The way liberals see reality, and the way I see it

Looking at what America has become, considering how America has liberated, licensed, and unleashed every kind of evil passion, I, for one, expect terrible things to happen in America. So I’m not particularly surprised or shocked by an event such as the Newtown, Connecticut mass murder. I expect things like this to happen. After all, they’ve happened plenty of times before: the Columbine High School mass murder; the Virginia Tech mass murder; other planned school mass murders that were stopped (see my 2001 article, “The Revelation of Nihilism”); a post office mass murder in Montclair, New Jersey; the mass murder of eight employees at a Connecticut beer distributorship by a driver who was about to be fired; numerous other mass murders in work places, and on and on and on. And that’s not even counting the September 11 attack and numerous other planned terrorist attacks that were forestalled. Mass murders occur regularly in America. But liberals do not expect mass murders to happen and are utterly shocked and surprised when they do happen. They think everything in their world is fine. They cannot take in the fact that there is a great deal of evil and madness afoot in our society.

Why this blindness? Why this recurrent shock at a recurrent type of event? I think it’s because liberalism consists of blocking out all the vast sectors of reality which contradict liberal belief. One of the major sectors of reality which contradict liberal belief is evil (not counting, of course, the delusory evil of those modern witches, white conservative Christians, an evil which liberals fully believe in and are obsessed by). If evil exists, then evil is worse than the good, which contradicts the liberal belief in equality (as explained here and here). In the world of liberalism, there cannot be any fundamental distinctions among men, such as whether they are good or evil. The only fundamental moral distinction that liberals acknowledge among men is whether they are liberal or non-liberal, with the non-liberals, who believe in moral distinctions, consigned to the outer darkness. But when it comes to real evil, as distinct from the imaginary evil of white conservatives, liberals block it out, and so they are always shocked by its repeated manifestations.

A further reason liberals block out evil is that so many of the evil events in modern society are a direct result of liberalism, namely of what we’ve just been talking about, the liberal denial of evil. Because liberals deny the existence of evil and think that the only evil is to believe—like those Christian conservatives—in the existence of evil, they do nothing to forestall evil. Thus the ticketing agent who allowed the demon Muhammad Atta to get on a plane in Maine on the morning of September 11, 2001 notwithstanding his feeling that Atta looked like a classic Islamic terrorist, because he felt it would be morally wrong to stop a Muslim for further questioning. Thus the teachers and schoolmates of the demons Harris and Klebold who ignored their threats of murder because they thought they were just joking around. And on and on it goes. First liberals, by blocking out the existence of evil, allow evil acts to flourish, and then, once those evil acts have occurred, the liberals must continue to block out those evil acts because it was the liberals themselves who through their liberalism allowed them to occur.

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Kathlene M. writes:

The reason liberals, and all Americans, cannot flee anymore is that the evil is everywhere. It has taken over our schools and our homes via the mass entertainment media. Even if people move to a quiet safe place, the web of evil reaches into American homes through televisions and video games, and into schools through public “education.”

Thomas Bertonneau writes:

In reading your remarks about the moral-epistemological blinders that liberalism places on itself, I was reminded of a passage from classical literature that I like to emphasize for my undergraduates when we study Homer. In The Odyssey, Book I, responding to Athene’s impatience on behalf of Odysseus that Poseidon should relent in his fury and permit the hero to come home, Homer has Zeus agree with Athene that Odysseus is a virtuous man who grasps moral causality and that he deserves divine aid at last. Zeus continues with a speech in which he laments that most men never grasp moral causality, but perversely lay blame elsewhere than in their own decisions and acts:

Lo, how men blame the gods! From us, they say, spring troubles. But through their own perversity, and more than is their due, they meet with sorrow; even as now Aegisthus, pressing beyond his due, married the lawful wife of the son of Atreus and slew her husband on his coming home. Yet he well knew his own impending ruin; for, we ourselves forewarned him, dispatching Hermes, our clear-sighted Speedy-comer, and told him not to slay the man nor woo the wife. “For because of the son of Atreus shall come vengeance from Orestes when he is grown and longs for his own land.” This Hermes said, but did not turn the purpose of Aegisthus by his kindness. And now Aegisthus makes atonement for it all. (Palmer”s prose translation)

It is quite easy to substitute modern terms:

Lo, how liberals blame guns or “the system”! From them, they say, spring troubles. But through their own perversity, and more than is their due, they meet with sorrow; even as now those who were merciful to the wicked discover that the wicked show no mercy to them, even unto the murder of their children. Yet they should well have known such impending ruin; for reality itself forewarned them, and many clear-sighted men also told them, not to let the mad and murderous run freely among the people. “For because of follies of mercy and of failure to discriminate, nemesis shall come on you from the unshackled menace.” This reality told them, but did not turn the purpose of liberals by its kindness. And now the innocent make atonement for it all.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 16, 2012 11:54 AM | Send