How Communism and liberalism weed out the unfit

Dimitri K. writes:

I was brought up in USSR, on books by Communist writers, many of which had participated in Russian revolution and civil war. Not all of them survived, but those who did, taught that a Communist must be brave, must have solid principles and never give up. And those who don’t, do not deserve to live in happy future. So I tried hard, I read the books and imagined I was brave and principled, because there was no other way to be.

However, life was not that perfect. Our working class neighborhood was unsafe and full of bullies. They seem to have had no respect neither for Communist ideas, nor for principles of respect and commonwealth. They respected only physical force. I was taught by my teachers to stand for my principles and speak out, but the problem was that I was neither strong nor had strong friends. But if I asked my teachers, I heard only one answer: “You must”. So I must have been strong, but I wasn’t. What could I do?

More problems came when I grew up, became a teenager and started to ask questions. Reality was not as good as it should be according to founding fathers. But my teachers did not like my questions, they grew increasingly hostile and told me that I was an anti-Soviet person. Actually, I was not. I only wanted to justify Communist ideas to myself. However, I found that asking questions was a sin. A good communist must not ask questions. Otherwise he is not fit to enter the happy future.

Even though I did not realize it, I felt that my Communist religion was betraying me. It did not give me any answer what to do. Its only answer was, that anyone (and me too) who does not fit, is unfit. That’s it. Now I know the name of this principle—it is Natural Selection.

When in 1930th Stalin unfolded repressions against the high-ranking communists and farmers, he justified it with the Law that he invented. He claimed that the Class Struggle must intensify as society approaches Communism. Later, this principle was criticized by more liberal communists as anti-scientific. But Stalin knew what he was talking about. He was right, because the philosophy of Communism is Natural Selection. One who does not fit, is unfit. And as Communism approach and requirements toughen, more and more people will find themselves unfit.

I had nothing against this principle, until I encountered the real life, and found out that I was not so fine. In other words, I appeared to be unfit, and hence had no right to survive.

Now, everyone knows that Communism/Socialism has failed. But why? Some think, it’s because of some inherent Asian cruelty of Russians, other think it’s because Socialism failed economically. That’s not all the truth. Neither Russians were cruel, nor we suffered from hunger. But we all realized that we did not fit into Happy Future. We knew that the Natural Selection principle left no future for us.

In the West, we are not all building the happy future. But Natural Selection is accepted by many. So, as soon as someone suddenly finds himself imperfect, or unfit, he knows where he is going to go—to extinction. Just like it happened with Communists in the times of Stalin.

LA replies:

Dimitri has provided the material for VFR’s second Johnnie Cochran paraphrase in one day:

If you don’t fit, you are unfit.

Seriously, the elimination or at least de-humanizatoin of the unfit (in the liberal sense) is the nature of modern liberalism. If you are not of the self-loving liberal tribe, you’re not really human and you don’t deserve to exist. The liberal system will allow you to go on existing, because it needs non-liberal whites as a race of Goldsteins—exemplars of the evil anti-liberalism that always threatens to topple the liberal order and that must be marginalized and throttled.

November 24

Hannon writes:

Thank you for posting Dimitri K.’s personal introspection into Communist evolution. What he writes on this subject seems almost as though it were from some archaic period of history. He writes:

“We knew that the Natural Selection principle left no future for us.”

I would submit that this is only partly true, in the personal or generational sense. “Us” can still bear children who become well-ordered components of the machine, even against their parents’ most strenuous counter-instruction. Is it not commonplace that conservative parents turn out kids who are attracted to liberal or even revolutionary or anarchist principles?

So that is the future for those conservatives: natural selection that does not eliminate them but successfully utilizes their germ plasm by “selecting” their offspring for the most adaptive features at that particular time.

Without such contrasts or alternations there would be no cycles, and acceptance of the principle of cycles seems to me one of the chief distinctions between liberals and conservatives.

LA replies:

Fascinating and disturbing point.

QR writes:

You wrote:

“If you are not of the self-loving liberal tribe, you’re not really human and you don’t deserve to exist.”

A few years ago, I read some feminist author stating that until Women’s Lib, only men had the chance to be “fully human.”

Quite aside from the fact that most men’s lot isn’t that self-actualizing either and never has been, that just shows the liberal attitude. She didn’t define what being “fully human” meant, but I’m guessing it has something to do with autonomy and an interesting career. If you don’t have those things, you’re subhuman. No wonder they think it’s all right to kill unborn babies.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 23, 2008 11:35 PM | Send