Pre-notes: More on the still puzzling abandonment/rejection of Classic Liberalism by many Western liberals… Trying to understand what happened.
People like to believe that they are well-intentioned, and they often are, but being well-intentioned does not prevent us from causing great harm to others that are the objects of our compassion, if the policies that we embrace and promote cause that very harm. So the test is the “test of facts, of outcomes” of policies. What actually happens to people as a result of our policies. Like the 100-million plus deaths from socialist collectivization policies last century. All from socialist compassion for “equity” outcomes.
Again, the problem of the most dangerous people in society being those who believe that they know what is best for all others and will use state coercion to force submission and conformity to their policies. “Social-contract” type agreement from a population, under Classic liberal systems of law and institutions, helps us avoid the coercion element.
See reposting below of revised comment on Kristian Niemietz’s “Emotional satisfaction, not rational thinking, and despite contrary evidence, dominates our choice in beliefs.”
The human meta-story is the story of “exodus from the animal to live as truly human”, Wendell Krossa
Since the earliest exodus from our animal past to begin to live as human in civilization, our attempts at creating human societies have been undermined by those unable to control and repress the worst of their inherited animal impulses- i.e. the “evil triad” of impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of differing others. The outcome has been the persistent manifestation of the elite/commoner divide in societies, a reversion to primitive animal-like existence (the alpha male/alpha female thing).
It has taken the passing of multiple-millennia for our developing human consciousness to understand and learn how conquer and subdue the animal inside all of us, and to fortify and energize our human impulses (Solzhenitsyn’s real battle against evil that takes place inside each of us).
We have slowly and gradually, across millennia, learned to discern what it means to be truly human in contrast with our animal past.
Just over the past few centuries we have made the stunning breakthroughs to fully grasp the ideals, principles, and institutions of Classic Liberalism that are the best that we have come up with to restrain the animal in us and to promote our human spirit. We now get, generally, that a truly humane society will protect the equal rights and freedoms of every individual from alpha elite meddling and control. Classic Liberalism is the best approach yet to subdue the animal and to promote the human. Classic Liberalism best gets us to human maturity.
Our slow and steady maturing as authentically human across history (“gradualism”) has involved understanding that, without protected equal freedoms and rights for every individual, there is no love in society. Love being the prime identity marker of our being authentically human.
The obvious responsibility then is that we ought to learn what love is, and how to express love, as the primary purpose and goal of human story and life. Classic Liberal principles and institutions best help us to achieve our true purpose as authentically human persons, to heroically overcome the animal and to tower in stature as maturely human. Joseph Campbell said we mature as human when we orient our lives to universal love. I would use the broader term “unconditional” love as the marker of the shift to mature humanity. Unconditional as in respecting and protecting the freedom and rights of all equally.
Critical to our maturing project, in the exodus from the animal to become human, is to re-examine the narrative themes that we employ to inspire, guide, and validate our responses and behavior, and to radically reframe narratives where they fail the test of authentically humane themes. We have the better alternative themes now. We know better how to frame our stories with truly human themes.
Note: Our exodus from the animal had elements of a gradual physical and geographical transformation. It involved a major physical exodus out of Africa to populate all regions of our planet. But far more critical, it was primarily a mental/psychological transformation, in the emergence and development of a radically new type of human consciousness that spawned new emotions, motivations, and responses/behavior. Our inner exodus involved a strikingly new form of human mind and spirit, taking us in a new humane direction away from our animal past.
Over the great multi-millennial exodus, we as the human family have enacted the hero’s quest on grand narrative scale- i.e. going forth into life to face the monster/enemy that is our animal inheritance, conquering that monster, and through our battle with that animal inside us we have gained insights, learned lessons, and even been wounded. But we are learning to tower in stature as truly human. And wise men have given us weapons to fight and defeat the monster- none more so than the wisdom sage Historical Jesus as per the statement of his central message below, also summarized in Joseph Campbell’s briefer version of that message.
Deforming the hero’s quest (this from revised material to be reposted soon), Wendell Krossa
Probing the “psychopathology of left-wing and right-wing authoritarianism or compassion” to get a better mental grip on the totalitarian’s busybody impulse to meddle in and control the lives of others.
Among the varied elements affirming/validating the impulse to dominate:
Warped versions of the hero’s quest have been used by many people to validate their totalitarian or domination impulse:
This is about the “bubble narrative” thing where people lock their minds within a narrow and closed narrative that validates their choice to treat others, who disagree with them, undemocratically. I am talking about meddling authoritarians who take elements of a deformed “Hero’s quest” to convince themselves that they are heroically engaging a righteous and just war against some irredeemably evil enemy that threatens their world, even existentially “threatens life itself”.
Hence, normal human obligation to treat differing others humanely- as in respecting the freedom, equality, and rights of all- are off the table. The totalitarian’s mind has been convinced that the differing others pose an “existential crisis” that demands desperate measures, even the need to abandon the principles of Classic Liberalism that normally obligate us to respect the freedoms and rights of all, equally.
Such deformation of the hero’s quest explains the repeated protests today, from former liberals, against free speech, and objections against freedom itself, as “dangerous” because it permits opponents to voice their differing opinions. Examples: Robert Reich, John Kerry, Hilary Clinton…
And this by Jonathan Turley– “Freedom is Tyranny: Robert Reich Goes Full Orwellian in Anti-Free Speech Screed”.
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/04/13/187265/
And one on John Kerry…
Joseph Campbell cautioned against deforming the hero’s quest with retaliatory hatred of some enemy. You will then “lose your humanity”. He said that when you engage a righteous battle, remember to “love your enemy”, those you define as “enemies” but who are still your brothers/sisters, your human family.
Add Solzhenitsyn’s insight that the real hero’s quest, the real battle of good against evil, is not a societal battle against other classes of people that we categorize as “enemies”, but an inner battle against the real enemy that is inside all of us.
We can win the great outer battles of life but should not delude ourselves that those are the true battles of life to celebrate. If we lose the inner battle against the evil inside all of us, what then was the purpose of our life? If we end hating, vilifying, and abusing our fellow humans as “enemies” (dividing ourselves from, vanquishing, dominating), then that is defeat in the battle that matters most in our lives. We have lost our humanity. What else matters then?
Added note: in the political divides of today and the elite crusade against populism we see all three of the “evil triad” impulses operating- i.e. the tribal impulse (us as good versus the disagreeing others as evil), the impulse to domination (my views and speech must be given precedence, other’s views and speech constrained), and the impulse to punitive destruction (criminalizing the views and speech of differing others).
Giving vent to evil triad impulses is to deny the oneness of the human family and the “natural”, as in God-given Classic Liberal rights of every person.
An illustration of the deformation of the hero’s quest (and watch for it- “bothsideism” shows up just below):
In this latest episode of “America This Week”, Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn discuss the corruption of journalism as illustrated by the edit of the Kamala Harris interview that was done by CBS. That episode, once again, revealed the corruption of journalism as evident in the common practise today of pulling statements out of context to then distort, sometimes even making comments appear to say the very opposite of what was actually said. Note the Charlottesville comments of Trump as an example. Add here the media practise of ignoring entirely anything that makes the Woke Progressive side look bad, while maniacally obsessing over the “evil” of anything on the other side.
Even outright censorship is now viewed by mainstream media outlets as a greater good to stop the “Nazi dictator”. Over the past decade, righteous cause has taken precedence over integrity, honesty, and good journalism. Formerly suppressed bias and partisan tribalism is now nakedly out in the open. The argument has been that media must be biased activists in a cause to stop an evil that threatens democracy, like the Allies had to stop Hitler. Anything goes to save your reality when you have demonized your opponents to such exaggerated extent that you have scared yourself silly.
All of us watch, quite stunned, as fellow citizens who only a decade ago presented themselves as liberals, now publicly call for the end of freedom, the end of free speech, for a rejection of the Constitutionally protected rights and freedoms of all citizens. Even assassination attempts against political opponents are praised. All now legitimized to save our democracy from Hitler.
People have convinced themselves that the monster they have created is real. Listen to Rachel Maddow and other MSNBC hosts. Listen to The View ladies, to Democratic party leaders. They are sincere in their hysterical claims that their monster will arrest them, imprison them in camps, and even eliminate them if elected. This is unbelievable hysteria over a monster that they have created, so like the climate alarmists incessantly railing that the “end of days” apocalypse is just up ahead, according to the dates they set repeatedly.
This is “madness of crowds” hysteria that we are living through in real time.
“America This Week: Did something just get broken in a 60 Minutes interview that won’t be easily fixed? Walther and Matt discuss. Plus, “After the Ball”, by Leo Tolstoy”, Matt Taibbi, Walter Kirn, Oct. 11, 2024
https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-america-this-week-october-39c
Here is some of their comment on how journalistic integrity and honesty has been abandoned because “noble cause” salvation takes precedence. Anything goes now to stop the evil monster dictator… democracy, rights and freedom be damned.
“Walter Kirn: Aren’t these the very people, to refer back to our John Cheever story, aren’t these the very people who attend the St. Paul’s school and are taught at 14 years old that two wrongs don’t make a right? And are punished for little things like stealing an extra piece of candy from the kitchen? And aren’t all those movies about how in order to be noble, you must… In order to be nobility, must have nobility of soul? And now, apparently there was a caveat or a sort of a clause in all of those old codes that if Donald Trump comes along, you don’t have to do it anymore and three wrongs make a right and so on.
“And you can exaggerate and you can deceive all in the name of a good thing. See, in all those movies, from the McCarthy movies, to Quiz Show to The Insider, the motive for betraying your principles is always money. And that’s held up as the fatal temptation. You introduce your noble profession for mere money, or to go on working in the McCarthy instance, to keep your career in Hollywood, you end somebody else’s, even by testifying false. Well, what’s weird is if they’re betraying themselves not for money, it appears anymore, but for clout or for political solidarity or for this higher new good virtue that they’ve introduced to stop a dictator.
“Matt Taibbi: Right? Yeah. That’s what they would claim is that we’re doing this to prevent a dictator, but it’s-
“Walter Kirn: Okay. So we’re going to censor to stop a dictator. We’re going to-
“Matt Taibbi: Cancel the primaries and-
“Walter Kirn: We cancel the primaries to stop a dictator. We’re going to have a presidential nominee with no apparent process to her nomination that the public can see or could have participated in, had it been able to see. We’re going to end up just like those commanders who are satirized in the Vietnam War, who say, “We have to burn the village to save the village.” Because that is always the logical end of a self-justifying process. You go, “The thing I’m trying to save is not responding right to my attempts to save it. They’re not turning in their Viet Cong, they’re not coming over to us. They’re not responding to us delivering food or our aid programs. We’ll just have to destroy them, because they’re not worthy of our help anymore.””
Example of both sides abusing the hero’s quest to fight “evil”, as in differing others.
“When politicians oppose free speech- except their own: Power-hungry legislators are exactly who the U.S. Constitution was intended to thwart”, J. D. Tuccille, Oct. 12, 2024
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/j-d-tuccille-when-politicians-oppose-free-speech-except-their-own
“Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris worried in 2019 that social media sites are “directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation, and that has to stop.” Presidential rival Donald Trump, on the other hand, thinks that people who criticize judges should be jailed, along with anyone who burns an American flag.
Tuccille says that the U.S. political system is based on the principle “that people who seek power can’t be trusted”. But the political class now rejects that founding principle and argues that they need to “save the republic” from opponents, hence they argue for no restraints on their power.
Tuccille then notes John Kerry’s recent argument that the First Amendment protecting freedom of speech blocked his ability to “hammer opponent’s (freedom to disagree) out of existence”. He notes Hilary Clinton’s call to charge opponents civilly and even criminally for disagreeing speech. She feared that “we lose total control” if we cannot regulate opponent’s speech. So also Kamala Harris has called for more regulation of free speech online. Her VP choice, Tim Walz, states that free speech should not be guaranteed.
All to save democracy from the Orange Monster that they have created. Tuccille then notes also the varied threats from Republicans to interfere in the freedoms of their opponents. He lists statements by Trump, J.D. Vance, and Ron DeSantis arguing for constraints on the policies and speech of disagreeing others.
Tuccille continues: “If you seek evidence that candidates for public office and political partisans disdain restraints on power when that power is in their hands, and want to punish opponents, there’s plenty of evidence on both sides of the aisle….
Commenting further on the U.S. Constitution Tuccille adds, “The imperfect result was a constitution that limited government with checks and balances, and a Bill of Rights that forbade officials from interfering with many freedoms. The intent was to let people do and say a good many things that officials don’t like but are powerless to prevent or punish….
He says that, “a new crop of scholars who are dissatisfied with the constitution…. But these scholars are playing catch-up with a political class intent on simply ignoring First Amendment protections for speech and constitutional restraints on their power. Ironically, efforts to abuse the power of office to hurt opponents is precisely what the founders intended to prevent with the constitution.
“That authoritarian politicians justify their actions as responses to opponents who they allege are the real danger to the republic is also no surprise. Those who think coercive government is a solution to problems will inevitably try to apply it to opponents they see as problems.
“The American Constitution was intended to thwart the kind of people who now make up pretty much the entire political class.”
National Post
Joseph Campbell on how we derail the Hero’s quest and how to properly frame it (i.e. not lose our humanity)…
“For love is exactly as strong as life. And when life produces what the intellect names evil, we may enter into righteous battle, contending ‘from loyalty of heart’: however, if the principle of love (Christ’s “Love your enemies”) is lost thereby, our humanity too will be lost. ‘Man’, in the words of the American novelist Hawthorne, ‘must not disclaim his brotherhood even with the guiltiest’” (Myths To Live By).
Jesus’ core message further frames the hero’s quest and what love of enemy means. He offers comment on how to end cycles of retaliatory violence, how to achieve lasting peace in societies….
“Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Everyone finds it easy to love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Everyone can do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Most will lend to others, expecting to be repaid in full.
“But do something more heroic, more humane. (Live on a higher plane of human experience). Do not retaliate against your offenders/enemies with ‘eye for eye’ justice. Instead, love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then you will be just like God because God does not retaliate against God’s enemies. God does not mete out eye for eye justice. Instead, God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Be unconditionally loving, just as your God is unconditionally loving”. (My paraphrase of Luke 6:32-36 or Matthew 5:38-48.)
This can be summarized in this single statement: “Love your enemy because God does”.
As always, the qualifier to the Jesus message:
This is not advocacy for a mushy, pacifist response to bad behavior. There are natural and social consequences to bad behavior that are critical to human learning and development, consequences that are critical for the safety of all citizens. People unable or unwilling to control their worst impulses to violence must be restrained/incarcerated to protect others. Basic common sense. Criminal justice systems have one primary responsibility- to protect the public from assault or threat of assault.
Further to the Jesus message: An example of non-retaliatory, unconditional love- The Prodigal Father story in Luke 15:11-31.
The Father (representing God) did not demand a sacrifice, restitution, payment, apology, or anything else before forgiving, fully accepting, and loving the wasteful son.
The above core message and illustration by Jesus overturns the highly conditional Christian religion and Paul’s Christ mythology. Paul, along with the rest of the New Testament, preached a retaliatory God who demanded full payment and punishment of sin in a blood sacrifice of atonement before he would forgive, accept, and ultimately love anyone.
Paul’s Christ myth presented the view of a God who settles issues and solves problems with violent destruction and death (i.e. blood atonement, apocalyptic destruction, hellfire). That ultimate idealization of retaliatory violence has been at the center of the Master Story of Western civilization for two millennia.
Point? What psychologist Harold Ellens stated: “Such a metaphor of an angry God, who cannot forgive unless appeased by a bloody sacrifice, has been ‘right at the center of the Master Story of the Western world for the last 2,000 years. And the unavoidable consequence for the human mind is a strong tendency to use violence’.
“’With that kind of metaphor at our center, and associated with the essential behavior of God, how could we possibly hold, in the deep structure of our unconscious motivations, any other notion of ultimate solutions to ultimate questions or crises than violence- human solutions that are equivalent to God’s kind of violence’…
“Hence, in our culture we have a powerful element that impels us to violence, a Cruel God Image… that also contributes to guilt, shame, and the impoverishment of personality…”.
As Harold Ellens says, “If your God uses force, then so may you, to get your way against your ‘enemies’”.
More on how to properly frame the hero’s quest as a template to guide our lives and societies… Wendell Krossa
Joseph Campbell introduced many of us to the framework of the hero’s quest that defines our life stories with its features of going forth to fight a monster/enemy, a wise man giving us the weapon to defeat our monster/enemy, conquering and vanquishing the monster, learning lessons and gaining insights to bring back to help others, and being wounded in the process of our battle. And Alexander Solzhenitsyn helped us understand that our battle with a monster/enemy is primarily an inner battle, not an outward physical battle against other people.
Monsters that we confront, fight, and conquer span the wide range of human problems and struggles, including physical problems, mental/emotional struggles, social issues, etc.
The list of “better alternatives” or “new story” themes below, offers a complex of ideas that goes to the root ideas of old narratives to counter the main bad ideas that we have inherited. The list below presents a replacement complex of ideas that points us in a more humane direction. We then further frame a new narrative with Classic Liberal ideals, principles, and institutions that are critical for shaping a truly humane society, a democratic society, a truly liberal society.
Below is my list of narrative themes that counter the animal and promote the human- a complex of ideas that help us properly frame our life story, shape our hero’s quest so that we achieve truly humane goals and outcomes.
Humanity’s worst ideas, better alternatives (Old story themes, new story alternatives).
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=9533
The meta-story of humanity across the millennia…
From Retaliation to Unconditional love- the story of humanity’s exodus/liberation from animal existence to become human.
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=9809
Two of history’s greatest figures shaping two entirely opposite narratives–
The Christ myth buried the singularly profound insights and message of Historical Jesus. The project to recover his insights involves “separating diamonds from dung” (Thomas Jefferson, Leo Tolstoy).
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=9533
More on the features of our life stories- hero’s quest…
Speculating with Joseph Campbell on the meaning of life– the hero’s journey and conquest. The intensely inner battle to conquer the monster of inherited animal impulses and thereby tower in stature as maturely human.
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=8661
Joe Rogan episode 2211 with Michael Shellenberger on YouTube and Spotify
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK3HK5Yy1AI&t=1216s
Rogan and Shellenberger jump right in on the censorship crusade today that has spread across Western democracies. They ask- What is going on? Why have many who recently identified as “leftist/liberals” (up to 1990s) turned away from advocating for free speech and being anti-war to now becoming pro-censorship and pro-war? What has happened over recent decades?
Shellenberger offers some speculation:
He says, the global elites, who are center left, want to censor on Covid, elections, and mass migration. They claim that to criticize migration is considered hate speech, racism.
Further, the global elites are basically counter-populist. They control the deep state and are against populism because populism threatens their ability to wage war when they want and to move people around to manipulate elections.
He notes the largely Soros-funded policy on open borders (increasing migration) and makes the point that this is in part to increase Democratic voters. Shellenberger states this is not conspiracy theory on migration because John Judis and Ruy Teixeira have written about this in “The Emerging Democratic Majority”.
The danger of populism, says Shellenberger, is that it is popular, and the people actually govern. As Winston Marshall has said, “Populism is democracy”.
Shellenberger recalls that the CIA tried to take over Twitter to manipulate content, using front NGOs and varied projects. State agencies also threatened boycotts of advertisers in order to bring social media companies to heel. The CIA created “content moderation” programs as code for censorship.
Shellenberg says this is “totalitarian”. It is not the totalitarianism of guns and tanks, not yet.
This is all to control information, he says. Censorship in the service of propaganda, preventing some information getting out, and promoting other information.
The recent historical turning point, says Shellenberger, was Brexit, the election of Duterte, and the election of Trump, all populist movements from the right. That triggered the deep state reaction to censor, as Progressives realized they were not able to control the commoners.
And this on the benefits of planet warming and more plant food (i.e. CO2)- global greening
“Greening: Rare, Heavy September Rainfalls Have Brought Back Lakes in The Sahara”, P. Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Oct. 9, 2024
Quotes:
“North Africa seems to be greening as a result of climate change, which mostly occurs naturally….
“The latest news is from the southeastern Moroccan desert, which is among the driest around the world, where it is reported to have gotten up to 100 mm of rain within a 24 hour period in September….
““What’s also fascinating is that normally dry lakes in the Sahara are filling due to this event,” said Moshe Armon, a senior lecturer at the Institute of Earth Sciences and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem….
“The rains, of course, are welcome, making a harsh region a bit less harsh for those living there. Nothing you’ll hear about in the climate propaganda media.”
And then some repeats of good sources and comments on this and that…
“Climate Data Refutes Crisis Narrative: ‘If you concede the science and only challenge the policies… you’re going to lose’’, Climate Depot, Nov. 13, 2023
Quote:
Edward Ring: “If you concede the science, and only challenge the policies that a biased and politicized scientific narrative is being used to justify, you’re already playing defense in your own red zone. You’re going to lose the game. Who cares if we have to enslave humanity? Our alternative is certain death from global boiling! You can’t win that argument. You must challenge the science…”
Critical fact to consider, for any who claim to be concerned about climate change- 10 times more people die every year from cold than die from warming (Lancet study).
Another critical fact to consider that goes to the very heart of the climate issue- the fact that the warming influence of CO2 is now “saturated” (a physics term), meaning that increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere will not add further to any possible future warming.
Consider also that the mild 1 degree C of warming over the past century has been net beneficial to all life and, hence, there is no “climate crisis”.
The very best climate science reports and news:
More on other factors that contribute to inciting and validating the totalitarian mind and impulse, Wendell Krossa
Revised version of a summary posted before: Why do people believe the craziest and most destructive things, such as collectivism is good for humanity? Why do people believe that meddling in, dominating, and controlling others is a permissible good thing?
Kristian Niemietz- Emotional satisfaction, not rational thinking, and despite contrary evidence, dominates our choice in beliefs. This relates to the issue of why people continue to hold to the destructive fallacies of socialism and climate alarmism, Wendell Krossa
Kristian Niemietz tries to explain the impulse to live by emotional resonation or emotional satisfaction in “Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies”. He covers the history of the 24 failed Socialist experiments of the past century or so. It is a shamefully persistent crusade for collectivist projects that repeatedly harm millions of people and endlessly fail. Nonetheless, true believers refuse to let the myth die. They want to try and try again, as per the definition of insanity, always hoping to get it right the next time. He concludes with a chapter that probes why so many people continue to believe Socialism is a good idea despite the history of repeated ruin of societies and inevitable failures.
Quotes and comments from his Chapter 10: “Why Socialist Ideas Persist: Haidt’s social intuitionist model and Caplan’s theory of ‘rational irrationality’”.
Niemietz begins the chapter: “When reading the accounts of socialist pilgrims, one cannot help wondering how so many highly educated, highly intelligent, well-informed and well-meaning people can be so colossally and persistently wrong”.
He says that Jonathan Haidt has shown that a lot of our moral and political reasoning is “post-hoc” rationalization and the purpose is not to arrive at a conclusion but to justify a conclusion after it has been reached. Intuitions come first, followed by reason and, hence, we cannot change people’s minds by refuting their arguments.
He continues, noting that “the emotional part of our mind supports a particular policy because it feels good and is based on good intentions”. The emotional part of our minds settles on a position and then our reasoning comes up with arguments to support the emotional-based conclusion.
Confirmation bias is the result. We hold to the evidence that affirms our beliefs and ignore or dismiss contrary evidence.
Then the tribal impulse kicks in as we associate with people who hold similar views, while punishing dissenters. Opponents become enemies whose views are not just wrong but are viewed as maliciously dangerous.
The result of embracing particular policies based on emotional satisfaction is that economic policies and ideas that are wrong and rejected by economists of all political stripes nonetheless remain widely popular. But whether wrong or not, the beliefs and related policies are emotionally satisfying in some manner to true believers.
(Insert on another prominent phenomenon today: Add here the good research on the “psychopathology of left-wing compassion”, the claim of left-wing types to have compassion for oppressed people, a claim that offers them the opportunity to engage in virtue signaling of their righteousness and at the same time deny that the policies they support actually harm the very people that they claim to hold compassion for.)
I have also said elsewhere that collectivists are irrationally and dogmatically convinced that their approach is “morally superior” because they frame it as “working for common or greater good”. Hence, collectivist elites will coercively nationalize sectors of the economy (i.e. take control of “the means of production”) and claim to operate the nationalized economy for “the people”. Their coercive takeover of private property is framed as a righteous fight to free the oppressed who suffer under capitalist owners (private property owners) who are framed as oppressors.
Collectivists elites frame the approach that is oriented to free individuals and private property as being all about individual greed and selfishness, hence obviously and unquestionably evil.
Collectivists have never understood basic human motivation and cannot fathom that the impulse to improve one’s life and the state of one’s family is the most basic obligation of love- i.e. to properly care for the members of your family. After fulfilling this basic obligation of love, we then, with free personal choice and self-determination (without elite or state coercion), extend our concerns out to our community and to the larger society as we freely choose to do so.
With the above distortions that have framed socialism as good and individualism as evil, and despite the repeated failures and destruction from centralizing power and control in collectivist elites and their bureaucracies, the true believers in collectivism cannot give up on what they view as a righteous battle of good against evil. True heroism, in their view, demands undying commitment to what is believed to be a just and noble cause.
Further, collectivists deny the fact that the individual approach to organizing human society has actually achieved “greater or common good” far more successfully as evident over the past two centuries in freeing billions from poverty to achieve middle class status and levels of well-being. Whereas the socialist approach has repeatedly immiserated billions, as well as enslaving commoners to collectivist elites, while also destroying the environment through bureaucratic control and redistribution of resources.
My insert: Add here the religious element that buttresses the sense of moral superiority, of embracing an approach to organizing society that is just, righteous, and overall good. Communalists/collectivists are validated by the Acts chapter 2 statement that early Christians loved one another and as proof of their love “they redistributed and held all goods in common” (also restated in chapter 4). That early communalism/collectivism approach was obviously, to a communalist, an exhibition of true love versus the sinful greed of selfish individuals also noted in that Acts context (i.e. chapter 5: Ananias and Sapphira were ‘killed by God’ for still harboring some individualism). It’s hard to argue with that divine approval of communal sharing and harsh retribution against individualism in holy scripture, eh. God, according to author Luke, sides with collectivists.
Love in such passages is defined in terms of “equity” (equal outcomes), communalism, sharing all things in common. Who can argue with that superior good that is approved by God?
We can appreciate the emotional appeal in such beliefs, distorting as they are of the true state of things and as harmfully wrong as they have repeatedly been in their outcomes in societies. Hence Caplan’s “rational irrationality” that holds firmly to and defends such beliefs and approaches.
Niemietz adds a point regarding Haidt’s comment on “moral tribalism” that further intensifies the urge to go with our gut feelings and use reason for defensive affirmation of our beliefs. Even when the socialist “utopias” are evidently totalitarian, the socialist defenders will claim that contrary to appearances, “the people are in charge”. The dictator or ruling party is just expressing the collective will of the people. This fantasy cannot be refuted. So repressive measures to maintain the ruling party’s power are excused or defended as legitimate because they purportedly express “the will of the people”.
My insert: Add here such beliefs as the primitive tribal myth of “limited good” noted in anthropological research. Limited good minds believe that any individual getting ahead in some way must be taking more than his fair share of a limited good that belongs to all. If one person gets more, then logically others must be losing out (zero sum thinking). The myth of limited resources is the central belief of such fallacies as the “Ecological Footprint” model. It is falsified by the fact that the human mind possesses unlimited potential for ingenuity and consequently creative new ideas are infinitely unlimited. We do not just find ever more resources, as our history affirms, but we shift to alternative resources, or even manufacture alternatives (e.g. ceramics) by creatively re-arranging atoms and molecules. There is no “limited good” or “limited resources” because there is no limit to human creative ability.
Continuing, Niemietz notes that after every failed attempt to implement a socialist approach to ordering a society, repeated attempts that are followed by the inevitable failure, the true believers, when asked what they would have done differently, have no answer. “They escape into the abstract, talking about lofty aspirations… that are…. usually the same old aspirations that have always been the aspirations of socialism. They define “real socialism” in terms of outcomes they would like to see, rather than some institutional setup which is supposed to produce those outcomes”.
This concluding note on the totalitarian’s claim to be operating the confiscated private property of a society on behalf of the people:
“Socialism in the sense which self-identified democratic socialists define it… a democratized economic planned collectively by ‘the people’, has never been achieved anywhere and could not be achieved. Economic planning can only ever be done in a technocratic, elitist fashion, and it requires an extreme concentration of power in the hands of the state. It cannot ‘empower’ ordinary workers. It can only ever empower bureaucratic elites.”
As Niemietz has traced earlier in his excellent research, all socialist experiments go through the same stages- (1) The honeymoon phase where the latest socialist experiment is showered with enthusiastic praise from Western intellectuals like Naom Chomsky. Then, (2) when the cracks and failures start to emerge, the Western intellectuals blame the critics of the system for the failure or blame some capitalist infection in the socialist experiment. Then finally, (3) they blame the failure of the latest experiment as not being “true socialism”, thereby preserving the pristine reputation of socialism. The idea survives once again.
Socialist true believers, possessed of irrational denialism, claim that the next time will be different. After 24 failures over the past century or so, that argument is no longer credible. But emotional satisfaction with a mythical, abstract idea matters more than actual reality with its repeated horrific outcomes in billions of immiserated and destroyed lives. Take a close look at Venezuela, as Niemietz details that recent failure of socialism that initially proclaimed that it would be new and different from past failed experiments. And remember the Hollywood elites that rushed to celebrate Chavismo- i.e. Oliver Stone, Sean Penn, Harry Belafonte, etc. Where are they now?
This is a good analysis from Niemietz who probes and explains why and how “Emotional satisfaction, not rational thinking, and despite contrary evidence, dominates our choice in beliefs”.