Leftism

Life in the Fully Politicized Society

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…and the choice before us.

Many will remember Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech, in which she  said:

Barack Obama will  require  you to work. He is going to  demand  that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will  never allow you  to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed….You have to stay at the seat at the table of democracy with a man like Barack Obama not just on Tuesday but in a year from now, in four years from now, in eight years from now, you will  have to be  engaged.

Victor Davis Hanson  notes that she also said:

We are going to have to change our conversation; we’re going to have to change our traditions, our history; we’re going to have to move into a different place as a nation.

…which is, of course, entirely consistent with the assertion made by Barack Obama himself, shortly before his first inauguration:  “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the  United States of America.”

It should be clear by now that all aspects of American life and society are rapidly becoming politicized. Obama greatly accelerated this movement, but he didn’t initiate it.  The “progressive” political movement, which now controls the Democratic Party, has for a long time been driving the politicization of anything and everything.  The assertion  “the personal is political”  originated on the Left in the 1960s…and, if the personal is political, then everything is political.

Some people, of course,  like  the politicization of everything–for some individuals, indeed, their lives would be meaningless without it.  In his important memoir of growing up in Germany between the wars, Sebastian Haffner noted divergent reactions from people when the political and economic situation stabilized (temporarily, as we now know) during the Stresemann chancellorship:

The last ten years were forgotten like a bad dream. The Day of Judgment was remote again, and there was no demand for saviors or revolutionaries…There was an ample measure of freedom, peace, and order, everywhere the most well-meaning liberal-mindedness, good wages, good food and a little political boredom. everyone was cordially invited to concentrate on their personal lives, to arrange their affairs according to their own taste and to find their own paths to happiness.

But this return to private life was not to everyone’s taste:

A generation of young Germans had become accustomed to having the entire content of their lives delivered gratis, so to speak, by the public sphere, all the raw material for their deeper emotions…Now that these deliveries suddently ceased, people were left helpless, impoverished, robbed, and disappointed. They had never learned how to live from within themselves, how to make an ordinary private life great, beautiful and worth while, how to enjoy it and make it interesting. So they regarded the end of political tension and the return of private liberty not as a gift, but as a deprivation. They were bored, their minds strayed to silly thoughts, and they began to sulk.

and

To be precise (the occasion demands precision, because in my opinion it provides the key to the contemporary period of history): it was not the entire generation of young Germans. Not every single individual reacted in this fashion. There were some who learned during this period, belatedly and a little clumsily, as it were, how to live. They began to enjoy their own lives, weaned themselves from the cheap intoxication of the sports of war and revolution, and started to develop their own personalities. It was at this time that, invisibly and unnoticed, the Germans divided into those who later became Nazis and those who would remain non-Nazis.

I’m afraid we have quite a few people in America today who like having “the entire content of their lives delivered gratis, so to speak, by the public sphere, all the raw material for their deeper emotions.”  But for most people, especially for creative and emotionally-healthy people, the politicization of everything leads to a dreary and airless existence.

In her novel  We the Living, based partly on her personal experiences in the early Soviet Union (which is probably why it is, IMO, the best of her books from a literary standpoint), Ayn Rand paints a vivid picture of what day-to-day life in the politicized society is like.  Her heroine, Kira Argounova, is a strong anti-Communist, but absent other options has found a job (which she got through intervention of a Communist friend) in something called “The House of the Peasant,” which is dedicated to “a closer understanding between workers and peasants,”  under the slogan “The Clamping of City and Village,” celebrated with posters bearing slogans like “Comrades, strengthen the Clamping!”

Kira’s boss at the House of the Peasant is an older woman “thin, gray-haired, military and in strict sympathy with the Soviet Government; her chief aim in life was to give constant evidence of how strict that sympathy was, even though she had graduated from a women’s college…” But the boss lives in fear of “a tall girl with a long nose and a leather jacket, who was a Party member and could make Comrade Bitiuk shudder at her slightest whim, and knew it…” All the office staff members also live in fear of the Wall Newspaper, which carries criticisms of individual workers both for their personal behavior as well as their work performance:

Comrade Nadia Chernova is wearing silk stockings. Time to be reminded that such flaunting of luxury is un-proletarian, Comrade Chernova…Comrade E Ovsov indulges in too much talk when asked about business. This leads to a waste of valuable time…We hear that Comrade Kira Argounova is lacking in social spirit. The time is past, Comrade Argounova, for arrogant bourgeois attitudes.

After reading this last, Kira “stood very still and heard her heart beating. No one dared to ignore the mighty pointing finger of the Wall Newspaper…No one could save those branded as “anti-social element,” not even (Kira’s Communist friend) Andrei Taganov… At her desk, she watched the others in the room, wondering who had reported her to the Wall Newspaper…”

All workers in the office are expected to be member of the Marxist Club (ie, to be “engaged,” as Michelle Obama would put it), which meets after hours and for attendance at which the workers are not paid. The club met twice a week: one member read a thesis he had prepared and the others discussed it.  When it is Kira’s turn, she reads her thesis on “Marxism and Leninism,” which she has copied, barely changing the words, from the “ABC of Communism,” a book whose study is compulsory in every school in the country.

She knew that all her listeners had read it, that they had also read her thesis, time and time again, in every editorial of every newspaper for the last six years. They sat around her, hunched, legs stretched out limply, shivering in their overcoats. They knew she was there for the same reason they were.  The girl in the leather jacket presided, yawning once in a while.

After mandatory discussion  (“Kira knew that she had to argue and defend her thesis; she knew that the consumptive young man had to argue to show his activity; she knew that he was no more interested in the discussion than she was, that his blue eyelids were weary with sleeplessness, that he clasped his thin hands nervously, not daring to glance at his wristwatch…”), the meeting finally comes to a close. “We shall thank Comrade Argounova for her valuable work,” said the chairman. “Our next meeting will be devoted to a thesis by Comrade Leskov on ‘Marxism and Collectivism.’”

If this sort of thing sounds like a lot of fun to you, then you should be applauding the increased politicization of America.  Of course, to a certain type of person–the type represented above by the girl in the leather jacket–such a society is something to look forward to.

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The Phobia(s) That Are Destroying America

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Many educated/urban/upper-middle-class people show a disturbing level of fear, contempt, and anger directed toward Christians, non-college graduates, and rural people (especially southerners).   This complex of negative emotions often greatly exceeds anything that these same people feel toward radical Islamists or dangerous rogue-state governments. I’m not a Christian myself,  but I’d think that you would be a lot more worried about people who want to cut your head off, blow you up, or at a bare minimum shut down your freedom of speech than about people who want to talk to you about Jesus (or Nascar!)

It seems that there are quite a few people who vote Democratic, even when their domestic and foreign-policy views are not closely aligned with those of the Democratic Party, because they view the Republican Party and its candidates as being dominated by Christians and “rednecks.”  The hostility toward Trump is substantially motivated by hostility toward those who are his supporters (or those who are assumed to be his supporters)

What is the origin of this anti-Christian, anti-noncollege, anti-“redneck” feeling? Some have suggested that it’s a matter of oikophobia … the aversion to the familiar, or “the repudiation of inheritance and home,” as philosopher Roger Scruton uses the term. I think this is doubtless true in some cases: the kid who grew up in a rural Christian home and wants to make a clean break with his family heritage, or the individual who grew up in an oppressively conformist Bible Belt community. But I think such cases represent a relatively small part of the category of people I’m talking about here. A fervently anti-Christian, anti-Southern individual who grew up in New York or Boston or San Francisco is unlikely to be motivated by oikophobia. Indeed, far from being excessively familiar, Christians and Southern people are likely as exotic to him as the most remote tribes of New Guinea.

Equally exotic, but much safer to sneer at. And here, I think, we have the explanation for much, though not all, of the anti-Christian, anti-Southern bigotry. It is a safe outlet for the unfortunately-common human tendency to look down on members of an out group. Safer socially than bigotry against Black people or gays or those New Guinea tribesmen; much less likely to earn you the disapproval of authority figures in school or work or of your neighbors. Safer physically than saying anything negative about Muslims, as you’re much less likely to face violent retaliation.

There are some other factors which I think motivate some people toward the anti-Christian anti-Southern mindset. One is the fear that Christians, especially Southern Christians, are anti-science, and that Republican electoral victories will reduce Federal support for science or even lead to restrictions on scientific research. And indeed, some conservatives/Republicans have been known to make some pretty strange statements, such as former Rep. Paul Broun’s assertion, “All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, the Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell.”

But in realistic terms, there is far more threat to US science from “animal rights” terrorists – the vast majority of whom are politically on the Left – than from anti-evolutionists. And there is even more threat from  pressures on allowable and non-allowable topics for university research…pressures which emanate almost exclusively from the “woke” Left. And numerous followers of “progressivism” are believers in various forms of mysticism, such as magical crystals and a conscious Gaia, which are at least as inconsistent with pure scientific materialism as are the Biblical miracles. At the level of practical technology, the irrational hostility toward nuclear power, genetically-modified crops, etc., comes almost entirely from the Left.

Another factor is sex. Many seem to fear that conservatives/Republicans are anti-sex “Puritans” and will force women into metaphorical (or maybe not so metaphorical!) chastity belts. Democratic Party operatives have done their best to conflate opposition to forcing institutions to pay for birth control with opposition to birth control itself. In reality, no serious Republican national-level politician is remotely proposing the banning of birth control or, for that matter, the banning of homosexuality. And, speaking of “Puritanism,” we should note that the anti-male hostility emanating from certain radical feminists, who are almost entirely creatures of the Left, has done much to poison the relationship between the sexes, especially on college campuses.

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Worthwhile Reading & Watching

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A thoughtful piece on England and its influence.

Related: The rage of the British elites.  Note especially the guy who compares Musk’s purchase of Twitter with Paris under the Nazi occupation.

Katya Sedgwick, who grew up in the USSR, on the social costs of scarcity.  Not just of scarcity, I think, but of top-down economic planning.

A Norwegian study found that replacing one of the 5% worst general practitioners with one of average quality generates a social benefit of $9 million.   Surely true of many other occupations as well.

CDR Salamander writes about dependencies on China on US defense procurement.

Speaking of defense procurement, Tablet has a long profile of Palmer Luckey, founder of the defense startup Anduril:  American Vulcan.  The article also mentions General Bernard Schriever, who spearheaded USAF ballistic missile development in the 1950s and 1960s–and we need some Schrievers in government and well as entrepreneurial and creative people in the private sector if we are to become more nimble and effective in weapons-system development.  See my review of Schriever’s biography: A fiery peace in a cold war.

The WSJ book section last weekend had a review of Patrick Bishop’s “Paris 1944″…reminded me of an outstanding French TV series set during years of the Occupation. “A French Village,” as its name suggests, is set not in Paris but in the fictional town of Villeneuve.  One of the best television series I have ever seen.  Here’s my review.  That link goes to Ricochet, I also posted a review at Chicago Boyz, but the one at Ricochet is easier to read due to the WordPress typography plague.  This series should really not be missed.

No, They Don’t Really Believe in ‘Equality’

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Kamala Harris has talked a lot about ‘equality,’ and she doesn’t mean equality before the law, nor equality of opportunity but equality of outcomes, ie, equity in the current terminology of the Left.  (video)  Many other “progressive” politicians have adopted similar positions, though rarely expressed in quite so explicit and extreme a manner.  But I would argue that very few among those politicians and other prominent or influential people who argue for ‘equity’ or ‘equality’ really want any such thing.

Consider, for example: Many people in ‘progressive’ leadership positions are graduates of the Harvard Law School. Do you think these people want to see a society in which the career, status, and income prospects for an HLS grad are no better than those for a graduate of a lesser-known, lower-status (but still very good) law school?  C’mon.

Quite a few ‘progressive’ leaders are members of prominent families. Do you think Teddy Kennedy would have liked to see an environment in which he and certain other members of his family would have had to answer for their actions in the criminal courts in the same way that ordinary individuals would, without benefit from connections, media influence, and expensive lawyers?

The prevalence of  ‘progressivism’ among tenured professors is quite high. How many of these professors would be eager to agree to employment conditions in which their job security and employee benefits were no better than those enjoyed by average Americans? How many of them would take a salary cut in order to provide higher incomes for the poorly-paid adjunct professors at their universities? How many would like to see PhD requirements eliminated so that a wider pool of talented and knowledgeable individuals can participate in university teaching?

There are a lot of  ‘progressives’ among the graduates of Ivy League universities. How many of them would be in favor of legally eliminating alumni preferences and the influence of  contributions and have their children considered for  admission–or not–on the same basis as everyone else’s kids? Yet an alumni preference is an intergenerational asset in the same way that a small businessman’s store or factory is such an asset.

Do you think that Hillary Clinton would be happy living as an ordinary individual, without power, status, national and global recognition, and, yes, the money she and her husband have been able to accumulate  in their lifetime of ‘public service’?  (I remember she once chose to wear a $12K Armani jacket while delivering a speech lamenting Inequality)  Is Kamala herself not seeking a rather extreme form of inequality by seeking the highest office in the land?  Is not regular access to Air Force One a form of inequality at least as potent as a billionaire’s access to the business or personal jet that he owns?

The reality is that ‘progressivism’ is not in any way about equality, it is rather about shifting the distribution of power and wealth in a way that benefits those with certain kinds of educational credentials and certain kinds of connections, and, especially those who are holders of important political offices. And remember, power is always and everywhere transmutable into wealth. Sometimes that wealth is directly in monetary form, as with the millions of dollars that former presidents such as  Clinton and Obama have made from speaking fees, or the money made by a former government official who leverages his contacts into an executive job with a an energy company even though he may have minimal knowledge of either energy or business. And sometimes the wealth takes the form of in-kind benefits, like a governor’s mansion or access to government aircraft.  (Those who lived in the old Soviet Union and Eastern Europe can tell you all about in-kind benefits for nominally low-paid officials.)  Plus, power itself provides a kind of ‘psychic income’, which can be as valuable to the beneficiary as is monetary income.

And, almost always, today’s ‘progressivism;  is about the transfer of power from individuals to credentialed ‘experts’ who will coerce or ‘nudge’ people to do what those experts have decided would be best.

To a very substantial extent, the talk about ‘equity’ and ‘equality’  is a smokescreen, conscious or unconscious, behind which  ‘progressives’ pursue their own economic, status, and ego agendas.  It is a about a kind of class warfare, conducted on a horizontal rather than a vertical basis.  If your career is based on academic credentials from an ‘elite’ university, or on political connections, or on being in a politically-favored industry, you would come out ahead under the Harris-Walz view of how things should work. But if your career is based on hard work, measurable accomplishment, and creativity, not so much. Especially if you are not willing to eagerly express agreement with whatever the elements of the  ‘progressive’ worldview might be at any particular time.

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