Against the Spirits of Wickedness in the High Places

A guest post by by a reader with the noetic and obsessive name of Concept Junkie:

In a world where everyone cries “Wolf!”, the legitimate wolf attack will go unnoticed.

In a world where accusations of racism and sexism, etc., are hurled more commonly than people ask about the weather, does it do any good to make accusations of racism, sexism, etc., _even if you are absolutely correct_?

Having finished “Transhuman and Subhuman” last night, I have explored Mr. Wright’s musings on the philosophical and psychological underpinnings of liberal thinking that drive its symptoms of racism, sexism, etc. His thinking is, in my opinion, very clear, and he reaches many of the same conclusions I’ve reached (although much more thoroughly), and he correctly points out that this is much more than a disagreement about how to govern, or about different choices in lifestyle.

Even though it’s much harder, I think this is the strategy we need to take in trying to develop an approach to combating the evil thinking that is pervading our society. Honestly, this obsession with race, sex, sexuality, etc., isn’t the problem, it’s just a symptom of a deep-seated and non-obvious problem, one I feel I can’t really explain, and definitely don’t understand.

While I can appreciate the liberal idea of paying attention to viewpoints and kinds of people that are often ignored, the fact on the ground is that in doing so, they almost inevitably focus attention on bogus viewpoints, stupid ideas, or kinds of people that don’t have anything constructive to offer, or if they do, focus on aspects (sex, race, etc.) that are completely orthogonal to the merit under which they are judged (e.g., the ability to write a good book).

This is the great challenge in our culture war, and unfortunately everything, even the friggin’ science fiction awards has become a battlefield in that war.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.