Gordon Pine's Blog, page 6

Cultural Equality and the One World Ideal

The progressive worldview assumes an equality of virtue among all cultures. But while all humans are created equal, not so all human cultures.

Traditional Americans, while championing the given of equal human worth, were free to judge the good, the bad and the ugly in each subculture. The good remained in the American pot, while the bad and the ugly were melted away.

Progressives tend to believe that since all cultures are equally virtuous, it is better to seek cultural diversity than to join a common culture.

The mirage of cultural equality has balkanized America’s cultural standards. Progressives tend to believe that since all cultures are equally virtuous, it is better to seek cultural diversity than to join a common culture. So, for instance, America’s tradition of one dominant language – English – is under attack. Because, under newthink, all subcultures are equally virtuous, they all have an equal right to use their own language. Government has even assumed an obligation to provide non-English speakers with materials in their own tongue rather than burden them with the responsibility of learning English.

Traditional America is losing its ability to reproduce itself because of the dryrot of doubt implanted by newthink’s beliefs.

When a culture loses its confidence, its sense that its institutions and ideals are superior and worth saving, its existence is threatened. Traditional America is losing its ability to reproduce itself because of the dryrot of doubt implanted by newthink’s beliefs. If all cultures are equal, why pass on traditional American culture? Why not instead embrace multiculturalism, especially if to do otherwise is bigoted?

English: John Lennon rehearses Give Peace A Chance by Roy Kerwood. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In a seeming paradox which I will discuss later, newthink’s belief in equal cultural virtue has led to the “one world” ideal, in which a global ethic supersedes the nationalistic ethic and nations become less necessary. The boomer generation was exhorted through song to imagine a world with no countries. This exercise in imagination contributed to a bias among progressives toward a policy of lax or non-enforcement of national borders. But as a cell cannot exist without a cell wall, a nation cannot exist without a border. Newthink, given time and the opportunity, will dissolve national borders and unite governments and cultures. Whether that will be a good thing is up to you to judge. (Unless you’re progressive – cultural judgement is progressively unvirtuous.)

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The Melting Pot Goes Cold

Progressives tend to believe that all cultures are equally virtuous because they are composed of equally, inherently noble human beings.

The unconscious logic supporting this belief goes 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.

The unconscious logic branching out of this belief is:

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

• It is arrogant to judge the products of other cultures and subcultures 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.

• We should join together into one world filled with diverse and equally virtuous cultures.

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

Cover of Theater Programme for Israel Zangwill’s play “The Melting Pot” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Traditional Americans believed in America the “melting pot.” As Michael Medved explains in an article titled No, America’s Never Been a MultiCultural Society, the term was popularized in a 1908 melodramatic hit adaptation of Romeo and Juliet – The Melting Pot by Israel Zangwill – about two lovers in New York city who come together despite their very different origins.* The impassioned Romeo stand-in, David, tells his lover,

Understand that America is God’s Crucible, the great Melting Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming! Here you stand. . . in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. A fig for your feuds and vendettas! Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians – into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American.**

Later, gazing out at the Statue of Liberty, David elaborates:

It is the Fires of God round His Crucible! There she lies, the great Melting-Pot – listen! Can’t you hear the roaring and the bubbling? There gapes her mouth – the harbor where a thousand mammoth feeders come from the ends of the world to pour in their human freight. Ah, what a stirring and a seething!. . . how the great Alchemist melts and fuses them with his purging flame! Here shall they all unite to build the Republic of Man and the Kingdom of God!***

Since all subcultures are equally virtuous to newthinkers, they see no reason to group around shared cultural ideals.

As traditional American culture is usurped, America’s cultural melting pot is beginning to go cold. Since all subcultures are equally virtuous to newthinkers, they see no reason to group around shared cultural ideals. Instead of a common cultural standard, newthink assumes a cultural equality among all aspects of its various subcultures.

That “all men are created equal” (“men” in the sense of mankind meant women too) was a pillar of the traditional American worldview. People inherently have equal worth. But, contrary to newthink’s tenets, all cultures are not created equal, and, though one is nearly certain to be accused of arrogance and racism by progressives for saying so, it’s not an arrogant or racist assertion – human equality, yes; cultural equality, no.

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

** Israel Zangwill, The Melting Pot, (The MacMillan Company, 1909), p. 37.

***Ibid., pp. 198-199.

A Progressive Belief: Children Are More Noble than Adults Because Society Hasn’t Corrupted or Damaged Them as Much Yet

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 need to strip away society and return to a natural state to uncover our inherent and transcendent nobility.

• Children are more noble than adults because society hasn’t corrupted or damaged them as much yet.

To newthinkers, children are little noble savages who haven’t yet been tarnished by society.

The unconscious logic branching out of this belief is: Children are more noble than adults because society hasn’t corrupted or damaged them as much yet. Additionally:

• Adults should have no special authority.

• Adults are arrogant to think they are wiser than children.

This progressive belief in the nobility of childhood led to a higher regard for the positive attributes of childhood: innocence, unrestrained emotion, bluntness in speech, immodesty, playfulness and creativity. The celebration of these traits led in turn to their increase in progressive adult society.

This progressive belief in the nobility of childhood led to a higher regard for the positive attributes of childhood: innocence, unrestrained emotion, bluntness in speech, immodesty, playfulness and creativity. The celebration of these traits led in turn to their increase in progressive adult society. Who can deny these childish trends in modern America? The striving for adult innocence helped produce the Beat character archetype typified by the hippies and the new agers. Unrestrained emotion is ubiquitous: it’s the hallmark of punk rockers, leftist activists and almost everyone on television. Compare the refined speech of a century ago with today’s discourse and you’ll see a serious encroachment of potty mouth in the public square. Today’s PG-13 rating would have been X-rated in our grandparents’ time – had they any need for such ratings. The increased playfulness and creativity of modern society are positive, but are often sabotaged by narcissism.

Meanwhile, a lower regard for the traditionally positive adult traits of politeness, modesty, patience and dependability – the difficult and boring aspects of maturity that children must learn to become adults – has led to their decline in progressive America. What used to be called common courtesy is becoming quaint and scarce. Modern Americans not only seek but get instant gratification; they use credit cards to buy things with money that is yet to be earned. Today’s hooray-for-me celebrations in the end zone would have embarrassed football players a couple of generations ago. Yet the quiet heroism of parents showing up for work day after day after day is forgotten.

From a traditional perspective, the positive attributes of childhood are wonderful in children. A modicum of them may be pleasant in adults; a blunt and forthright manner tempered by a good heart can be endearing. But grownups with the traits of children? – not a good thing.

Not coincidentally, negative attributes of childhood like narcissism and reflexive rebelliousness characterize progressive culture.

Not coincidentally, negative attributes of childhood like narcissism and reflexive rebelliousness characterize progressive culture. Narcissism flowers under newthink. The progressive motto seems to be, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but why it hasn’t done more.” Progressives are always rebelling against something; it’s in their cognitive DNA. As we will see, rebellion is a fundamental feature of newthink: its society metaphor defines society as a battlefield and social interaction as war. But newthinkers are also prone to rebellion because of their affinity to childishness. They are rebels perpetually in search of a cause.

America has not yet widely assimilated some of newthink’s unconscious beliefs. However, they logically exist as branches of the newthink worldview tree and therefore can be treated as predictions of the future direction of progressivism. For instance, the sub-beliefs, “Adults should have no special authority” and “Adults are arrogant to think they are wiser than children,” are just little buds on a branch. But buds have a tendency to grow. For example, some hippies tended to abdicate parental authority while raising their children. It’s a trend that may increase in progressive society.

The rise of modern America’s youth culture correlates with the rise of this unconscious belief in childhood nobility. Newthinking youth tends to reject the authority of adults. As yippie Jerry Rubin said in the 1960s, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.”

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A Progressive Belief: Wisdom is Felt, Not Learned

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 need to strip away society and return to a natural state to uncover our inherent and transcendent nobility.

• The more natural, the more virtuous.

• Emoting is natural and therefore virtuous; thinking is unnatural and therefore unvirtuous.

• Wisdom is felt, not learned.

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To newthinkers, emoting is natural and therefore virtuous; thinking is unnatural and therefore unvirtuous. Wisdom is felt, not learned.

…if seniors aren’t wiser than younger people, then why give them any deference? Under newthink, they’re really just wrinkly, cranky and unfashionable versions of everyone else.

Radical ramifications are created by this disrespect of traditional wisdom. They include the devaluation of older Americans: if seniors aren’t wiser than younger people, then why give them any deference? Under newthink, they’re really just wrinkly, cranky and unfashionable versions of everyone else. If the advantages of age aren’t appreciated, then the sizzle has to go to the young.

Newthink trash-cans tradition – another effect of this disrespect. If wisdom is felt, not learned, then tradition doesn’t really matter. The spoiled generation which grew up in the sixties looked at the blessings of American society and found them wanting. Western civilization and all its accomplishments were taken for granted. They could do it better.

Newthink’s disrespect of traditional wisdom is self-justifying. If traditional wisdom is worthless, then a new worldview is necessary. That opens the door for newthink.

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A More Progressively Virtuous, Less Intelligent America

Photo taken July 26, 2002 of American Boy Scouts sitting around a campfire ring at a week long summer camp. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

All educational systems indoctrinate their students into their worldview and attempt to shape them into virtuous members of their culture. The Boy Scout’s oath (“On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country…”) distilled traditional America’s cultural guidance to their youth. Bound by honor to a duty to God and country, children were taught to obey the law, help others, and stay strong, alert and morally straight. Americanism largely succeeded in its effort to inculcate those values.

Likewise, the progressive educational system functions very competently in its unconscious core function: the production of young newthinkers with a keen sense of progressive virtue, combined with limited knowledge and intellectual skill. It’s no accident that graduates have become increasingly ignorant as newthinkers have expropriated the American educational system. If progressive culture truly honored intellect, its students would emerge highly knowledgeable and intellectually proficient. Instead, our progressive educational system has led to declining intellectual performance. According to one large study only 31 percent of college graduates can read and extrapolate from a complex book.* As Mona Charen points out in her book Do-Gooders, the more time a child spends in America’s educational system, the worse he fares compared to students from around the world. Nine-year-old American kids score a little above the worldwide average, but the downward arc has begun: by 13 they’re below average, and by their later teenage years, they outrank students in only a few countries like Cyprus and South Africa.**

If progressive culture truly honored intellect, its students would emerge highly knowledgeable and intellectually proficient. Instead, our progressive educational system has led to declining intellectual performance.

This dumbing-down of America’s population is not a fluke, and it’s not only caused by an incompetent educational system. There are several unconscious newthink beliefs that contribute heavily to it. But the ones we’re focusing on now, the unconscious beliefs that “emoting is natural and therefore virtuous” and “thinking is unnatural and therefore unvirtuous,” have led to an increased social emphasis on feeling rather than thinking. Under newthink, a virtuous progressive should have feelings about things; having thoughts about them is secondary. Abstract thought – a salient and specifically human trait – has become the disreputable servant of feeling.

Because of the anti-intellectual nature of newthink, progressive America has less regard for rationality than traditional America. As its assorted character archetypes – from Modern Thugs to Beats – have grown in prevalence, their anti-intellectual timbre has influenced America, coarsening and stupefying it. Ours is a degenerate culture: the average American of 100 years ago could intellectually embarrass the average Jay-walking American of today. Nineteenth-century farmers went to school half as long as we do and the ones who did were more intellectually accomplished. Check out an 1800s textbook if you doubt it. Our great-grandfathers in their youth could have whupped us physically and intellectually.

* Paul E. Peterson, “Ticket to Nowhere,” Education Next, Spring 2003, Vol. 3, No. 2.

** Mona Charen, Do-Gooders, (New York: Sentinel, 2004), p. 198.

To Progressives, Emoting Tends to Be Perceived as Natural and Therefore Virtuous; Thinking Tends to Be Perceived as Unnatural and Therefore Unvirtuous.

Let’s examine the next unconscious belief in this branch of the newthink worldview tree: Emoting is natural and therefore virtuous; thinking is unnatural and therefore unvirtuous.

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

• Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble.

• We need to strip away society and return to a natural state to uncover our inherent and transcendent nobility.

• The more natural, the more virtuous.

• Emoting is natural and therefore virtuous; thinking is unnatural and therefore unvirtuous.

The unconscious logic branching out of this belief is: Emoting is natural and therefore virtuous; thinking is unnatural and therefore unvirtuous. Additionally:

• It’s better to follow your feelings than to analyze things.

• Wisdom is felt, not learned.

The devout progressive intellect doesn’t seek truth; it rationalizes emotions.

The devout progressive intellect doesn’t seek truth; it rationalizes emotions. It’s analogous to neurotic rationalization: in the neurotic, the neurotic behavior or feeling exists and the mind is tasked to explain it, without regard to truth. For instance, a neurotic with a social anxiety disorder may develop negative opinions of people, which conveniently give him a reason to avoid uncomfortable social situations. In the same way, newthink’s beliefs exist due to unconscious processes and it is the job of progressive intellectualism to try to make them logical. The highly progressive Soviet Union produced libraries of Marxist literature full of elaborate and obscure theory with little connection to reality: the literature on Marx’s theory of monetary value is one example. This dynamic is at work today in the social sciences, the arts, and the popular culture. It’s not as prevalent in the physical sciences, which are fundamentally unfriendly to counterfeit theories, but the manipulation of physical data to support progressive theories is not unknown. In the climategate scandal, scientists from the University of East Anglia and elsewhere, among other things, cherry-picked data to create a graph showing a formidable but bogus warming trend in the late 20th century. Newthink perverts the traditional goal of science: to find the truth without regard to the emotional reactions to that truth. Newthink intellectualism tends to be rationalization, not explanation.

Contrary to their self-image of intellectual daring and fairness, progressives tend to be close-minded to anything that conflicts with their worldview. Their intellectual positions tend to be emotionally-based rationalizations which must be defended at all costs – not empirically-based ideas to be impartially changed when new evidence or arguments are presented.

Although all worldviews operate on both conscious and unconscious levels, newthink originated in emotions; Americanism originated in texts – the Bible, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. Traditional thought is more intellect-based; newthink is more unconscious, its consequences less thought through. This emotional reasoning, by the way, is why it can be so hard to reason with a progressive. Contrary to their self-image of intellectual daring and fairness, progressives tend to be close-minded to anything that conflicts with their worldview. Their intellectual positions tend to be emotionally-based rationalizations which must be defended at all costs – not empirically-based ideas to be impartially changed when new evidence or arguments are presented. Newthinkers tend to be emotional reasoners, not truth-seekers. It’s difficult to argue someone out of a feeling. To change a progressive’s mind, one must make them aware of their emotional attachments to the unconscious beliefs behind their intellectual position – not an easy task.

To Progressives, Emoting Tends to Be Natural and Therefore Virtuous; Thinking Tends to Be Unnatural and Therefore Unvirtuous.

Let’s examine the next unconscious belief in this branch of the newthink worldview tree: Emoting is natural and therefore virtuous; thinking is unnatural and therefore unvirtuous.

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

• Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble.

• We need to strip away society and return to a natural state to uncover our inherent and transcendent nobility.

• The more natural, the more virtuous.

• Emoting is natural and therefore virtuous; thinking is unnatural and therefore unvirtuous.

The unconscious logic branching out of this belief is: Emoting is natural and therefore virtuous; thinking is unnatural and therefore unvirtuous. Additionally:

• It’s better to follow your feelings than to analyze things.

• Wisdom is felt, not learned.

The devout progressive intellect doesn’t seek truth: it rationalizes emotions.

The devout progressive intellect doesn’t seek truth: it rationalizes emotions. It’s analogous to neurotic rationalization: in the neurotic, the neurotic behavior or feeling exists and the mind is tasked to explain it, without regard to truth. For instance, a neurotic with a social anxiety disorder may develop negative opinions of people, which conveniently give him a reason to avoid uncomfortable social situations. In the same way, newthink’s beliefs exist due to unconscious processes and it is the job of progressive intellectualism to try to make them logical. The highly progressive Soviet Union produced libraries of Marxist literature full of elaborate and obscure theory with little connection to reality: the literature on Marx’s theory of monetary value is one example. This dynamic is at work today in the social sciences, the arts, and the popular culture. It’s not as prevalent in the physical sciences, which are fundamentally unfriendly to counterfeit theories, but the manipulation of physical data to support progressive theories is not unknown. In the climategate scandal, scientists from the University of East Anglia and elsewhere, among other things, cherry-picked data to create a graph showing a formidable but bogus warming trend in the late 20th century. Newthink perverts the traditional goal of science: to find the truth without regard to the emotional reactions to that truth. Newthink intellectualism tends to be rationalization, not explanation.

Contrary to their self-image of intellectual daring and fairness, progressives tend to be close-minded to anything that conflicts with their worldview. Their intellectual positions tend to be emotionally-based rationalizations which must be defended at all costs – not empirically-based ideas to be impartially changed when new evidence or arguments are presented.

Although all worldviews operate on both conscious and unconscious levels, newthink originated in emotions; Americanism originated in texts – the Bible, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. Traditional thought is more intellect-based; newthink is more unconscious, its consequences less thought through. This emotional reasoning, by the way, is why it can be so hard to reason with a progressive. Contrary to their self-image of intellectual daring and fairness, progressives tend to be close-minded to anything that conflicts with their worldview. Their intellectual positions tend to be emotionally-based rationalizations which must be defended at all costs – not empirically-based ideas to be impartially changed when new evidence or arguments are presented. Newthinkers tend to be emotional reasoners, not truth-seekers. It’s difficult to argue someone out of a feeling. To change a progressive’s mind, one must make them aware of their emotional attachments to the unconscious beliefs behind their intellectual position – not an easy task.

The Fusion of Nature and Virtue

Under progressivism, nature and virtue fuse. To newthinkers, the more natural, the more 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.

• We need to strip away society and return to a natural state to uncover our inherent and transcendent nobility.

• The more natural, the more virtuous.

Many entailments branch out of this particular belief. The unconscious logic is: The more natural, the more virtuous. Additionally:

• Emoting is natural and therefore virtuous; thinking is unnatural and therefore unvirtuous.

• Expressing yourself is natural and therefore virtuous; stoicism is unnatural and therefore unvirtuous.

• Sex is natural and therefore virtuous; sexual inhibitions or modesty are unnatural and therefore unvirtuous.

• A simple life is natural and therefore virtuous; a complex life is unnatural and therefore unvirtuous.

• Whole foods are natural and therefore virtuous; processed foods are unnatural and therefore unvirtuous.

• Holistic medicine is natural and therefore virtuous; traditional medicine is unnatural and therefore unvirtuous.

• The environment is natural and therefore virtuous; humanity’s physical presence is unnatural and therefore unvirtuous.

• Human will is unimportant in understanding human behavior. Human behavior can be completely understood through natural influences: genetics and environment.

• So-called primitive societies are closer to nature and therefore superior to our society. The social achievements and wisdom our society has gained since primitive times are therefore bogus.

…the ultimate expression of newthink’s nature/virtue conflation is the environmental movement.

Nature and “the environment” are synonymous, so the ultimate expression of newthink’s nature/virtue conflation is the environmental movement. In the 1960s and 1970s, many of the hippies headed back to the land clutching copies of Mother Earth News. As the hippie movement faded, many switched from the antiwar movement to the environment. Environmentalists as guardians of nature in progressive society perform a function psychologically analogous to soldiers as guardians of freedom in traditional American society – without the pesky bullets, bombs and dying part. Also analogous is the virtue attached to the environmentalist and the soldier. Like conspicuous worshipers in the temple, anyone associated with the green movement is touched by progressive virtue, which helps account for its current ubiquity in the media and the sanctimony with which its message is delivered.

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Definitions: Political Correctness and Progressive Virtue

Traditional America used good and evil to measure virtue. Newthink replaces them with progressive virtue and progressive non-virtue.

People need to feel virtuous. Therefore, all worldviews contain a system of measuring self-virtue. Traditional America used good and evil to measure virtue. Newthink replaces them with progressive virtue and progressive non-virtue. The name of newthink’s morality, political correctness, provides a language clue to this: correctness implies keeping score. What is being scored is one’s level of progressive virtue.

Here are some definitions:

political correctness n : progressive morality

progressive virtue n : 1 : conformity to a standard of political correctness 2 : moral merit as measured under the newthink worldview

politically correct (PC) adj : adhering to progressive morality

progressively virtuous (PV) adj : having progressive virtue –(antonym: progressively unvirtuous (unPV))

Let’s review.  Political correctness = progressive morality.  Progressive virtue = moral merit under the progressive worldview.  Under newthink, the more one conforms to a standard of political correctness, the more progressive virtue one accrues.  Please understand these concepts.  There will be a test.

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A Progressive Belief: Our Bodies are Inherently Noble

While traditional Americans weren’t the prudes they are sometimes caricatured as, they did believe in personal modesty and privacy.

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 need to strip away society and return to a natural state to uncover our inherent and transcendent nobility.

• Our bodies are inherently noble.

The sense that our bodies are inherently noble logically leads to the conviction that bodily modesty and privacy are unnatural anachronisms. The salient coarsening of American culture over the last 60 years arose from this unconscious belief.

The unconscious logic of this belief’s single entailment is: Our bodies are inherently noble. Additionally:

• Privacy and modesty are unnatural.

The sense that our bodies are inherently noble logically leads to the conviction that bodily modesty and privacy are unnatural anachronisms. The salient coarsening of American culture over the last 60 years arose from this unconscious belief.