The Liberal Arts

[4est_4est_Gump]

Philip Ahlrich

The political Left is a dangerous place for the free expression of ideas. Its activists immediately assume bigotry in anyone who disagrees with them, and that automatic opinion has poisoned every attempt at a national dialogue. Liberalism has declined into a closed system of thought and behavior -- a plantation of unfinished minds in service to an ideology of force. But as the experience of freedom makes us unfit for slavery, so the experience of knowledge makes us unfit for handbooks of liberal instruction. The idea of a freedom-loving and self-governing America is lost upon social theorists; and it is quite possible that there is no solution to the liberal problem in America, for the freedom that leftists desire for their own political activity includes the license to deny that same freedom to others.

Activists within the Democratic Party no longer find any political value in the principle of freedom. What is it, then, about federalism and self-governance that threatens the Left? Freedom is so fundamental to the character and growth of nations that one wonders why liberals are so intent on limiting it only to the few who govern. Let them step forward and tell us -- without riot and without throwing stones at the questioner -- why they have diminished their core principle of "liberty" to an archaism, to a relic and curiosity of times past, to be shelved in academic reformatories and studied and scorned under moonlight....

Progressivism attracts the intellectually malnourished, and the appearance of that movement deceives us; but there is greater progress in standing upon a principle of justice than in running forward to embrace an evil. Deceptive, predatory, and extortionate, its message of "inclusion and social justice" is given over to the pursuit of power, entitlement, and satisfaction of political greed. Its scripture is not of the world but of social theory, demanding a sacrifice of both intellectual honesty and individual conscience...

The system binds generations of students to an ideological post; and their ability to reason effectively extends no further than the length of their chains, for their instruction is the only truth they need to know. It is the same for every cultish belief, whether religious or secular, and followers of the liberal faith exhibit their knowledge of that "truth" by memorizing and repeating the catechism in the protected spaces of university campuses and social media ghettos where no one may question his received wisdom. Their handbooks tell us that self-reliance is now considered anti-social; that intellectual honesty serves only to weaken one's commitment to the new liberal order, and that a personal sense of right and wrong can only stain the collective purity of correct thought...

...

An informed citizenry is the only true government. It is the direction of knowledge over force, for that virtue alone separates the autonomous genius of human society from the coercive genius of the state. We hear the Left in their final agonies, vexed by howls and pinches in defeat -- understanding now, a world too late, that they let America slip through their fumbling hands. But when Democrats who were elected to represent the people's interests have calculated instead to bring them harm with new laws that served only to advance a determined ideological agenda, it is best to remove from them all hope of returning to their instruments. President Trump has shaken the political earth, and anything made of the Left's weak argument will fall of its own corruption...

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/03/the_liberal_arts.html#ixzz4aXik4fWL

 

[Ishmael]

Well written. We'll see how that last sentence plays out.

Ishmael

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

That's what struck me. This is clearly a disciplined mind. The whole thing is worth a read.

 

[Ishmael]

Later, I'm still on my first cup of coffee.

Ishmael

 

[water505]

Progressivism attracts the intellectually malnourished.

Perfect description.

 

[EternalFantasies]

I'm just not sure it's serving some ideology here Gump. I see it as a bunch of moronic whiners driven by self-interest motivated masters.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

It is an ideology, the Nihilistic philosophy of selflessness, where the individual sacrifices their very independence to the needs of the group.

Hoffer outlines it in The Ordeal of Change in several essays and the driving forces behind its leadership. Rand discusses the actual mechanisms in The Fountainhead.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

WHATS IN IT FOR ME is the real ideology. Slice and dice it go w you like, and WHATS IN IT FOR ME is what you always get.

 

[EternalFantasies]

It is an ideology, the Nihilistic philosophy of selflessness, where the individual sacrifices their very independence to the needs of the group.

Isn't that Christian? And as a ==> Right wing?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

No, those on the right believe in self-reliance, reality, charity and limited government.



The fact that many of them them are Christians is ancillary, remember, even though they believe in complete secularism when it comes to government, almost to a man and a woman, Democrats too remind us that they are Christians (with a few notable exceptions where they want you to know they are either upstanding Jews or Muslims).

 

[EternalFantasies]

I think this one lies in your original claim Gump. "Nihilistic philosophy of selflessness".

Says who the Philosophy of Selflessness is Nihilistic?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

A lot of people; Rand, Hoffer, Peikoff, Mises and others.

Kant and Hegel held there was no absolute truth. This is the kernel of Nihilism, the core. An individual cannot know truth, cannot discern right or wrong and those who think they do engage in selfish behaviors, like hoarding, working hare to get rich, avoiding taxation, and ignoring the needy. The good individual is then one who puts the needs of others before his own because their value is no less. When all put the collective before individualism then right and wrong are what the majority decide. What we see, from the tribe to the commune, to the central government is a small cadre (Attila) who use absolute power to maintain control and their intellectuals who guide them (The Witchdoctor) and give them their philosophy. This is done at the primitive end through superstition and a confusing and conflicting set of gods and at the high end by controlling education, so you see, the mob does not have a mind of its own, it is directed and controlled through force and education, which is how totalitarian societies with no real moral arise. Of course, the intellectual class that sets them in motion always blame the results of selflessness on the greed and lust for power of the selfish, be it the Jew, the Kulak or the deplorable living in the vast regions of flyover country.

 

[Conager]

It is an ideology, the Nihilistic philosophy of selflessness, where the individual sacrifices their very independence to the needs of the group.

Hoffer outlines it in The Ordeal of Change in several essays and the driving forces behind its leadership. Rand discusses the actual mechanisms in The Fountainhead.

The ideology preaches selflessness, subjegating the individual to the needs of the collective for the greater good, but those that buy into tge utopia promised do so for self-serving reasons.

No one that is a fan of the idea of to each according to their needs, from each according to their ability assumes that exchange diminishes them. They aim to be takers or, better still, the noble, well compensated, ruling class.

WHATS IN IT FOR ME is the real ideology. Slice and dice it go w you like, and WHATS IN IT FOR ME is what you always get.

What he said.

 

[Rightguide]

It is an ideology, the Nihilistic philosophy of selflessness, where the individual sacrifices their very independence to the needs of the group.

Hoffer outlines it in The Ordeal of Change in several essays and the driving forces behind its leadership. Rand discusses the actual mechanisms in The Fountainhead.

Progressivism: Communism with patience.

 

[raindancer]

http://m.quickmeme.com/img/0e/0ea2febb14f285ce69f8ccd7729c328ce0e1c757a86e8f4b743715d70889d353.jpg

 

[EternalFantasies]

A lot of people; Rand, Hoffer, Peikoff, Mises and others.

Kant and Hegel held there was no absolute truth. This is the kernel of Nihilism, the core. An individual cannot know truth, cannot discern right or wrong and those who think they do engage in selfish behaviors, like hoarding, working hare to get rich, avoiding taxation, and ignoring the needy. The good individual is then one who puts the needs of others before his own because their value is no less. When all put the collective before individualism then right and wrong are what the majority decide. What we see, from the tribe to the commune, to the central government is a small cadre (Attila) who use absolute power to maintain control and their intellectuals who guide them (The Witchdoctor) and give them their philosophy. This is done at the primitive end through superstition and a confusing and conflicting set of gods and at the high end by controlling education, so you see, the mob does not have a mind of its own, it is directed and controlled through force and education, which is how totalitarian societies with no real moral arise. Of course, the intellectual class that sets them in motion always blame the results of selflessness on the greed and lust for power of the selfish, be it the Jew, the Kulak or the deplorable living in the vast regions of flyover country.

I'll be giving this one some thought. I do not like cunt nor hegel and their socialism with God being the state, so their opinions matter little to me; nor do I like people's assumptions to be based on the fact that Christ's path and self-sacrifice was some myth or nihilistic idea; for this latter one, I know for certain, that it was not.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Consider this article:

...

What those fixated on the racial controversy over The Bell Curve have done, besides inspiring the Middlebury mob attack last week, is to cause intelligent people to ignore the important issues the book raised about the American education system. The Bell Curve begins with a 90-page section (“The Emergence of a Cognitive Elite”) describing how developments in the mid-20th century — particularly widespread use of standardized testing in public schools, and federal subsidies that helped more students pursue higher education — created a sort of nationwide vacuum cleaner that sucked up smart kids all over the country and deposited them on the campuses of elite universities.

Whereas once the Ivy League educated the sons of affluent families in the Northeast, from the 1960s onward, the campuses of schools like Harvard and Yale have increasingly recruited ultra-brainy kids from everywhere in America, and even worldwide. The steep tuition at elite private schools (now about $50,000 a year) is no longer a barrier to entry, if a teenager has the kind of SAT scores, perfect high-school grades, and other qualifications that appeal to the university admissions committee. The smartest kids are thus separated from their peers and pushed into an educational machinery intended to manufacture a professional elite. This process has been underway now for two or three generations and, because members of the college-educated elite tend to marry other members of that elite, today’s teenage applicant to Columbia University might be the child of two parents who graduated from Columbia in the 1980s, and it may be that all four of this child’s grandparents were also college-educated.

...

His aversion to school, where his teachers did not appreciate the troublemaker’s extraordinary talents, prevented John Lennon from being steered toward a university education. Any similarly bright child growing up in America today, however, could scarcely escape the system of testing that steers smart kids into “gifted” classes, and then on to the honors/advanced-placement track in high school. Because college education is now considered de rigueur for the American middle class, many parents pressure the schools to put their children into this scholastic fast-track in hope of qualifying them for one of the “best” universities. Because this system has been in operation for so many decades, it has resulted in a steady “brain drain” from small towns. The smart kid from Kansas or Kentucky who leaves home to attend Stanford or Princeton is likely never to return. Instead, most of our brightest children end up in a few major metropolitan areas — Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Seattle, etc. — disconnected from the nation’s heartland.

Two or three generations into this kind of “cognitive portioning,” the adolescent offspring of affluent elite-educated parents are radically alienated from ordinary Americans in the places where their grandparents were born. Part of this alienation is economic, but it is also cultural. University faculties are dominated by liberal professors who wield enormous influence on the values of the “cognitive elite.” Software engineers in Silicon Valley, managers of philanthropic foundations in New York, and journalists covering politics in Washington may have little in common, but all of them are university-educated, and they probably encountered few if any conservative professors during their collegiate careers. As the economist Thomas Sowell once remarked, “The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.”

https://spectator.org/from-john-lennon-to-charles-murray-we-all-want-to-change-the-world/

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

lol @ Raindancer....

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I'll be giving this one some thought. I do not like cunt nor hegel and their socialism with God being the state, so their opinions matter little to me; nor do I like people's assumptions to be based on the fact that Christ's path and self-sacrifice was some myth or nihilistic idea; for this latter one, I know for certain, that it was not.

Mises points out in Socialism is that many people confuse Christ's positions on things like poverty and charity because he was in the vanguard of Socialism when the correct lens to view his comments is through the understanding that Jesus was an end-of-the-world type prophet and his philosophy was guided on the imminent judgement and end of days, so you did not need to fight over or struggle for material goods.

 

[Disgustipated]

You guys really believe #45 is some sort of mastermind, eh?

*chuckle*

 

[Rightguide]

Mises points out in Socialism is that many people confuse Christ's positions on things like poverty and charity because he was in the vanguard of Socialism when the correct lens to view his comments is through the understanding that Jesus was an end-of-the-world type prophet and his philosophy was guided on the imminent judgement and end of days, so you did not need to fight over or struggle for material goods.

Though he himself comes with sword and advises us to sell our garment and buy one.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Though he himself comes with sword and advises us to sell our garment and buy one.

Well, in his defense, the Middle East has a long history of hostility towards the Jews.

 

[Rightguide]

Mises points out in Socialism is that many people confuse Christ's positions on things like poverty and charity because he was in the vanguard of Socialism when the correct lens to view his comments is through the understanding that Jesus was an end-of-the-world type prophet and his philosophy was guided on the imminent judgement and end of days, so you did not need to fight over or struggle for material goods.

I love how the liberal who normally eschews the mention of Jesus or his divinity are always quick to ask "what would Jesus do" when they think the answer serves their agenda.

 

[erostwo]

Maxwell

Regression, Boolean Algebra, and Tesseract ... Free Speech?

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Stalin said it best when je ma asked what his new job was in the government. He said, I'M THE NEW CZAR.