The Marxist Revival (3): All Purpose Invective

~ Continued from Part 2: The Marxist Revival: The Epic Narrative ~

In Part 1 "The Lie at the Bottom" we saw that at the base of the covert strategy for spreading neo Marxist thought lurks the basic fallacy of the Primacy of Consciousness, or Subjectivism, or Relativism [1].

On a tactical level we find language, which to Postmoderns, signifies something entirely different than it does traditionally: it could be best described as rhetoric, characterised by gross generalisation, ludicrous equation and massive exaggeration, often giving quite another meaning to the word chutzpah: anything goes really, however aggressive and unreasonable. This approach can eventually be alternated with infantile, sentimental whining, or emotional manipulation and blackmail. As we have seen, given the Universal All Importance and the Nobility of The Cause, anything goes.

To Postmoderns language is not about the transfer of information related to reality, objective data flowing from one person to another. To Subjectivists language at best perhaps communicates the speaker's personal version of 'reality'.

All that is written ought to be in quotes and inverted commas, signifying the 'irony' with which any 'meaning' should be taken.

The spoken word is just personal bla-bla. You could set yourself the task of discovering what the speaker means to convey by his choice of words (deconstruction), but underneath that layer of bla-bla we would only find more personal, subjective yada-yada, a sheer endless process of deconstruction would have to take place.

Hicks in "Explaining Postmodernism": "There is no non-linguistic standard by which to distinguish between the literal and the metaphorical, the true and the false. Deconstruction is therefore in principle an unending process ... accordingly, Postmodernism recasts the nature of rhetoric: rhetoric is persuasion in the absence of cognition ... not to prove or disprove anything."

In other words: in the absence of objective reality, orators by any means possible try to persuade an audience of their personal version of reality. In yet another way: speech is rhetoric, is propaganda, is populism, is sophistry, is demagoguery in which reality and truth are subjective, and lies and fallacies are just another personal opinion.

Although Rorty was a notable exception, most Postmoderns see conflicts between groups as unavoidable (see above) and - after Rousseau, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer - in the absence of God as the Prime Mover, it is that which generates change and growth.

It does makes you wonder about the sincerety of all that talk of peace, non-violence and anti war: would that perhaps be the same logic by which Islam makes the distinction between the Dar-al-Harb and the Dar-al-Islam? War is absence of hegemony?

Given that fateful conflict, Postmoderns see and use language primarily as a weapon, which - apart from Koukl's Passive-Aggressive Tolerance Trick acting out on innocents and on misguided bystanders alike - explains the often unreasonable and intolerant nature of the debate with Postmoderns: from expletives to ad hominem attacks, rhetorical catch-as-catch-can wrestling - the catchwords being effect and proselytizing by any possible means - not by arguments or through persuasion, but by intellectual parlour tricks, sophistry and personal intimidation. No rules as practiced by the Debating Society, and certainly no quest for truth.

As crypto Marxist thought and Postmoderm abuse of language covertly insert itself in the various walks of life - from television talk shows to new approaches to 'intractable' problems in academia: from meta-psychology to forensic ethics and the judiciary - we'll devote a number of posts to this interesting subject.

~ To be continued: Part 4: The Marxist Revival: The Assault of Free Speech, "Many have wondered: what's with the gross hyperbole, the unreasonable generalizations, from the downright insulting to the quasi baby-talk? "All hetero-sexual males are rapists", "Zionists are Nazis", "History is one wave of ethnic cleansing after another" ~

In Search of the Origins of Postmodern Self-Loathing (II)

Part (I)

Part (II)

Auguste Comte completed his vast work in re of Positivism in 1842. Comte believed in no other source of human knowledge than the empirical method exclusively, and built a fuzzy agnostic pseudo-religion around it. Positivism is the opposite of relativism, it is materialistic and science as an idea gone haywire.

It is not a very great surprise that every French intellectual appears to be practically raised on it. De Lubac: "Every undergraduate in France knows "the law of the three states ... every branch of knowledge has necessarily to pass through three successive theoretical states: 1. the theological or fictitious state, 2. the metaphysical or abstract state, 3. and the scientific or positive state".

So in the earliest stages of man's development he began by conceiving phenomena as a result of continuous influence of supernatural agents, which Comte terms fetishism: found in animism - to which we seem to be reverting today, as Comte would have it, as we shall see - and for example in the Greek and Roman pantheons.

In a later stage, the metaphysical, man came "to regard such phenomena as produced by various abstract forces inherent in bodies but distinct and heterogeneous". This stage is found in the monotheistic religions 'of the Book', Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

And finally man considers phenomena as subject to a "certain number of invariable natural laws that are nothing but the general expression of the relations observed in their developments", in other words science: the third, or positive state. For this stage Comte later used the term 'sociology'; Auguste Comte is considered by some to be the father of sociology.

Comte seems to have had a total contempt for the contemporary dominant, secondary stage and would prefer to skip the phase altogether, which he deemed possible under certain circumstances. It reminds me of the remarks of Stuart Sim in his contribution to the polemics on Signandsight re The Multicultural Issue: "Personally, I'd like to see religion wither away as a force in human affairs ...". Sim means, secondary stage religion. Compare Comte: "Catholicism is rotten to the core, all theology is 'outmoded', and everything that comes from it is now in a state of hopeless decrepitude, etc. ...".

De Lubac: "When the generation of transmission had come to an end, a ceremony would 'finally inaugurate the new religious regime ...". In anticipation Comte had started his own calender (as we have seen in Mussolini a sign of megalomania): on 23rd Archimedes in the year 63 (22nd April 1851) Comte wrote: "I shall be preaching positivism at Notre Dame as the only real and complete religion".

Comte described the third state "as positive as any other science based on observation". Comte even came to perceive a fourth state, in which the mind frees itself even from science: the truly positive state. Perhaps predictably enough Comte's ideal fourth state results paradoxically in ... relativism! Comte saw those that reached this ideal state as "resolutely freeing themselves from the prejudice that leads us 'to place ourselves on a different footing from things' and 'to claim a special place in the universe". Sounds familiar?

Compare that with today's multicultural complaint based on relativism's tenets about Western ethnocentricity and the Christian view of our central place in the Cosmos. Auguste Comte saw it thus: Monotheism or the metaphysical state is opposed to both the first and the third stage, "so much so that the positive state can be considered as the reestablishment of the "normal state, interrupted during the Western transition ...". If that isn't true self-loathing, I don't know what is: Down With Us! It was with us, 160 years ago.

A measure of how just like relativism today, 'positive thought' pervaded Comte's contemporary intellectuals, De Lubac writes: "Right at the end of his life, he noted with satisfaction that his 'thirty years of work' had already secured the admission of this law by all thinkers really abreast of the times", much like today's relativist prophets are congratulating themselves with the pervasiveness of their own particular postmodern fallacy.

While much can be said about Comte's mistakes and the willful suppression of later discovered facts, De Lubac sums the main problems with positivism up as follows: "... his (Comte's) offence lies in ... wishing to reduce man to no more than the subject matter of sociology". The extraordinary things happening as a result of the fallacy when the mind is reduced to its object can be found here in two articles by my philosopher-hero Greg Koukl, "All Mind, no Brain" and "All Words in your Brain".

To wrap this up in the words of Henri De Lubac: "Having reached its final state of rational positivity ... the human mind abandons its quest of the absolute ... Comtean thought immured itself in the relative as a last resource after having found itself powerless to decide the question of the absolute. Separating 'positive knowledge' from 'belief', it took the terrestrial horizon as its boundary, without prejudice to what might lie beyond it ... Comte is said to have declared the problem of God unsolvable".

Neo-communism exposed! (I)

Seek and ye shall find ... answers are forthcoming, in ever greater number! Not only have we been conned by the Left, with hindsight it must be said that I should have seen this coming light-years hence ... say from 1989 onwards. The good old method of infiltration and destruction from within has been doing its damnedest. Considering today's confusion I'd say they've been pretty successful this time, and on the whole better covered than usual (except for the environmentalists, the anti-globalists and the animal rights activists, which were a little overt, come to think of it).

I'll give you the wrap up in this two part post, after which we can start doing some damage control and exposing these miserables and their time-honoured subversive [1] methods for what they are, and hence begin the mobilisation of the masses to claim back what they've tried to uproot. I'll come to the details, but first here are the latest developments. (By all means, follow the link to note [1], it's worthwhile in itself!)

Autrolabe is a Muslim group blog in Australia. Contributor Amir recently posted an article by John Grey (Britain's foremost political philosopher) "The best we can hope for is tolerance". While I wasn't particularly enamoured by Grey's defense of the indefensible - a multicultural knee-jerk or whatever reason led him to pose that martyrdom operations aren't particularly Islamic - the overall quality of the piece is outstanding, and stands in thrill contrast to the state-sponsored ravings you had the misfortune to stumble upon last Friday in this blog, meanwhile suitably ditched by 'Defend America'.

I left a comment on Austrolabe, explaining Greg Koukl's insight into the perversion of tolerance, so often discussed in these pages, primarily on: Koukl's Tolerance Trick and Postmodern Fallacies I-II-III (subsequent). The same is of course true of multiculturalism, that is not the definition of a tolerant society with more than one culture, but on the contrary harbours a particularly pernicious piece of social manipulation, nothing less than an attempt at destruction from within, as we shall currently show. In the meantime I got a reply from Amir, which can be accessed via the Austrolabe site, but I'd like to come back to it in some detail in part II, tomorrow.

The striking thing is that the recent connection I stumbled on, and that has been borne out by Dr Pat's psychological investigations - the sympathetic link between radical Islam and the remnants of the radical Left and all its derivatives - is today re-affirmed by Amir's observations in his article on Austrolabe. And if that isn't enough, it is confirmed on the meanwhile well known German site of Europe's high culture, Signandsite - a source beyond any suspicion in that regard - in an article "In praise of Dissidence" making similar assertions. Things have come together just lovely: I declare my case closed. It's uncanny that once you know it, you see the evidence all around you.

Ulrike Ackermann is a German social scientist, freelance author and columnist for Merkur magazine. Her book "Sündenfall der Intellektuellen" (Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart) on anti-totalitarian traditions in France and Germany, was published in 2000. In above article - a contribution to the by now infamous postmodern polemics of Messrs Stuart Sim, Ian Buruma and Timothy Garten Ash on the one hand, and Paul Cliteur, Necla Kelek and Pascal Bruckner on the other, she exposes the Left's common attitude towards communist dissidents during the Cold War, and the present to our contemporary dissenter of Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali positioned herself explicitly in the tradition of Eastern European dissidents.

She quotes from Ayaan's speech, delivered in Berlin while the Danish cartoon hysterics were raging: "A divided city in which the communist state held people captive behind a wall ... in the West ... the works of Karl Marx were being taught at university. Dissidents who had escaped from the East could ... persuade others that communism was a long way from creating paradise on earth ... Today the open society is being challenged by Islamism ...Our opponents want to use violence to silence us. They claim that we are spiritually and mentally unreliable and shouldn't be taken seriously. Communism's defenders used the same methods." Although the article can be accessed in full on Signandsight, the content is worth quoting extensively:

"The sympathetic reading of Islam recalls that of communism before 1989. At the time, the West's self-hatred and invalidation of the accomplishments of free democracy were expressed in a generous interpretation of communism. A similar phenomenon is to be seen in attitudes towards Islam today, in large part thanks to its anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism. Many Western intellectuals had reservations about Eastern European dissidents because they were only fighting for the so-called 'bourgeois liberties'. Many dreamed at the time of a 'third way' [2] between capitalism and communism. The analogy is evident in the terminology: Stalinism could be criticised but communism was handled with kid gloves. Today, criticism of Islamism is common sense, but criticism of Islam has to be conducted with care".

"Her criticism arouses ... anger and critique ... of European leftist intellectuals such as Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash who accuse her of being an 'Enlightenment fundamentalist', who is pouring oil onto the fire and engendering 'politics of fury'. For Hirsi Ali, the legacy of the Enlightenment - the separation of religion and state, political and individual rights, self-determination of the individual, reason and the equality of the sexes [3] - are of fundamental importance, and so they should be. To have to defend these against an accusation of fundamentalism is, given the situation in which we find ourselves, pretty ludicrous".

A few other qualifications also come to mind, but we know by now that all that isn't relativism, is per definition fundamentalist in the eyes of these subversives. I won't mention anymore the lunacy that inspires them to seriously equate 'Hitler had a mustache, comrade Stalin had a mustache, Hitler is comrade Stalin: I said elsewhere that this logic is forgivable only if perpetrated by very young children.

"Hatred for the 'decadence' of the West, its capitalism, consumerism and individualism, was as much part of the communist ideology as it is of radical Islam today. In the fusion of belief and social order, of truth, hierarchy and social reality, arose a secular Umma in which the individual is to be collectivised. The individual is suspicious to all ideocratic totalitarianisms. Unpredictable, instinctive, egoistic, headstrong and anarchistic, it must be controlled and dominated for the good of the respective Umma: the national, class or religious community. The communist social experiment cost millions of lives, as did National Socialism and fascism. Learning from this history can only mean remaining vigilant in face of new totalitarian dangers which threaten our painstakingly acquired freedom.

This must be defended "in a continuously repeated act of liberation, an eternal battle in which there can be no final victory, because that could only mean the death of all combatants, that means all those living."
Benedetto Croce

Post-modernism's fallacies (I)

Greg Koukl has identified seven further problems with relativism of a more philosophical, rather than practical nature. But before we go into those I'd like to go through my own preliminary list, which currently counts nine points, directly related problems on a day-to-day level, plus a number of other misconcepts that are typical of post-modernity. Some we already know, others we haven't yet discussed in this blog. It is a random list, with no particular order of importance. Some are however of utmost relevance, as we shall see as we get more insight into the problem.

The definition are subjectivism according to Wikipedia reads: "A philosophical tenet that accords primacy to subjective experiences as fundament of all measure and law. In an extreme form, it may hold that the nature and existence of every object depends only on some one's subjective awareness of it". About the latter Anthony Rizzi in the book Science before Science writes a quote attributed to Albert Einstein: "Do you really believe the world isn't there if you're not looking at it?": the result of the fundamental mistake of Idealism.

1. The world is not a pie.
The world isn't made in such a way, that if my part is bigger, somebody else's portion is necessarily smaller. It isn't a zero-sum game as in labour negotiations. In the Harvard method of conflict management we learn that when mitigating a dispute between two parties, we don't go for a watered down compromise, but instead we try to forge a new situation out of the dispute. If one party has oranges and claims the right to the other's lemons, we suggest they consider building a fruit juice factory together, not both ending up with half of what they already had, plus only half of the desired object.
The fallacy seems to be based on an erroneous analogy with natural resources, which evidently are limited. But most things are not limited, replenish themselves or are simply not subject to this particular law of physics, especially in economics and in the world of ideas.

2. Down-talking is degrading.
If I talk myself (my country, my traditions, my culture, etc.) down with the object of making the other party feel better, I can spare myself the degradation. It doesn't work that way. On the contrary, the other party thinks: "Well, if your culture is so poor, how can you possibly make a sound judgement about mine". On the other hand, if I am proud of mine, the other party can feel free to say: "If you're proud, look at mine!".

3. It is possible to support two views simultaneously.
On the same note and perhaps a result of the two-party system or the bi-polar world view of the Cold War: if I choose for health care, this doesn't mean automatically that I am against education. I can support both. More controversial: if I am against George Bush, I can still be for democracy. It may seem stating the obvious, but this is how the anti-war movement ended up as apologists for terrorists and advocates for Saddam Hussein (a tyrant during whose tenure the rate of deaths per 24 hours stood at 240, still exceeding current shocking levels).

4. Goodness is unlimited.
Another version of yet the same misunderstanding: if I am good, it doesn't follow the other party is bad: we can both be good. If I value Western culture, this doesn't necessarily mean I think nothing of the East. It is entirely possible to appreciate and see the merits of both. And if irreconcilable, we can always decide to tolerate each other (in the classical sense of the word: see point 8.)

5. Truth by survey does not exist.
Nowadays it is considered the done thing to probe public opinion on a number of issues. These surveys and polls however are for the most part simply a pastime, filling web space and current affair programs of the B category. Silly questions galore: sometimes they are relevant to a particular political issue and are a measure of public opinion ("Is the surge a good thing?"), at other times they are plain silly and call for an opinion over a fact ("Is AIDS a growing problem?"), or worse even - on moral or religious matters ("Does God exist?").

A lack of knowledge may be at the root of putting a matter to the vote that isn't for the people at large to decide at all ("Should the Pope abdicate?"). "Yes", and so what ....?

Does a return of 50,1% make an error right or true? Public opinion is notoriously fickle and if the majority of people make a mistake, which isn't unheard of, should their wish be taken seriously? Remember that Hitler came to power as a result of a perfectly legitimate election, as did the current Hamas government.

These endless surveys and polls, whether appropriate or not, are causing misconcepts and fallacies. Moreover they make people less aware and increasingly insensitive towards minorities, who as a consequence, are faced with a dictatorship by the majority. I seriously think irresponsible and unscientific polling should be boycotted. If you agree, start by nominating ludicrous polls and surveys for the Competition for the Most Outrageous Survey Award.

To be continued.

Relativism's Three More Sins Against Reason: The Tolerance Trick

One of the by-products of relativism is tolerance, political correctness' pretty little sister of skin-deep beauty. "The idea has been misused so often that it has become a vice", says the protagonist of this post, Greg Koukl, regular columnist at Townhall.com in his article titled "The Intolerance of Tolerance".

Greg Koukl is providing us with some very valuable insight into the workings and unfortunate by-products of the culture of relativism. I can specifically recommend reading it entirely, thereafter printing and framing it and hang it over the bed, to be read each night before turning in, for the coming two decades or so. It is also very suited to children of all ages, to be read to as a bed time story or as didactic material. It is impossible to overstate the importance of his article. Greg Koukl unmasks relativism for what it is, at best fuzzy philosophy, at worst a lie pure and simple.

First and foremost relativism supports the absence of objective truth, while it goes on to assert two truths!

- The first is the contradiction in terms, namely the truth that there is no truth.
- And it implies the validity even of the view that relativism is false.

Another contradiction lies in the intolerant imperative: Thou shalt be Tolerant. To which can be added tthe fact that if other people's viewpoints must be tolerated, that makes them at least potential truths, otherwise they wouldn't have to be tolerated, which in the classical sense of the word means: to allow others to express their opinion without fear of reprisal.

Greg Koukl continues his démasqué, by what he calls the "passive-aggressive Tolerance Trick", which supposes that every one's view has equal merit. No body's ideas are ever wrong and to say so, is considered the height of disrespect and intolerance, thereby proving the limit of tolerance. Tolerance is not absolute, apparently.

I came across an article on the website of Radio Netherlands, again about Ayaan Hirsi Ali (see how she shocked and riveted the nation!), which illustrates the confusion that is exacerbated by the Muslim culture that has declared large areas of religion sacrosanct and beyond reproach. The article shows just how it is resented that Ayaan had an opinion, and voiced it! Greg Koukl's point explains this supreme height of intolerance in the name of tolerance.

It brings to mind my complaint about the behavior of the Dutch who don't know how to deal with criticism; it is also related to the point explained above. Nobody is ever wrong in the culture of relativism, so queries are looked upon as if they were ice cubes in the desert.

This point also explains the lack of any real debate taking place, complete with sets of arguments that can be brought fore and against [1]. It is why the discourse doesn't get beyond expletives and verbal abuse. More is the pity that we live in a time where the Internet provides all the space and opportunity we might want to voice our opinion: if we only had one. But it does raise the desperate question: Where is everybody? Where are the intellectuals and the writers, the thinkers ... and where are the debating societies?

Tolerance in the classical sense of the word is equal to respect and civility and is directed at the person, instead of his ideas and/or behavior, and that is exactly what is absent in the culture of tolerance, egalitarianism and relativism. The person and his ideas are being confused: we can disagree with his ideas and his behavior while at the same time, still respect his person. Mr Koukl explains how the modern definition of tolerance turns the classical meaning on its head: egalitarianism about ideas and elitism in relation to persons.
He puts it in other words: you cannot tolerate people you agree with; you tolerate people with whom you disagree, because it means you allow him his opinion or behavior although you disagree with it, while still respecting the person! It's all elementary, really.

To which can be added that tolerance in the true sense requires two opinions, one on each side, in the absence of which, one is left with indifference instead. Now the modern sense of tolerance is dominant, the absence of true opinion on both ends is preferred as less likely to cause a messy debate, which is all the better if you're trying to appease assertive Muslims.

The same trick is played out in the matter of equality (égalité). It is the same contradiction which makes people say politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali is "the same" as soccer player Kalou. In the relativist book equality means identical, instead of its original meaning "equal before the law" (i..e.of equal value). This was to ensure there was no "class justice", one law for the poor and another for the aristocracy. The law is still in need of a human interpretation so as not to become a value onto itself, as opposed to Law is Law, Befehl ist Befehl, the interpretation Minister Verdonk is putting on it out of personal interest. But that is another matter.

Today's public discourse under influence of relativism and its ugly relatives is one huge witch's cauldron of confused ideas and fuzzy philosophy that constitutes a poisonous potion for Western society: terms are used improperly, ideas are confused, wrong definitions are given and there is the unawareness of the contradictions in terms, that makes relativism into an almost satanical philosophical parlor trick. It has by now touched millions of people and their capacity to think along the lines of logic.

Greg Koukl closes his argument with the remark that tolerance is in actual fact nothing else than intellectual cowardice and a fear of real engagement. Indeed, it is easier to hurl an insult: the commentary pages of the mass media are full of them, all equally disrespectful in tone, and content and empty of opinion.