I think he doesn’t like me

Madmax, the Randian commenter who last month described me as the “most consistent defender of core conservative ideology that I have found,” writes at the Randian website Noodlefood:

Comparing Leftism to Gnosticism is something I have read before and it is interesting. Although he is a vicious racist crackpot, Larry Auster has made that argument—that Leftists are today’s Gnostics….

Well this is what Auster is saying about Gnosticism (and you are implying) namely that the Demiurge is frustrating the Gnostic’s desires for spiritual fulfillment and thus must be opposed. There is a parallel there for sure….

Leftists are children that want their whims satisfied no matter what or they will throw a tantrum. Vicious leftists are actually murderous beasts that want to kill their parents (which amounts to destroying Western Civilization). Conservatives (especially religious, cultural conservatives) are stern, authoritarian parents that want to turn their family into little dictatorships and crush any possible questioning of their dictates. Extreme social conservatives (like Larry Auster for example) want society to return to the Dark Ages where religion and traditionalism rule and parents are never questioned let alone disobeyed….

(For clarification—I despise Larry Auster. I merely mention him because he is the only other person I have read compare Leftism with Gnosticism. He says he gets this idea from Eric Voegelin’s ‘The New Science of Politics’ chapter four “Gnosticism—the Nature of Modernity.”)

Well, I must say it’s a good thing that Madmax added the note that he despises me. After all, he had just described me as a “vicious racist crackpot,” and as one of the “stern, authoritarian parents that want to turn their family into little dictatorships and crush any possible questioning of their dictates,” and as an “extreme social conservative” who wants “society to return to the Dark Ages where religion and traditionalism rule and parents are never questioned let alone disobeyed.” If he hadn’t issued that last minute clarification that he despises me, his fellow Randians might have thought he likes me, and then, boy, would be he in trouble.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 06, 2009 05:47 PM | Send