Gordon Pine's Blog, page 5

Progressive Utopia

Progressives tend to believe that utopia is possible.

The unconscious logic supporting this belief is as follows, starting from the “Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble” branch of the newthink worldview tree:

• Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble.

• We should celebrate human beings, not God.

• Humanity is the ultimate authority.

• Utopia is possible.

The unconscious logic branching out of this belief is:

• It is only exploitative and oppressive groups that have kept a utopian reality from being created.

• Social virtue is created by collective public action toward utopia.

 

 

…to progressives, humans are inherently good, and since that is true, utopia is possible.

It’s too depressing, if humanity is the ultimate reality, to perceive that reality as evil or even flawed. We need our gods to be good. Therefore, to progressives, humans are inherently good, and since that is true, utopia is possible. Heaven can be relocated here on earth.

Progressivism, international socialism, national socialism, communism, fascism – any “ism” based on humanity – are all attempts to create their proponents’ version of utopia.

The Island of Utopia by Ambrosius Holbein

Progressives believe that a utopian America could already exist were it not for exploitative and oppressive groups that have kept it from being realized. Progressivism, international socialism, national socialism, communism, fascism – any “ism” based on humanity – are all attempts to create their proponents’ version of utopia. They all believed that to achieve their utopia they must destroy the group or groups oppressing them. International socialists blamed the bourgeoisie; national socialists blamed Jews; Italian fascists blamed Christianity and the upper class; communists blamed capitalists. Newthinkers, as we shall see, blame many of these and more.

Because of their belief in the possibility of an earthly utopia, newthinkers do not compare America to other actual societies in the present or past. In such comparisons, America would fare well. As Dennis Prager argues, progressives instead compare it, unfavorably, to a future utopia. All the features of this progressive utopia will become clear as this blog progresses. But, as I’ve already discussed, it will:

• Celebrate humanity rather than God

• Value youth and childish characteristics

• Revere physical health

• Venerate nature and all things natural

• Have very few limitations on public behavior

• Promote all cultural expressions equally (In other words, it will discourage any cultural expressions.)

• Promote all ideas equally (In other words, it will discourage the use of ideas.)

• Discourage tradition

• Value emotion over intellect

• Be concerned with popularity rather than right and wrong

• Elevate the importance of groups over individuals

• Be undemanding of individuals, as long as they don’t oppose the system

• Encourage collective action toward its goals

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Tagged: utopia

Why Appearances Tend to Be More Important than Reality to Devout Progressives

A devout traditional American sought the love of God. A devout progressive seeks the love of humanity; all you need is love.

The unconscious logic supporting this belief goes like this, starting from the “Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble” branch of the newthink worldview tree:

• Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble.

• We should celebrate human beings, not God.

• Humanity is the ultimate authority.

• It is important to be loved by humanity.

 

If humanity is the ultimate authority, then it is understandably important to be loved by our fellow humans. But there is another reason for newthinkers’ concern about receiving the love of humanity. Men have traditionally dominated the social macrocosm; women have dominated the social microcosm. Newthinkers perceive this as a subordinate position for women and an example of gender oppression. Thus, as they attempt to correct that perceived imbalance, evolutionary micro-feminine drives are increasingly transported into the macro world. One such drive, as David Geary points out in his book Male, Female, is the need for strong interpersonal relationships.* Women tend to be more oriented toward people, men tend to be more oriented toward things; thus the increased importance under the progressive worldview of the more feminine trait of valuing popularity and love.

The unconscious logic branching out of this belief is:

• Appearances are more important than reality.

• It is more important to appear lovable than to do the right thing.

• We must offend others as little as possible.

 

People can be fooled, but God can’t. So, when humanity is the ultimate authority, appearances are more important than truth.

When others’ love is based on what they think about us, what we appear to do is more important than what we actually do. Alternatively, when our actions are based on what is right under the omniscient view of God, what we actually do is important, not what we appear to do. People can be fooled, but God can’t. So, when humanity is the ultimate authority, appearances are more important than truth.

As appearances increasingly matter more than reality, popularity becomes essential. On an international scale, though traditional Americans usually thought it was more important that the world respect us than love us, newthinkers tend to feel that America should have the world’s approval before acting.

…unfriendly global non-progressives – such as Islamist terrorists – for whom the psychology of progressives is foreign, view this appearances-are-primary, need-to-be-loved attitude as a weakness, and use it against us.

The newthink focus on appearances leads to a desire to be loved by humanity that in turn creates a hesitancy to use power. This diminishes America’s strength: if you don’t use it, you lose it. Meanwhile, unfriendly global non-progressives – such as Islamist terrorists – for whom the psychology of progressives is foreign, view this appearances-are-primary, need-to-be-loved attitude as a weakness, and use it against us.

* David C. Geary, Male, Female, (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2005), p. 326.

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Tagged: humanism

Good Health: The Dike that Holds Back Nonexistence

To devout progressives, health is of paramount importance because it is all that protects one from nonexistence.

The unconscious logic supporting this belief goes like this, starting from the “Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble” branch of the newthink worldview tree:

• Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble.

• We should celebrate human beings, not God.

• Humanity is the ultimate authority.

• God doesn’t exist.

• There is no afterlife with a reward or punishment for behavior in this life.

• Health is of paramount importance because it is all that protects one from nonexistence.

 

Concern about health is, well, healthy. But the degree of concern over health and fitness has, not coincidentally, tracked the growth of progressive society. Commercialized physical-culture made an exponential leap starting in the late 1970s.* The “Me Decade” strikes again.

The concern over fitness and physical attractiveness tends to trump traditional moral concerns in the personal lives of modern Americans. In one survey sample, 90% of American women counted a previous rape conviction in a potential partner as being less unappealing than obesity.**

Progressive concern for health is tantamount to concern over one’s soul in traditional American society. It’s logical: because newthinkers don’t generally believe in an immortal soul, their bodies are all that bind them to existence. No wonder health concerns are predominant among newthinkers – good health is the dike that holds back nonexistence.

* Dorothy Porter, “The Healthy Body,” Companion Encyclopedia of Medicine in the Twentieth Century, Editors (Cooter and Pickstone, 2003), p. 211.

** Ibid., p. 215.

Activist Atheists

activist atheism n : the social movement based on the beliefs that God does not exist and the worship of God is unvirtuous.

Activist Atheists:

Newthinkers who, because they believe God-worship is unvirtuous, actively oppose the idea of God and all religious institutions that worship God.

To devout progressives, God-worship becomes a progressively-unvirtuous anachronism that leads people astray from scientific reality and humanity-based principles. Activist atheism prods progressive magazine editors to create covers for their weekly news magazines with titles like “The Rise and Fall of Christian America.” While reports of the death of Christianity in America are exaggerations, away from the extreme of activist atheism, a great body of Americans is unconnected to church or synagogue. When backed against the wall by a pollster, they may admit to a belief in God, but that belief often has no social expression. Meanwhile, Activist Atheists are attempting to remove God from the public square. If they succeed, they will then attempt to remove God from society entirely.

But the path to a God-free society isn’t always easy for devout progressives. They take such care to deny the presence of God, but it can be troubling if his goodness is questioned. To newthinkers, God is their absent father; they are allowed to revile their father, but no one else better try it. In the novel Catch-22, Lt. Scheisskopf’s wife becomes upset and attacks Yossarian for ridiculing God. Yossarian asks why she’s upset, since she doesn’t believe in God. She insists she doesn’t, breaking into tears, insisting that the God she doesn’t believe in is good, not stupid and mean like Yossarian depicts him.*

Activist Atheists are attempting to remove God from the public square. If they succeed, they will then attempt to remove God from society entirely.

Devout newthinkers who have climbed high enough in the cognitive branches of newthink’s worldview tree to internalize the “God doesn’t exist” belief suffer from cognitive dissonance due to two contradictory unconscious beliefs: God is the absent father and God does not exist. An absent father is different from a father who doesn’t exist and never has existed. Newthinkers unconsciously and fundamentally believe in God the Father, but they also believe their father has abandoned them. This is deism, in which God exists, but is not active in the universe. When those who internalize newthink logic get to the point where they believe humanity is the ultimate authority and God doesn’t exist, the point where newthink’s deism becomes atheism, then one of the cornerstones of the newthink worldview – God is the Absent Father – is threatened. The dissonance between the belief in an absent God and the belief in a nonexistent God may be the catalyst toward a new worldview, one which I hope never emerges, in which a new universe metaphor denies the existence of God altogether.

The unconscious belief that God does not exist obviously has major effects as it spreads through society. One is a decrease in the influence of traditional religions. Traditional theologies tend to be dismissed by newthinkers as fantasies, psychological crutches, and/or cultural appendices. Newthinkers elevate science into a means of explaining everything, seen and unseen, in the universe. They unconsciously believe that science, since it comes from inherently noble humans, is therefore more true, powerful and insightful than religion.

Another dynamic is the progressive tendency to create messiahs out of mere mortals. The belief that God doesn’t exist leaves a hole in newthinkers’ psyches which they tend to fill with charismatic figures. As Jonah Goldberg argues in his book Liberal Fascism, progressives yearn for a leader in harmony with the people’s will.** In America, that yearning gave us Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama; in Europe, it produced less benign leaders.

Finally, this belief causes newthinkers to reject traditional principles. They have no foundation in newthink because God doesn’t exist; there is no reward or punishment in the afterlife for good or evil done in this life. In their place are the new principles of political correctness, based on emotion and the unconscious beliefs we are exploring. Unfortunately, as traditional morality declines, so does the pressure to conform to its high standard of conduct – and so does its attendant good behavior.

* Joseph Heller, Catch-22, (New York: Dell, 1962), p. 184.

** Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism, (Three Rivers Press, 2009), p. 23.

Atheism is Progressive Faith in the Non-Existence of God

Devout progressives eventually come to the conclusion that if humanity is the ultimate authority, then God must not exist, because he is by definition the ultimate authority. Under newthink, humanity takes on God’s role.

The unconscious logic supporting this belief, from the Godless Universe metaphor on up, goes like this:

• The Universe is a Home.

• God is the Absent Father.

• Transcendental goodness does exist.

• Transcendental goodness exists within us, not outside of us.

• Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble.

• We should celebrate human beings, not God.

• Humanity is the ultimate authority.

• God doesn’t exist.

The unconscious logic branching out of this belief is:

• Traditional God-based religions are fantasies, psychological crutches, and/or cultural appendices.

• The old God-based beliefs don’t apply anymore because we now know he doesn’t exist.

• Principles should derive from reason and feelings, not from an external and nonexistent God.

• Science rather than religion should be used to explain the ultimate nature of the universe.

• There is no afterlife with a reward or punishment for behavior in this life.

• Humanity takes the role formerly occupied by God.

 

Progressive society nurses a lot of anger toward God and “organized religion.” Part of this is because churches tend to be pillars of our cultural traditions. But there may be another more fundamental reason for newthinkers’ anger toward God than the cultural orientation of some churches. One of the three trunks supporting newthink’s worldview tree is the Godless Universe metaphor: The universe is a home; God is the absent father. The newthinkers’ Father, in whom they still unconsciously believe, has abandoned them. Just as a fatherless child grows up angry at its missing father, so does fatherless humanity nurse anger against its absent God. Among more devout newthinkers, that anger can become hatred. God’s status as an absent father helps explain the streak of God-hatred in progressivism.

As one climbs the newthink worldview tree, the unconscious idea that God is missing morphs into a belief in his nonexistence. Why do we stop believing in God? Because God is invisible and it’s easy to think he’s not there; because bad things happen and we blame him or doubt his existence; because we’re not always good and it’s easier to think he doesn’t exist than to admit our shortcomings; because there’s an initial ostensible feeling of freedom in believing no ultimate judge of our behavior exists. Given these disincentives for belief in God, the real surprise is not that atheism exists, but that religion does.

Atheism is every bit as much of a belief system as religion; neither can be proven. It’s purely a matter of faith – faith in the nonexistence of God.

If one is merely skeptical of the existence of God, agnosticism is the logical position. But the more devout newthinkers take another step: they believe in the nonexistence of God. Atheism is every bit as much of a belief system as religion; neither can be proven. It’s purely a matter of faith – faith in the nonexistence of God. Humans need to believe in something beyond themselves. If they start believing God is not home, then something must take God’s place. As G. K. Chesterton observed, those who stop believing in God do not believe nothing, they believe anything. For newthinkers, that “anything” is humanity. God ceases to exist and man attempts to sit on his throne. Atheism exists among nonbelievers because it enables the human need to believe in something beyond themselves – in this case, humanity as a whole. Atheism, which eschews religion, takes the place of religion in the human psyche.

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Milestones on the Path of Humanism: Atheism, Narcissism and Solipsism

The belief that humanity is the ultimate authority is the essence of humanism.

The unconscious logic supporting this belief is as follows, starting from the “Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble” branch of the newthink worldview tree:

• Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble.

• We should celebrate human beings, not God.

• Humanity is the ultimate authority.

The unconscious logic branching out of this belief is:

• God doesn’t exist.

• It is important to be loved by humanity.

• Utopia is possible.

Along the path of humanism are milestones. The first milestone: If humans are the ultimate reality, then God is not. Newthink’s inherent belief system is atheism. The second milestone: If the ultimate reality is humanity, it’s only one step to believing that “the ultimate reality is me.” Remember how the 1970s, a period of huge progressive growth in America, was called the “me decade.” Narcissism is a common destination for newthinkers. The third milestone: If the ultimate reality is me, then it’s only one step to believing that “all reality exists only because of my perceptions.” Luckily, few progressives travel that far down the path.

Newthink’s inherent belief system is atheism, but humanity’s innate religious drive conflicts with this, resulting in a slew of pseudo-religious movements devoid of God…

Since humanity is the ultimate authority to newthinkers, as the progressive worldview takes over, those plumbing the inner reality of humans – psychologists, spiritual mentors – become part of a new humanistic priesthood. The more progressive psychologists are no longer just trying to understand and treat psychological illness; they are performing some priestlike duties, like explaining the divine (inherently noble human nature) to laypersons. Spiritual mentors pop up to fill the void left by priests and pastors. As James Hitchcock says, “Religion cannot be suppressed forever. If suppressed, it comes back, sometimes in bizarre and deformed ways.”* Newthink’s inherent belief system is atheism, but humanity’s innate religious drive conflicts with this, resulting in a slew of pseudo-religious movements devoid of God, part of what Hitchcock calls the cult of self-worship.

* James Hitchcock, What is Secular Humanism?, (Servant Books, 1982), p. 78.

Celebrating Humanity Instead of God

Unlike most progressives, traditional Americans believed that only God was to be worshiped: Thou shalt have no other Gods before me. They saw human beings as flawed and vulnerable to evil. Newthinkers, on the other hand, tend to believe that we should celebrate humanity instead of God.

The unconscious logic supporting this belief goes like this, starting from the “Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble” branch of the newthink worldview tree:

• Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble.

• We should celebrate human beings, not God.

The unconscious logic branching out of this belief is:

• Humanity is the ultimate authority.

• We human beings need to fully realize that we are already perfect.

• Killing a human for any reason is akin to killing God.

 

Americanism, though fed by emotion as are all things human, grew out of and was shaped by a written religious tradition. Newthink, however, grew wild out of an emotional groundwork. Newthinkers believe they are transcendentally noble, and that their feelings are inherently good. But emotions, like water, can be life-giving or destructive, depending on how they are channeled.

…rationality alone cannot determine right and wrong. The intellect must have a substructure: one must defer to the written authority of God as traditional Americans did, or to feelings as progressives do.

As the newthink worldview tree developed, in its branches the philosophy of humanism grew. Humanism is really an aspect of newthink. God was replaced by humanity, and the civilizing process in God’s name was replaced by endless battle. In its definition of humanism, the dictionary says that “Humanist beliefs . . . seek solely rational ways of solving human problems.”* But rationality alone cannot determine right and wrong. The intellect must have a substructure: one must defer to the written authority of God as traditional Americans did, or to feelings as progressives do. Without a good foundation for rationality, anything – rewarding sloth, killing babies or even exterminating entire ethnic groups – can be made logical.

Devout newthinkers believe human beings are already inherently perfect, but that perfection is hidden or corrupted by society. From that perspective, celebrating human beings instead of God makes sense. When humanity is equivalent to God, killing any human is anathema, equivalent to killing God. That is part of the unconscious dynamic behind death penalty opponents in America. Their reverence for all human life blinds them to any distinction between the state execution of a murderer after a jury trial and any other killing of a human being. They may quote the biblical commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” But, as I learned from Dennis Prager, properly translated into English from the Hebrew word ratsach, that commandment really reads “Thou shalt not murder.” That is an important difference. The original Hebrew did not use the word harag (to kill), nor muth (put to death); nor shachat (to slaughter).** Murder is a subset of killing: it is that subset –“the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another”*** – which God prohibits. To traditional Americans – unlike newthinkers – the execution of a tried murderer and his own criminal act were not morally equivalent.

* The New Oxford American Dictionary, (Oxford University Press, 2001).

** Timothy E. White, Free to Love: Looking at the Law Through Jesus’ Eyes, (Tate Publishing, 2008), p. 57.

*** The New Oxford American Dictionary, (Oxford University Press, 2001).

Without God, All Ideas Are Equally Good: From God to Solipsism

Progressives tend to believe that, since all cultures are equally virtuous and all ideas are dependent on culture, all ideas are equally virtuous.

The unconscious logic supporting this belief goes like this, starting from the “Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble” branch of the newthink worldview tree:

• Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble.

• All cultures are equally virtuous because they are composed of equally, inherently noble human beings.

• All ideas are equally virtuous, since all cultures are equally virtuous, and all ideas are dependent on culture.

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The unconscious logic branching out of this belief is:

• Judgement is unvirtuous. To judge is to discriminate against some ideas. Like all other discrimination, discrimination in ideas is unvirtuous.

• All opinions are equally valuable.

• Absolute knowledge doesn’t exist. Everything is relative. Knowledge is nothing but a social construct.

Intellectual judgement is unvirtuous to newthinkers because it requires the elevation of some ideas over others. Traditional Americans praised fine judgement in a person. But if a progressive describes you as judgmental, it’s not a compliment.

When judgment is unvirtuous, all opinions become equally valuable. This is another reason for the progressive worldview’s incognizant anti-intellectual streak.

A common saying nowadays is, “everybody has an opinion”– as if that means that all opinions are equally worthwhile. Progressive culture tends to refrain from making judgements about anything (except, of course, about non-progressives) because of their sense that judgement is unvirtuous. When judgment is unvirtuous, all opinions become equally valuable. This is another reason for the progressive worldview’s incognizant anti-intellectual streak.

Primitive thinking, a term from developmental psychology, describes a tendency in children of a certain age to see things only in extremes. To a child engaged in primitive thinking, it’s not “you won’t listen to me now,” it’s “you never listen to me!” Similarly, adults can also chronically overreact mentally in a cognitive pattern called polarized thinking. Imagine a continuum of certainty which ranges from absolute on the left to random on the right; hard sciences are on the left end of the continuum, close to absolute. When it became clear that the “laws” of social science often could not be scientifically proven in the same way that those of chemistry or physics were, and that they were subject to biases, social scientists overreacted. Instead of accepting social sciences as somewhere in the middle of this continuum, they perceived them as being at the right end of the continuum, in near-randomness. Acting like polarized thinkers, they perceived chaos everywhere rather than seeing degrees of randomness, or relative relativity.

relative relativity n : the concept that randomness exists in all science, but can range in degree from near 0% to near 100%

This polarized thinking has led to the academic trends of deconstruction and postmodernism. Postmodernism began as a form of literary criticism, but has become a tool used to explain everything, science included. It views science as a cultural construct with no more objective validity than any other type of knowledge.

Deconstruction is the academic process of “removing biases” – in other words, sucking all the wisdom out of knowledge.

Deconstruction is the academic process of “removing biases” – in other words, sucking all the wisdom out of knowledge. Postmodernists become intellectual termites who use the theory of deconstruction to disassemble and thereby devalue any intellectual work by revealing perceived biases or inconsistencies. What is the ultimate purpose of postmodernism? It exists to deconstruct (destroy) the traditional body of knowledge and wisdom so it can be replaced by newthink. When deconstruction is taken to the extreme, absolute knowledge disappears. Only our experience remains, which leads ultimately to solipsism. Solipsism is defined as “a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing.”*

“The self is the only existent thing.” Then where is God? He is missing within newthink, though some progressives have yet to realize it.

NOTE: Civil, constructive, non-spamming comments are welcome.

* Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, (G. & C. Merriam, 1977).

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The Destructive Self-Delusion of Progressive Cultural Diversity

Progressives tend to believe that it is better to have cultural diversity than to group together around a common culture because all cultures are equally virtuous.

The unconscious logic supporting this belief is as follows, starting from the “Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble” branch of the newthink worldview tree:

• Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble.

• All cultures are equally virtuous because they are composed of equally, inherently noble human beings.

• It is better to have cultural diversity than to group together around a common culture because all cultures are equally virtuous.

The unconscious logic branching out of this belief is:

• We need to accept and support every subculture’s language, not require them to speak English.

• We need to weigh each culture’s beliefs and traditions on an equal footing with our traditional American culture.

• We must undermine traditional American culture because it erases important cultural differences.

America had always been a melting pot. Traditional Americans maintained their ethnic traditions at home, but joined a common culture in public. As time went by, for the most part, they assimilated. But to newthinkers, that melting pot is progressively unvirtuous. They envision a more virtuous “mixing bowl” of cultural diversity in which people maintain their original cultures and live together harmoniously.

As Michael Medved explains, Michael Novak’s 1972 book, Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics, encouraged this vision with its investigation of blue collar ethnic Americans who seemed to be retaining their old-world cultural identities.* Today, however, these same ethnic groups – Polish, Greek or Italian – have largely united with the broad American culture. They retain some of their old cultures’ traditions and attitudes, but they are distinctively American today – not European. Most importantly, they intermarry with other ethnicities, and their children become cultural Americans rather than part of a subculture. Except for African-Americans, marrying someone outside your ethnicity is the norm; within two or three generations, all immigrant groups have joined the broad American culture.**

Traditional Americans strived to give equal opportunity to individuals; progressives endeavor to create equal results for groups.

Despite the persistence of American assimilation, their belief in the virtue of cultural diversity attracts progressives to multiculturalism. The dictionary definition of multiculturalism is “the policy or practice of giving equal attention or representation to the cultural needs and contributions of all the groups in a society…”*** Traditional Americans strived to give equal opportunity to individuals; progressives endeavor to create equal results for groups. Newthinking bureaucrats and businessmen routinely promote all cultures on an equal footing with traditional American culture. Ethnic studies replace traditional American civics courses and the English language becomes just one multilingual ballot or telephone menu choice among many.

To newthinkers, all cultures are inherently equal. But then how does one explain why some cultures are obviously more successful than others? Newthinkers deal with the conspicuous reality of cultural inequality by ignoring it, denying it based on biased perception, or blaming it on oppression and exploitation. As we will see, newthink’s existence depends on the maintenance of permanent subcultures that believe they are oppressed.

Progressives believe in cultural diversity, but only if each culture unifies with the progressive worldview, is properly categorized, and accepts newthink beliefs.

Progressive cultural diversity is a self-delusion. Progressives believe in cultural diversity, but only if each culture unifies with the progressive worldview, is properly categorized, and accepts newthink beliefs. Cubans must not be freedom-loving small capitalists: they must see themselves as poor and racially oppressed. African-Americans must not be adults just as capable of self-achievement as European-Americans: they must see themselves as marginalized, culturally separate and racially oppressed. New immigrants must not be eager employees: they must see themselves as exploited workers. Christian Americans must not be worshipers of God: they must believe in the nobility of humanity. Newthinkers – who purport an unwillingness to push cultural integration – vigorously try to integrate everyone into their worldview.

When initiates into the progressive worldview from these subcultures reach for the American dream, they are hobbled by their newthink beliefs. All the things that actually correlate with success – education, marriage, stable family life, a traditional code, business savvy – newthink defines as traits of the oppressive mainstream culture. Newthink’s version of cultural diversity is destructive to those who internalize it and see themselves as oppressed.

* Michael Medved, “No, America’s never been a multicultural society”, Townhall.com, http://townhall.com/columnists/michae..., October 10, 2007.

** Ibid.

*** Webster’s New World College Dictionary, (Wiley Publishing, 2010).

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The Fear of Ethnocentrism and the Death of Standards

To traditional Americans, judging the quality of a culture was a commonsense and everyday practice that acknowledged a common standard for all people… this common cultural standard was the opposite of bigotry.

To traditional Americans, judging the quality of a culture was a commonsense and everyday practice that acknowledged a common standard for all people. Though Americans have been persuaded by progressives to be ashamed of it, this common cultural standard was the opposite of bigotry. That some cultures and subcultures came closer to that standard than others was obvious to them.

In contrast, a devout progressive is unwilling to make judgements about cultures (except of course regarding the superiority of progressive society over traditional American society). Newthinkers unconsciously believe that it is arrogant to judge other cultures because they are composed of equally, inherently noble human beings. The unconscious logic supporting this belief goes like this, starting from the “Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble” branch of the newthink worldview tree:

• Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble.

• All cultures are equally virtuous because they are composed of equally, inherently noble human beings.

• It is arrogant to judge other cultures because they are composed of equally, inherently noble human beings.

As newthink takes over, people become increasingly unwilling to judge even the products of various foreign cultures or American subcultures. The idea of a hierarchy of cultural quality is anathema to devout newthinkers. Heavy metal music is as good as classical music which is as good as rap. Tattoos and piercings are as good as evening dress which is as good as sweats. Cultural standards are out the window because all cultures, hence all cultural products, are equal. Newthinkers believe that America is not exceptional; that it has in fact been an oppressive and exploitative force; that its cultural output is not in any way superior to that of any other cultures; and that its traditional culture should not perpetuate.

Bust of Herodotus. 2nd century AD. Roman copy after a Greek original. On display along the portico of the Stoa of Attalus, which houses the Ancient Agora Museum in Athens. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After all, ethnocentrism is a habitual trait of humanity. Anthropologists point out that ethnocentrism causes every culture to believe that it is the pinnacle of humanity, sometimes to the point where others are viewed as less than human. Herodotus, the Greek historian, described the ethnocentrism of the ancient Persians like this:

Of nations, they honor most their nearest neighbors, whom they esteem next to themselves; those who live beyond these they honor in the second degree; and so with the remainder, the further they are removed, the less esteem in which they hold them. The reason is that they look upon themselves as very greatly superior in all respects to the rest of mankind, regarding others as approaching to excellence in proportion as they dwell nearer to them; whence it comes to pass that those who are the furthest off must be the most degraded of mankind.*

But ethnocentrism doesn’t require distance. As Yi-fu Tuan discusses in his book Topophilia, in northwestern New Mexico there are five distinct cultures whose ethnocentrism helps maintain their cultural integrity and distinctiveness in the face of modern media and continual intermingling. Each of these groups describe themselves as “people.” the Spanish-Mexicans call themselves la gente; the Zuni, “the cooked ones”; the Navaho, dineh; Mormons, the “chosen people”; the non-Mormon European-Americans refer to themselves as “real Americans” or the “white man.”** Similarly, in a nearby area, the Cherokees referred to themselves as ani-Yunwiya, meaning “real people.”***

Progressives, aware of ethnocentrism, assume that they suffer from the same degree of cultural chauvinism. Thus they are reluctant to criticize or oppose foreign cultures. They instead prefer to believe that all cultures are equally virtuous and that, besides, outsiders can’t truly understand the essence of other cultures. To avoid the taint of being perceived as cultural chauvinists, newthinkers make the leap from believing in the nobility of all human beings to believing in the nobility of all human cultures. The see-no-evil syndrome takes over: they focus on the good in other cultures and become blind to the bad. If one is looking for the good, one is always going to find it; if one is blind to the bad, one is never going to see it.

In reality, it’s arrogant not to judge other cultures because it displaces a universal standard of ethics on the grounds that we as inherently noble human beings can do better.

And so our current cultural self-consciousness has developed into diffidence and embarrassment at the idea of anything special about American culture. But all this is sophistry. In reality, it’s arrogant not to judge other cultures because it displaces a universal standard of ethics on the grounds that we as inherently noble human beings can do better. It is much more arrogant – and easier – to think that all cultures are equally virtuous, and let non-judgement reign.

*  William Steams Davis, Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources, Volume 2: Greece and the East, (Allyn and Bacon, 1912), pp. 60-61.

** Yi-fu Tuan, Topophilia, (Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 31.

*** James Mooney, Historical Sketch of the Cherokee, (Aldine Transaction, 2005), p. 3.

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