“[S]omething very ugly has surfaced in contemporary American liberalism, as evidenced by the irrational and sometimes infantile abuse directed toward anyone who strays from a strict party line. Liberalism, like second-wave feminism, seems to have become a new religion for those who profess contempt for religion. It has been reduced to an elitist set of rhetorical formulas, which posit the working class as passive, mindless victims in desperate need of salvation by the state. Individual rights and free expression, which used to be liberal values, are being gradually subsumed to worship of government power.
“[S]omething very ugly has surfaced in contemporary American liberalism, as evidenced by the irrational and sometimes infantile abuse directed toward anyone who strays from a strict party line. Liberalism, like second-wave feminism, seems to have become a new religion for those who profess contempt for religion. It has been reduced to an elitist set of rhetorical formulas, which posit the working class as passive, mindless victims in desperate need of salvation by the state. Individual rights and free expression, which used to be liberal values, are being gradually subsumed to worship of government power.
The problems on the American left were already manifest by the late 1960s, as college-educated liberals began to lose contact with the working class for whom they claimed to speak. … For the past 25 years, liberalism has gradually sunk into a soft, soggy, white upper-middle-class style that I often find preposterous and repellent. … It’s a comfortable, urban, messianic liberalism befogged by psychiatric pharmaceuticals. Conservatives these days are more geared to facts than emotions, and as individuals they seem to have a more ethical, perhaps sports-based sense of fair play.”
—columnist Camille Paglia, courtesy of the Federalist Patriot
A quick Google search for a definition of religion came up with this entry from Dictionary.com:
“a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.”
(I have omitted the rest of the entry, since it deals with things purely ancillary to our purposes here.)
I have often said that Darwinism, the belief in biological evolution driven by Natural Selection, is a type of religion because it certainly meets the definition above; it purports to explain the cause and nature of the Universe, or at least in living things, and it further makes claims on superhuman agency by dismissing them from the corporeal world-and by extension with many adherents of all reality. Ditto the Global Warming believers, who put their own green spin on an explanation of the Universe.
But these are essentially aspects of a greater belief system, one rooted in the hubris of the Enlightenment. The notion that human reason should be exalted above all, that science and philosophy are the fundamental building blocks of that which we call humanity and that the true pursuit of these callings is the study of the material world rather than the hereafter have given us materialism and scientism, the Nietzchean superman, Darwinism, Eugenics, Marxism, and all of the many heads into which the Liberal movement splintered. Much like the ancient demon Jesus cast into the swine, their name is legion for they are many, but ultimately they are one. They are centered on the fundamenal belief that Man is the proper sphere of Man; which is ultimately a deification of humanity and the material world.
Why is it that “bioethicists” like Peter Singer place such emphasis on sentiency? This is clearly an anthropomorphic view, since Mankind is the most intelligent creature on Earth. Why does sentiency act as the dividing line? Surely other creatures would hold different standards; the Elephant would say mass should be the determinant, Whales would say size, or the ability to hold one`s breath, the Lion would say raw physical power-the ability to kill. As ANIMALS many of our species say sentiency.
Of course, this is a handy tool to employ, since sentiency can be redefined by “sentient” beings to mean whatever one wishes. Unborn babies are not sentient, so they may be killed. Ditto the elderly or sick. Ditto those who are inconvenient, like those throwback Conservatives. Hitler saw Jews as possessing traits that he could well have defined as non-sentient.
Meanwhile, taking this standard to new heights, people like Singer will claim that Chimpanzees are sentient, and thus deserving of the rights and protections of human beings. This, too, is another attempt to manipulate the thinking of people by removing the traditional religious belief that Man is somehow unique among the creatures not because of any inherent quality per say but because of a special relationship to God. This is just another tired attempt to materialize the human condition, to make Man just another animal.
In point of fact, the dividing line in primitive societies has traditionally been strength, not intelligence. Intelligence has been a tool the strong can use to dominate the surrounding peoples who were undeserving of respect because they were weak. This notion of intellect being the standard to define what is human is a purely Liberal invention (the old Philosophes were SUCH geeks!) and not a very old one at that. A look at any playground in the world will show the truth that physical power dominates in the human heart-just as it does in nature.
But what changed things was religion; the belief that Man is a fallen creature and derived his value from an immortal soul placed in his physical reality by an all-powerful Creator. The exercise of power had to be tempered by an acknowledgement of subservience to that Creator, and the Judeo-Christian worldview in which the dignity of every individual trumped the ability of the strong to dominate the weak came to be accepted. People are not respected because of what they do but because of their very nature. Granted, this battle was never won, and those with power continued to believe in their right to that power. This evolved into the power of wealth and the ability to pay for that power, but the fundamental core, the belief in the right of those with the means to dominate others to do so, never truly died.
And as science and technology advanced that power became tied to the “sentiency” of the philosopher and Man of Letters. The Iriqois could not stand against English guns, nor could the Zulu, nor any other people on Earth with inferior technology. The power that this technology granted blinded many, and so the concept that our Judeo-Christian forefathers labored to instill in their children has been cast aside by many in favor of the glamour of science. Faith is the hope of things not seen, and Liberalism used science to dazzle the senses, ensnaring the less imaginative into renouncing the old Faith in favor of a more material vision.
This is even true where the “Religious Left” is concerned; Christian liberals believe in a more Earthy, corporeal Christianity, one that concerns itself more with the body than the spirit. Christian Libs stress God`s forgiveness over His justice so that the final destination of the sould is assured, moving the focus away from the spiritual and placing it on the temporal. To some it was a way of reconciling the “wonderful virtues“ of Enlightenment Liberalism with the traditions of Christendom. (It has been an abyssmal failure, it might be added; the Liberal Christian denominations are dying on the vine.) To others it was always intended as a means to destroy the power of the Church.
At any rate, Man was not made to be irreligious, and nature abhors a vacuum. Liberalism was the logical successor to Christianity, indeed, it had to move into that vacuum or die. The State-that collective will of Man the most wise-had to be placed at the forefront of human endeavor. If Man and his wisdom is to ascend to the godhead, then His church is built on government`s wielding of power. Money is power, and the ability to tax grants the State control. It was a natural progression in the philosophy of Liberalism, and should surprise no-one.
In essence, we have seen a return to paganism via a worship of Man`s wisdom and the State. That is what energizes the Left; they are not merely fighting for a future they have logically envisioned but are rather fighting for their hope in the promise of a world ruled by Man`s superior intellect, a bright future they believe will come once “superstition” ends. In this worldview it is Christianity and other religions which are the enemy, because they have come to believe the lie their Liberal forefathers fashioned about a war between science and religion. That theirs is a religion in its own right never occurs to them because they have set the terms of their own thinking.
So Camille Paglia should not be surprised that Liberalism is a disease of the elites; they are the ones who have always exercised power, who have always benefitted from what a faith in scientism has wrought. The Judeo-Christian ideals of kindness to the weak, forebearance, charity, etc. are useful advertising tools for the Left, since these can be employed as “enlightened self-interest” and used to co-opt the appeal of religion, but in the end Liberalism is about the corporeal, and manipulation of the corporeal means the exercise of physical power. If that is the ultimate goal then OF COURSE the powerful will seek it. Liberalism means never having to say you are sorry…
And it ultimately leads to a breakdown of rationality as Man, the final arbiter of what is good and evil, increasingly fills his days with wishful thinking, simply choosing to ignore a reality that is unpleasant to him. How many Liberals do not believe in a concrete reality? They don`t believe in one because they don`t believe in God. Quantum physics suggests that reality is influenced by the observer, and this buttresses their case.
Yet reality is stubborn, and changes only in minute ways-and generally on the quantum level. The large things become the less amenable they are to human consciousness. If a coin has two faces, it is a matter of chance as to which side will land face-up if flipped, but that matter of chance becomes quite predictable if we are talking about a matter of averages-if billions of coins are flipped we can predict how many times it will land heads or tails. Chance is only applicable in small doses. This is the basis of a great deal of modern science; we cannot predict the motion of a single atom of gas, but can design all sorts of equipment that deal with gas as an aggregate; we know by the law of averages. The quantum uncertainty gives way to our Newtonian laws of physics at our level, laws that are largely (though not always) immutable to human beings. Yet Liberals try to apply this notion of Heisenberg to the world writ large, because they want to be at the godhead.
He who usurps the godhead will go mad, and that is what has happened to Liberalism. It should come as no surprise.
Unfortunately, Liberalism is the governing ideology of our society as fewer and fewer Americans believe in the One True God. The whole Obama revolution is just a taste of things to come.
