The monstrous, anti-human ideology that liberalism is; and the normalization of homosexuality

A reader comments on the terrible damage that is done to blacks and to the whole society by the liberal message constantly being sent to blacks that they have much higher abilities than they in fact have, that they can succeed in anything they attempt, and that if they don’t succeed, it is because of white racism.

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S. writes:

Thinking a bit more about it, I wonder if we will see a parallel phenomenon with homosexuals in another 10 or 20 years. It is an open secret that the homosexual community is rife with disease, dysfunction, and self-destructive behaviors. Many of them are being told, over and over again, that they are just as normal as straights, and that gay couples are just like straight couples and that all their dysfunction will go away once society is cured of its homophobia and grants them access to marriage.

So what happens once homosexuality is forcibly normalized, and society goes along with the fantasy that they can “marry’ each other? Homosexuals will still be homosexuals. They will still be impulsive and psychologically unstable. They will still be promiscuous and at a higher risk of suicide, sexual disease, drug addiction, and other disorders. They will not seek to build stable family units of the same kinds that traditional heterosexual couples do.

And if they seem angry at society and contemptuous of normalcy now, what will happen once they’ve gotten their way and things are no better off for them? They have already been conditioned to see homophobia everywhere, and to see it as the sole cause of all their miseries. Once “homophobia” is completely repressed in public, and the homosexual condition remains just as dysfunctional as ever, what will they do? What kind of seething, existential anger and despair will they feel? What kind of destructive, nihilistic impulses will they be subject to? When the better world the liberals promised never arrives, what will be left for them but the nihilism of destruction?

LA replies:

These arguments are a bit dated; they are inadequate to the problem that faces us. There are homosexuals who have stable long term relationships, and obviously many homosexuals are successful economically and do not represent a problem to society on that level. The focus on homosexuality as a source of rampant disease and dysfunction will not carry the debate, because so many homosexuals—especially the “representive” ones—are not diseased or conspicuously dysfunctional.

Ultimately the debate must be waged on the traditionalist and moral grounds of what kind of society do we want to live in?

It will also unavoidably be waged on the grounds of the homosexual tyranny that marches step by step with homosexual rights.

S. replies:

I am not suggesting a line of argument which is intended to arrest the creeping homosexualization of society, and I agree that such an argument cannot be effectively made by focusing on homosexual dysfunction and disease. It is too late for that and at any rate it rings hollow. Only when people come to accept the moral legitimacy of inegalitarian social arrangements can successful opposition to the homosexual agenda take place.

Rather, I am looking at things from the standpoint of liberalism’s empty promises. Liberalism promises blacks that they can achieve social and economic equality with whites and Asians if institutional racism is eliminated. But institutional racism is not the cause of inequality; the cause of inequality is the unequal distribution of abilities and talents among the races. There is no social “fix” for this natural inequality of the sort that liberals are promising . And so blacks can only look around at the inevitable inequality in society and grow increasingly angry and discontented. Likewise, liberalism promises homosexuals that they can achieve equal social acceptance and equal functionality with heterosexuals if only cultural homophobia is eliminated. But the lack of social acceptance and inequality in social functioning is something that stems from the very nature of homosexuality itself. There is no social or institutional “fix” for the problems which tend to afflict homosexuals of the sort that liberals are promising. And so homosexuals might also come to view the inevitable inequality in society as a cause for anger and discontent.

LA replies:

Agreed. I would add that what ultimately drives the homosexual equality movement is that it cannot rest so long as there remains in our society the slightest remnant of disapproval of homosexuality, because that means that homosexuality has not been accepted and is not equal. The drive exists for the very reason that homosexuality is not normal and will never be fully accepted. The homosexualists cannot accept that non-acceptance. They cannot accept anything that still implies a difference between normal sexuality and homosexuality. So the homosexual rights movement is tyrannical in its core and its drive to tyranny will create endless conflict and division that can only end when the society rejects the homosexual rights movement in its entirety. So long as society approves the homosexual rights movement somewhat, the homosexualists, having attained some equality but not the absolute full equality that they demand but which is impossible to achieve, must keep pushing with demonic fury against the walls of reality.

And let me add, as I’ve said many times before, that homosexual liberation can only be rejected when sexual liberation itself is rejected and society returns to something like traditional morality.

Laura Wood writes:

Are you referring to AIDS when you say that’s a “dated” argument? Homosexual men suffer from so many physical ailments, including increased risk of cancer and serious bacterial infections, not to mention many relatively minor, but debilitating physical complaints. While many young homosexual men are functional, the life span of homosexual men is remarkably shorter than that of heterosexual men even without AIDS.

I agree that health issues alone are not adequate to argue against approval of homosexuality. But, I am sure many people would not advocate for homosexual “marriage” if they knew these things and would worry not that their effeminate sons might be bullied but that they might live as homosexuals.

In the “It Gets Better” Campaign for homosexual teens, there is no admission of the health problems. Ditto with sex education programs in schools.

LA replies:

I may be wrong in underestimating the importance of the health argument. After all, the health argument goes to what homosexuality, physically, is about, so maybe pushing the health argument is the best way to wake people up to why homosexuality is bad.

But where I was coming from is seeing the way that homosexuality is increasingly accepted today as completely normal and ok. The idea that there is anything destructive or unhealty in homosexual practices doesn’t seem to be remotely on people’s minds. We see all these normal and healthy-looking people in various professions coming out and saying they’re homosexual. So it strikes me that the argument, “Homosexuality is bad for health and is associated with a dysfunctional life,” is not going to have much play in the current environment.

Look at it this way: suppose homosexuality wasn’t harmful to health at all. Suppose it wasn’t associated with any gross dysfunctionality. I assume you would still oppose homosexual liberation, right? Therefore it seems to me that the more fundamental arguments against homosexual rights relate to why homosexuality is bad—bad for individuals, bad for families, bad for society, bad for our relationship to God, bad for everything. And that is, because it is contrary to our nature, and represents a distortion in our nature—a disorder, as the Catholic Church puts it. And to approve that disorder is to spread a very profound disorder through society and to cause no end of harm to countless people.

Laura replies:

Millions of men have died prematurely because they engaged in homosexual intercourse and many thousands of others suffer from diseases such as hepatitis, syphilis and anal cancer. These risks will never go away. Anal intercourse will always be dangerous. The case against homosexual liberation would be weaker if this wasn’t true, but it doesn’t matter what it would be because it is true and the cover-up of these risks is one of the most heinous lies of modern liberalism.

LA replies:

Of course I know all that. I followed the AIDS debate in the ’80s. At one point I had a copy editing job with a medical publisher and edited many articles on the AIDS epidemic. Here I was addressing myself to a different set of factors which seem to have come to the fore in more recent years: “wholesome”-looking homosexuals in various respectable professions coming out everywhere, stable homosexual couples, homosexual adoptions, indeed an entire spreading subculture of residential suburban communities consisting of homosexual couples and their adopted children. Talking about AIDS and the evil cover-up of AIDS does not address these phenomena and the role they play in the culture and in people’s increasingly positive or accepting attitudes toward homosexuality.

Laura replies:

Yes, I’m not talking just about AIDS either. Other health problems are mentioned here. And most of those wholesome-looking homosexuals have had friends who have had serious health problems and have probably had at least minor ones themselves. Again, I agree that the health issue isn’t persuasive on its own. Some people think it’s worth the risk.

James N. writes:

Here’s my moderately well-informed opinion.

Physical afflictions associated with male homosexuality, although they exist (and are serviceable for grossing out straight people) pale into insignificance compared with the emotional and mental torments that afflict homosexual men in such large numbers.

“Normal” gay men DO exist—men who make the “Blue eyes/brown eyes” model of orientation seem reasonable. But they are not typical. What IS typical is alcoholism, drug abuse, self-loathing, depression, suicidality, and non-sexual risk taking behavior.

The phenomenon of suicide among male teens who have had sexual relations with adult men is real. Of course, the reason is not “bullying”, the reason is self-disgust of such enormous proportions as to encompass self-destruction.

Similar to the increase in black savagery that has been seen following “affirmative action”, the more “open and affirming” society becomes towards male homosexuality, the worse their social and psychological stressors become.

Perhaps kindness towards the “other” is not actually kind at all.

October 8

James R. writes:

The problem with most of these arguments, whether they’re correct or not, is that they note the liberal mindset but then describe how to refute it in ways that are guaranteed to be ineffective.

Liberals sincerely believe that if there are high rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide among homosexuals, it’s because society marginalizes them and they feel bad.

Liberals sincerely believe that if there are high crime rates and achievement problems in a minority population, it’s because society marginalizes them and they feel devalued.

Everyone is agreed on those points, but then whenever these discussions comes up everyone acts as if describing the problem will convince a sufficient number of the general population. I’ve seen very—very—good descriptions of this, and of the mindset. But I’ve rarely seen a discussion of effective counter-arguments that will convince people who sincerely hold the above beliefs that they are wrong, that, no, it’s not some flaw in society that we can fix by just forcing everyone to be more tolerant and acccepting, but a flaw (whether cultural or otherwise) within the people displaying those behaviors. Until we have a good counter argument the kultursmog will continue to prevail (since most people don’t want to seem mean, and one of the most effective tools in the liberal toolbox is to declare people as “meanspirited” if they are “judgemental” towards people with bad behaviors, instead of directing it against “society”—that is, the rest of us).

LA replies:

How did the existing non-liberals become such? By realizing the falsity of liberal beliefs. And this happens one person at a time, typically over a number of years in that person’s life. There is no single weapon of anti-liberal apologetics that is going to convert liberals en masse from their liberalism.

James R. replies:

True, but neither is pointing out the problem that liberals claim will be solved by re-arranging “society,” that is, forcing all the rest of us to behave differently instead of encouraging the people with the problem to behave better.

I could have gone longer in my mail, and say that part of what started me to change my mind was some of the statistical evidence Thomas Sowell uses to demolish the liberal paradigm. But what never would have caused me to change my mind is saying: “Liberals see problem X in population Y, and believe it can be fixed by altering social arrangement N. But problem X exists inherently in population Y.” [LA replies: But what you have just stated is the paradigm of a truthful argument that does convert people from liberalism. When they see, for example, the truth that blacks’ intellectual deficiencies relative to whites are inherent in blacks and are not society’s fault and cannot be changed by any ameliorative measures (as I came to see); or when they see that Islam is an unchanging and unchangeable doctrine that demands the institutionalization of sharia and the subjugation of non-Muslims (as I came to see more fully when researching my article, “The Centrality of Jihad in Islam”); and so on. It is precisely the gradual realization of truths such as these which leads a person away from liberalism.]

Take your Canadian left-liberal correspondent, Mr. Hechtman: he’ll never be convinced of traditionalism by these methods. He already knows full well that problem X exists in population Y, he just sincerely believes it is not their fault, it is the fault of the rest of us. Liberals externalize problems to a source outside of the person displaying them (unless that person is a right-winger, then they’re a hater).

They also sincerely believe their own efforts make things better, rather than being largely counter-productive. Thus pointing out problem Y and declaring it the responsibility of the people engaging in that behavior causes not mind-changing, but tuning out, as they conclude we’re “haters.”

LA replies:

You’re talking about the prospect of converting liberals such as Ken Hechtman from their liberalism, and of course that is not a realistic prospect. Convinced liberals are obviously not prime candidates for conversion. The goal of traditionalists is to reach people who can be reached.

LA continues:

Take the case of self-described convert-from-liberalism David Mamet. I had never thought of him as particularly liberal to begin with. His plays and movies always had strong non-liberal and anti-liberal elements. His anti-PC play Oleanna was written more than a decade before he announced his conversion from liberalism.

S. writes:

This thread has provoked so many interesting comments. I think James N. best expresses something I was getting at earlier. It further illustrates just how monstrous and destructive the liberal ideology is. Male homosexuals, at least all the ones I know (and I know quite a few) are afflicted with some degree of self-loathing and existential discomfort.

There are two competing theories for why this is. The traditional theory is that man has an inherent nature, and this nature imposes certain limits and norms upon the will. A eudaimon life is impossible for someone who transgresses these limits and flaunts these norms, and one’s self-perception cannot but be conditioned by a realization of this. An alcoholic, for instance, cannot indulge his desires for drink and at the same time live a good life, no matter how badly he wishes to indulge his desires and no matter how tormented he is by being dry. He is, sadly, in an existential predicament that at some level is not of his choosing and has no easy solution. Nevertheless, he must try, to the best of his ability, to live a tolerable existence without drink. But, no matter what, a rightly functioning society simply cannot cooperate with his disorder, it must remain normative that he suppress his disordered desires and try to achieve sobriety. With God’s grace and the willing support of others this is possible for some.

Likewise with homosexuality, for the homosexual too is in an existential predicament that is not of his choosing. He cannot indulge in this disorder and live a good life, no matter how badly he may wish to have sex with other men and how much he despises chastity. In a rightly functioning society, it must remain normative that he suppress his disordered desire and try to live a tolerable life while chaste. With God’s grace and a favorable social environment, this is possible for some. The traditional theory is, in some sense, a tragic but realistic view of man.

The liberal sees the traditional theory as intolerably cruel and sadistic. The liberal’s theory is that nature imposes no limits or norms upon the will and that any form of life can be eudaimon if only we engineer the right set of social circumstances and develop the right technologies. So what we must do is eliminate the possibility of existential predicaments that are not of one’s own choosing. We do this by creating a society in which no one can be put into a position where he cannot live with himself, no matter who he is or what he wants to do. This means we have to impose rigorous restrictions on thought and speech and we must ensure that social and economic outcomes are as equal as possible. We must empower the state to smash all of the institutions and cultural norms that elevate some forms of life above others. Then, anyone can live a good life on his own freely chosen terms.

And if the liberal is wrong, he is an absolute monster. He will fail to eliminate existential predicaments, because human nature cannot be altered through political or technological means. The deviants will still hate themselves and they will still be trapped in existential predicaments. Only now they will no longer have the ability rightly to perceive their condition, because we may not speak the truth about them. Moreover, the deviant will come to hate and despise the society, because he has been convinced that it is the true source of his misery. And if Western liberal humanity, notwithstanding its desire to do so, simply cannot create a society in which it is possible for a homosexual to live happily with himself, then so long as the homosexual embraces liberalism he will be compelled to continue destroying every institution and vestige of his culture, hoping that eventually the liberal utopia will come and he at last can live in peace.

James R. writes:

I used to be a convinced Madison (Wisconsin) liberal, though not hard-core left. I came to this site only well after I was convinced that I was wrong (something that, yes, was a process, not an event), and after I got convinced that mainstream conservatism was a hopeless cause as well. Believing liberals can have their minds changed. Hechtman might seem a hopeless cause but not if he takes his achievable goals seriously—the topmost ones of better lives for everyone—but gets convinced that the ideology he is committed to will not achieve them, but achieves instead their opposite: not human liberty, but “managerial liberalism,” not equality but sublimation under a expert class that thinks it can manage everyone’s lives better, Brave New World-style, not the uplifting of blacks, but the destruction of the black family (something not even the worst of Jim Crow could accomplish) and the true immiseration of people in a welter of pathologies as their untutored passions are unleashed and they’re told any “lifestyle choice” is good and the only wrong is to be critical of such “choices,” and that the liberal paradigm of externalizing responsibility causes the spread not of “social responsibility” but of irresponsibility. [LA replies: I just want to be clear that I have never had the slightest thought of converting Ken Hechtman from anything. His participation here has never involved arguments over liberalism versus conservatism, but rather his information and views about what was going on among his fellow liberals/leftists and also his views about conservatives.]

People like Mr. Hechtman might then be convinced that Frederick Douglass was right, that the black man does not need and indeed suffers from the ministrations of people like Hechtman. “Everybody has asked the question…”What shall we do with the Negro?” I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature’s plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!”

S. writes:

I see now that this thread is discussing the possibility of converting people away from liberalism, and James R. is skeptical about our prospects. As a convert from left-liberalism, might I add my two-cents?

I don’t think anyone gets converted from liberalism overnight. What happened to me was a combination of experience and exposure to traditionalist ideas, and really I think you absolutely need both. Just by presenting the traditionalist position to people, you give them an opportunity to interpret their own experiences in a way that runs counter to the liberal paradigm. For example, I really did not want to believe that blacks were on average less intelligent and more prone to criminality. I absolutely hated that idea. But realizing that there was evidence for that claim, and that it comported with my own experiences as I interacted with more and more blacks, eventually solidified me in my current convictions. In my own case, that was the moment at which the serpent had been introduced into my leftist eden. If I could be dead wrong about something so central to my moral sense of the world, what else might I be wrong about?

Once there is a serious breach in someone’s worldview, it is hard to contain the damage. I could no longer simply dismiss conservatism as a mental pathology, and so I started holding my nose and reading people like Hayek. And then I realized that he isn’t some crank; his arguments against pure socialism are devastating and they cannot be answered. Then I picked up some neo-Thomists, and I realized that Thomism really hadn’t been refuted by Hume and Kant as I had always believed. Another breach in the dam, now I know that a correct metaphysics of human nature rules out the moral permissibility of homosexuality. And then I started poking around and you find blogs like this one, and you see that there are intelligent traditionalists, and the things they say anticipate what I am thinking. The dam is burst, the conversion is complete.

My full transition took well over seven years. In 2004 I was to the left of John Kerry. In 2008 I was indifferent to whether Obama got elected. Today, well, I pretty much see things the way Lawrence Auster does.

LA replies:

That is quite a change in seven years! It partly refutes, and partly supports, my earlier statement that convinced left-liberals cannot be converted. You were converted, but no one converted you. It was a gradual unfoldment in your own understanding.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 06, 2011 08:37 PM | Send