.e., they are not being "brainwashed" by some external force; they really sincerely believe in the righteous virtue of avoiding "bigotry" and "racism" with regard to the problem of Muslims.  Of course, how this translates into actual opinions and what policies they would support varies from person to person; and where they draw the line separating legitimate criticism of Islam from illegitimate "Islamophobia" also may vary somewhat.  But the general principle & framework is shared by all, and it is considerably softer than the softest Counter-Jihadists.

Now, when I said that "they are not being "brainwashed" by some external force" I didn't mean to say that there exist no Leftists out there trying to brainwash the public with disinformation and propaganda about Islam; I merely meant that the general PC MC disposition of these non-Leftist masses is not the successful result of some dastardly, calculating brainwashing project.

If it's not the successful result of a dastardly Leftist (or Marxist or "Gramscian" or "Alinskyite") project, what is it?  Well, that's the six million dollar question.  My point is that in order to answer that question, we have to factor in certain phenomena -- such as the existence of non-Leftist defenders of Muslims (e.g., the Voegelin Society, deeply respectful of Christian tradition, and routinely castigated as right-wing and "anti-Communists") -- and be reasonable and avoid the glib assumption that all these non-Leftists are "stupid sheep" easily brainwashed by a Dastardly Cabal.  Once we chart that course, the only plausible alternative is that somehow, virtues of our Graeco-Roman Judaeo-Christian heritage had within them the seeds of the development into a mass neurosis we see now in PC MC.

Further Reading:

As I mentioned up top, I've written several essays on this problem.  Perhaps the most concise yet thorough one is PC MC: Neither Left nor Right, but Ambidextrous.

9 comments:

30donkeys said...

One might understand why fingers have been pointed at the Frankfurt School. I’m looking at A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Theory, Fifth Ed. (2005), “The best of the many guides to literary theory,” says a blurb on the back. It surveys modern literary theory in ten chapters, essentially chronologically (a chapter like that on Feminist theories will look back briefly at First-wave feminist criticism, but quickly move forward).

‘Marxist theories’ is Chapter 5, and squat in the middle of Chapter 5 is ‘The Frankfurt School and After: Adorno and Benjamin.’ Any writer before these two in the Table of Contents, speaking for myself, I could read with, if not enthusiasm, at least curiosity, including Marx and Brecht. The thought of reading, or trying again to read, the writers lower in the list inspires revulsion, nausea, dread: Althusser, Eagleton, Jameson, Millet, Showalter, Kristeva, Irigaray, Barthes, Lacan, Kristeva, Derrida, Foucault, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Edward Said.

The Frankfurt School is associated with Critical Theory, which as far as I know remains a plague on our universities. A table of contents is not an argument, of course, but if Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse and Fromm didn’t start the sea change, they were well-placed with their own particular poisons to accelerate it, and to inspire others to think of ways the culture could be attacked.

Hesperado said...

The point is, there is a distinction between

1) a Frankfurt school actually having a nefarious intent to subvert the West and actually rolling up their shirtsleeves to engage in various subversive activities calculated to realize that nefarious intent

and

2) the conclusion that the rampant PC MC we see throughout the West with regard to the problem of Islam is the successful result of #1.

In order for a person to assent to #2, he has to avoid and/or oddly reinterpret masses of data in such a way that betrays a curious alienation from his own West (ironically, the very same West he claims he wants to defend). This paradox, in turn, reflects, or morphs into, the gnostic split in reality producing various forms of what Voegelin called "Second Reality" -- again, ironically a feature also of the very same parties pursuing #1.

Egghead said...

I bet that, based on the evidence of subversion that she uncovered, Diana West would agree more with me than you if God were doing the rhetorical asking.

The truth is that the moral decay started well BEFORE the Frankfurt School - at the point that Western Jews either covertly or overtly obtained access to the levers of power in the West.

Non-Christian immigration is just a tactic and the introduction of Islam and Muslims are merely one tool of many in the service of an obviously well-implemented plan to establish a Jewish oligarchy.

Note: Gates of Vienna censored when I tried to link to the Jewish website that fondly recalls the Islamic conquest of Spain.

Note: This link and comment disappeared today:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3459178/FGM-akin-male-circumcision-breast-implants-designer-vagina-ops-Gynecologists-argue-genital-nicks-don-t-harm-girls-legalized.html

Egghead said...

Ah, here we go:

http://www.sephardicstudies.org/islam.html

Egghead said...

Here's another:

http://www.jewishpress.com/blogs/united-with-israel/rich-legacy-of-the-sephardic-jews-of-muslim-spain/2013/06/17/

Egghead said...

Yet again:

http://www.jewishhistory.org/golden-age-in-spain/

Egghead said...

Yes, best to read this one, too:

http://www.aish.com/jl/h/cc/48950501.html?mobile=yes

It turns out that a Jew expelled from Spain wrote the Talmud....

Egghead said...

Ok, it's complicated, but 'Maimonides was the first one to index the entire body of [Jewish] Oral law - both Talmuds, etc., ... and compile it all in a logical and systematic fashion.'

'Maimonides also placed great emphasis on making his works [The Talmud] available and understandable to all Jews, scholars and laymen alike.'

See here:

http://m.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/75991/jewish/Maimonides-His-Life-and-Works.htm

Egghead said...

And, yes, I do consider the Jewish facilitation of the wholesale importation of Africa to Europe & the USA to be a clear act of aggression against the white Christian West.