MC’s latest essay takes a look at the cultural destruction wrought by the Left as it implements its utopian socialist ideals.
The Emotions of Socialism
by MC
My cousin once told me that ‘socialism’ has to be right, or else life is not worth living. This has the irrationality of a religion, and it is this emotional view of politics that the socialist elite cynically exploits. But it is really all about the Garden of Eden, and whether mankind was corrupted or not. Is mankind intrinsically good, or thoroughly bad? Socialism appears to seek to rebuild Eden, at least for its elites, but to do this it must make its drones feel elitist and intrinsically ‘good’.
So whilst the elite enjoy their Eden, they must keep close watch on the gatehouse. They must at all costs keep the aspiration to the Edenic utopia going, but deny access to all but their own clique. So the foot soldiers of socialism labour for a utopia to which they are denied access by their own leaders.
This is the hoax at the heart of the problem.
There are prime weapons to keep the drones droning. For the middle-class college-educated there is the emotional appeal of striving for a better world. For the working classes there is the cradle-to-grave assurance of socialised medicine, unemployment benefits and pensions. And for those who don’t want to work, there are the welfare payouts.
But the cost is enormous, and this is where the careful propaganda comes in. Socialism within a democracy needs the worker to pay for the shirker. The real currency is not the dollar or the euro; it is the vote, and votes are won by targeted propaganda.
The middle class must have their egos stroked. They must be convinced that they are ‘good’ and ‘kind’, and that their ‘superior’ intellect puts them above the masses. The working class must be constantly kept in a state of fear, fear that they will lose everything. The scroungers need to have ever more desirable carrots dangled in front of them.
In the last twenty or so years, the elites have created a new group, the ‘itinerants’: foreign immigrants who are attracted by higher wages or welfare payments to settle the country but to also proselytize culture, to muscle out their own cultural lebensraum at the expense of the local indigenous culture.
The socialist elite always intended this to happen, it is a pre-planned part of the process. The whole concept of multiculturalism was pre-designed to accommodate this wave of hostile immigration.
What we need to understand is: Why?
Let us look at a similar occurrence in history; the fall of Rome and particularly its aftermath. The post-Roman scenario is of feudalism on a vast scale, with a now religious Rome rather than a military Rome at the centre. A feudal system comprises three distinct hierarchical classes with no mobility among those classes. The aristocracy are the landowners who use slave labour to produce food. The guildsmen, mainly in towns and cities, manufacture goods for the benefit of the aristocratic classes. The serfs are the slave classes owned by the aristocrats.
A fourth class was the religious hierarchy. Its role was to skim off those of academic ability; the potential opposition amongst the slave classes, and absorb them into the church and thus render them politically impotent through indoctrination.
When we look at this we can understand the direction in which this iteration of the socialist elite is moving.
There are only two things in their way: the First and Second Amendments. This cannot work if the serfs can shout back and shoot back!
The key to feudalism is the destruction of the middle class. It must be eradicated not neutralized, and that is where Islam plays a role. In Islam there is no place for an educated middle class; there is just indoctrination; especially of males.
In Eden the woman was deceived by the serpent, but the man made his own decision to disobey God. Later, the woman confesses to being deceived; the man blames the woman and God. As Jews (whose scripture this is) know, one who is deceived may be forgiven under Torah, but one who knowingly defies God is not forgiven under Torah (hence the need for Messiah; see Numbers 15:17).
Women are much more pragmatic than males, they tend to be more in control of the emotions that matter, and thus women are the anchor upon which the middle classes depend. Islam attacks women and belittles their ability to anchor males to emotional stability. Likewise feminism destroys womanhood by masculinising females (and by feminising the males). It is the processes of motherhood which are under attack here.
There was a time when society, and therefore mothers, understood the need for boys to express their masculinity. This has been a prime target for socialism since the sixties.
In 1966 the Advanced Party report completely changed the focus of the UK’s Boy Scouts movement. The focus moved from individual development to collective development. Instead of acquiring personal skills, one had to acquire community skills. Subsequently girls were allowed to join the movement. This quite naturally proved a huge distraction, and introduced complications requiring female oversight. Somehow, the introduction of girls led to a loss of spontaneity. All events had to pre-planned so as not to compromise the needs of the girls; girls cannot just use a convenient bush, and neither can boys when girls are present.
So the boys lost their opportunities to be boys and had to accommodate female needs. One might note that the same was not done to the Girl Guides.
Nobbling the masculinity of males is a prerequisite for a feudal society. A true male is prepared to defend his family and his property, but society, helped by cultural Marxist propaganda. has reduced Dad to a bumbling idiot (if he even exists in the lives of many boys and girls).
The middle class is built upon a balanced and shared responsibility to provide a house, a family and a piece of land (an income). This has proved to be an easy target in a secular humanist society. Take away the Judeo-Christianity and the family house begins to crumble, and with it the middle class.
Such is the reality of the elite socialist attack on Western society. Why cannot society see the dire results of this pernicious attack?
Social elitism is very clever at keeping the class separators in place, and in building up class tensions in such a way that the different target groups are alienated and can be treated differently. Because there is little cross-fertilization between class groupings, few get to see the real picture, and those few that do can be isolated.
Stroking the ego of the self-proclaimed intellectual is part of this process. One must provide propaganda in the form of emotionally attractive stimulation of what intellect there is. The candidate must be carefully fed the salient features of his own destruction. These must appeal to his intellect, his vanity or his sexuality. Once hooked, it is rare for one of these intellectual dupes to break away.
Emotional socialists need to believe that they are ‘good’ people. They too can be specifically addressed by the socialist elite. Like Stalin’s ‘show’ communities, these gullible people can be shown the righteousness of their beliefs, they can be shown the British NHS (planned by conservatives, implemented by socialists), the welfare state where nobody starves, free schooling where nobody is educated. And they feel good and vote like cattle.
So bid an emotional farewell to a middle class existence; it is leaving from a platform near you. O middle-class Christian, you have been condemned and your life is forfeit! Go to your designated cattle car for your resettlement journey and for the “special treatment” that awaits you, a place where your religious freedom will be respected , but where you cannot pollute our socially just society with your antiquated ideas of right and wrong.
MC lives in the southern Israeli city of Sderot. For his previous essays, see the MC Archives.
Look, what you say it’s all true. I can testify to that. I spent half of my lifetime in one of the “departments” of the Eastern-European Communist paradise. Decades after leaving it behind I discovered the real American history and now I am witnessing the not-so-slow sliding of the country into what you just describe. I am asking myself every day: how is it possible for rational human beings from anywhere in the world and especially from the Western world, to want to become the victims of Socialism instead of following the example of what the US once was: the land of life, of liberty and of the opportunity to pursuit one’s happiness?
The emotional appeal of socialism is simply greater then the appeal of freedom, mostly because the left owns the art establishment, they have an unlimited amount of artists, musicians, actors and writers at their disposal to sell socialism to the people. Another advantage of socialism is that it appeals to a need to be secure, to be nurtured. In the post-sixties era, a sedentary lifestyle and the encouragement of this life style by the ruling elite, has made two entire generations wary of responsibility. Socialism absolves us all of such worries.
Population density is another issue, when you are crammed into small apartments in the big city, you are unlikely to ever experience the meaning of true freedom. You cannot cherish what you do not know.
This is the outcome. I was re to the long process that brought us here. On the other hand the emotional appeal of socialism does not have the same appeal for everyone. There are people and people. Even during the communist era were people who tried to overcome the difficulties that the state tyranny imposed on them. What I mean is if I look back at my own life, I had in my genes that lust for personal freedom. I managed in my own quiet way to slalom through somehow but at the end I did hit the wall and I left. My question was not at all about me, but first and foremost about America. I know all about progressivism and the slow moving towards the left. It’s a shame.
The problem we face is one the Iron Curtain refugees did not face. There is NO place for us to run to!!!
Oz, I agree with you re the why of the emotional appeal of socialism. It’s regressive, pulling an individual back to an immaturity where all his needs were taken care of. That’s why it’s destructive, or rather, one of the reasons it’s destructive of human potential
But not all artists are owned. The Baron was a landscape artist for twenty-five years and he refused to take a dime of federal grant money – just as he refused to move to the big city and schmooze or ‘network’ to gain fame, or whatever.
So he made a life free of government benefits and dependent on those who cared about his work and about him. He painted like mad in the seasonable weather, and lived both by his wits during the off-season and by the generosity of his buyers during his annual exhibitions. It wasn’t until a friend offered him a computer job (by then I was beginning to get ill and we realized our son would need help for college) that he put down his paintbrush. It’s a good thing we didn’t know then that it was a final putting down. He planned to make enough to take care of me and our son and then to get back to painting landscapes because that’s what he *was*, a painter. As adults, we often define ourselves by our roles, or -in his case – by what he was called to do, in the old-fashioned sense of a ‘vocation’.
So now he’s here, too blind to paint anymore, and I’m writing this to you because the only jobs available to him would require too much traveling & time away from home, which wouldn’t be optimal for my health. His new main job, Driving Miz Dymphna, leaves him enough time to run Gates of Vienna, if you count 14 hour days as “enough time”.
But by the time we realized all that, we’d already wandered in by the side door to CounterJihad activism. That is, we began *this* odyssey while he was still working – it was a form of connection for us back in the beginning during our separations due to his work. Now this has become how he earns our living…and he’s still using his artistic skills, just not doing landscapes. With his bad eyes, he couldn’t paint anyway. That door is closed and those 500+ paintings will live on after him. When I say that, he rolls his eyes, but it’s true.
Our story isn’t unusual. There are many people who live by their wits, especially in rural areas. Like us, they get by because the point in life isn’t security and it isn’t “stuff”…
A long way to say, “yes, but…” That is, socialism appeals to the regressed, fearful and not-quite adult. It’s why one so often meets sullen,aggrieved socialists who have no idea how life works and no plan for their own life outside the safety of governmental largesse. All they’re sure of is that life owes them and somebody gonna pay for what they didn’t get or don’t have. They are perfervidly envious redistributionists.
In the Coming Unpleasantness that is bound to happen in this country, none of The Dissenters will be socialists.
Such twists and turns in life are only possible in a world outside of socialism. When government is required to take care of a people, it is forced to restrict the behaviour of that people simply to ensure spending is somewhat pressed downward. The US is already at the point where government institutions are becoming militarised, when I cannot even find a justification for a single can of pepper spray, the ‘lady version’ not riot gear, in their possession. A greater problem is that a people living under these circumstances are becoming less adventurous, less capable and are unable to enjoy life to its fullest.
When simplifying the appeal of socialism though , is that it simply does not require to exert any effort. We all know that every socialist program can be performed more efficiently through charity or the free market, but this requires people to actually do something.
About art, a former civil servant told me that artists in the Netherlands are asked to deliver three pieces per year, stored in the local city hall, upon which their yearly salary is ensured. Since what the municipalities put on display from these subsidised artists, often disgracing city centres and roundabouts, is already atrocious, I can imagine the postmodernist junk which is kept from us.
In other words: Socialism is only possible and prospective in the family between parents and their children.
OT, forgive me if I’ve missed it all these years, but does the Baron have an online art gallery? I’d love to see it.
I’d second this. It could be an addition to the tip jar, as well as allowing the Baron to be paid for his skill and talent
Simply outstanding! another sublime essay by MC. Thank you so much for taking the time to write it. I’ll be doing my duty and spreading this one around.
Thank the spell checker and the Grammar School education, also the encouragement of Dymphna in particular, it take a peculiar type of self-confidence to put pen to paper and then to ‘publish’ and I would encourage those who feel they have something to say to ‘write it down’.
I got good grades in my English ‘o’ level, but that was in spite of school rather than because of it, grammar and spelling were king, and content was irrelevant. It was not about creative writing, it was about equipping potential bureaucrats to write understandable, grammatically correct English. One of the first things I noticed was that the ‘professionals’ broke all the ‘rules’. My spelling is still painful.
In me, creativity in English was crushed by the steamroller of pragmatism, and it did not resurface for some fifty years (and I hope there are some that regret that as well).
I started writing spasmodically through the late ’80’s and nineties (my late 40’s early ’50’s), I found the disciplines of ‘content management’ very hard, and culling a piece into readable ‘chunks’ did not come naturally. I started submitting work for publishing (and rejection) about 10 years ago, in late 2012, during the bombardment of Sderot D invited me to write about it, the Baron would be able to tidy up any embarrassing faux.
The result is here:
https://gatesofvienna.net/2012/11/news-from-front-line-sderot/
I would say to anybody out there who would like to write, try it, put pen to paper or hands to keyboard, we all have to start somewhere, and the blogosphere is a coming genre. The Baron is a whizz at knocking stuff into shape…..
Someday I will put my rejected pieces on a blog, and everybody can laugh at my efforts, but the thing is to keep going! to keep trying.
And @Moa – I love the praise! thanks, its made my day 🙂
“…. it was about equipping potential bureaucrats to write understandable, grammatically correct English…..”
Well, that was enough to put you leaps and bounds ahead of students in the US.
That was a very well-written post.
Gnoticism teaches that human spirit was God, was cast to earth as a million points of light and is now trapped in the evil material. Only through the sufficient knowledge, can we return to be God. The process of being removed from God is called “alienation”, a theme that should be familiar to students of Marx, even as he put a secular interpretation on it. Humanity could return to God when it achieved the perfect socialist condition. The foundational ideas of Gnosticism go back to the time of Plato.
Here is a succinct explanation of this process from British philosopher R.T. Allen:
“To understand [alienation] we have to go back behind Hegel, the immediate source of Marx’s ideas, to Hegel’s own ultimate source: viz. Gnosticism. For alienation is the central theme of Gnosticism, along with the saving knowledge of how we became alienated, and from what, and of how we can escape from it. That theme is summarized in the Valentinian formula:
‘What liberates is the knowledge of who we were, what we became; where we were, whereinto we came; what birth is and what rebirth.’
All the Gnostic texts, though they differ in details, declare that we are strangers, aliens, sparks of Light or Spirit trapped in evil matter. They recount the cosmic process whereby the circles of the world have been created, by ignorant or evil creators and not by the Light, and whereby we have become entrapped in the midmost or deepest dungeon. Finally they impart the knowledge needed to escape back to the one Light whence we have come and which is our real home.
This is the pattern of thought that Hegel took over. But, rejecting all other-worldliness, he sought to reconcile men to this world, of nature and society, from which they had become estranged. We are the vehicles of a self-creating Geist which, in order to become and to know itself, has gone out into what is most alien to itself—the merely physical world of Newtonian science—and is progressively coming thence to its full self-realization and self-knowledge in and through human life and history. With this knowledge, given by Hegel’s own philosophy, man’s alienation from the world is in principle, overcome although Geist has not yet fully realized itself in the world.
Marx took from Hegel two basic themes of Gnosticism, which Hegel had secularized, and re-interpreted them in his own way: viz. the cosmic drama of a fall into alienation from nature and one’s fellow men, and the saving knowledge, Marxism, which explains this and the way out of alienation back to an unalienated existence. But in one central respect Marx did not fully learn the lesson that Hegel had to teach him about modifying ancient Gnosticism.
The Gnostic texts state that we are sparks of Light or fragments of Spirit (pneuma), and imply that we are distinct from each other and from the Light or Spirit only because of our fall or seduction into the circles of the world. As we fell through each circle, we were clothed with an outer covering. The return to the Light will be a reversal of that process, so that, as we pass back through each circle we shall strip off each coating. Consequently, but this is never stated, as far as I know, at the end of that process each spark or fragment will cease to be distinct and will merge back into the One Light or Spirit. Hence the End will be the same as the Beginning.”
From Flew, Marx and Gnosticism, by R.T. Allen,
Philosophy Vol 68, No 263, (Jan, 1993), pp. 94-98
The full article is available on Jstore and others behind a paywall.
(“Flew” is Antony Flew, 1923-2010, a British philosopher)
see also:
Marx as Millennial Communist by Murray N. Rothbard
http://mises.org/daily/3769
or
http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/R4_5.pdf
Early Secular Communism by Murray N. Rothbard
http://lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard294.html
(but note that Rothbard, who appears to be secular, does not know Gnosticism and instead calls it by its major point: reabsorbtion theology.)
Thanks. I remember studying Marx’s links to Hegelian philosophy – esp dialectic materialism – in college but it didn’t go this far.
For a good intro/survey of the reasons for Flew’s turn from atheism at the end of his life, see this interview with John Barrow:
Part of the Reason Antony Flew Left Atheism
Barrow’s curriculum vitate, also on that page, puts paid to the idea that faith and science are at odds, though for those determined to make them so a scientist’s demur won’t dissuade them.
Fascinated by the high mindedness of MC’s article but there is one weakness, that the mind is firmly grounded in the daily need for sustenance.
That necessity of individual subsistence is sure to scupper all political aspirations and utopian ideologies until the subsistence necessity is negated.
“He who does not work shall not eat”, is that not a socialist principle sign posted on the road to serfdom.
The Elite feel the need for others to work on their behalf, and whilst the shirkers have votes that NEED to be bought, then they too will be supported on the backs of the workers.
Not sure of your definition of shirkers, in the UK that politically charged brand is applied to the indigenous economically inactive white working class. A group that for the most part was politically manufactured and locked out of economic activity by the destruction of the manufacturing sector in the nineteen eighties. Incidentally they tend not to vote.
In modern day UK the middle class do not hold the virtues of old indeed those virtues are mainly to be found surprisingly in the underclass or shirkers class and what is left of the upper class.
What I witness, is the modern day British middle class at war with both the upper and lower classes. Co-opting the shirkers of the upper class, the bribed aspirational working class and the patronised immigrant class to bring about their utopia.
I think that is what Mark Steyn was referring to. The same group that Daniels, aka Theodore Dalrymple, describes so chillingly. I find his attitude difficult to take given that he made his living off treating these people. It’s kind of like double dipping. If they hadn’t existed, on whom would he have practiced and from whence would his generous pension have derived? I wouldn’t mind if he were compassionate about their plight but I’ve talked to enough of them to know how deeply used they feel.
The bitterness is understandable. It partakes somewhat less of the aggrieved entitlement of American underclass – for us this is more obvious in the black faction than the white though they hold their own contempts and entitlements too.
You have described the phenomenon well:
What I witness, is the modern day British middle class at war with both the upper and lower classes. Co-opting the shirkers of the upper class, the bribed aspirational working class and the patronised immigrant class to bring about their utopia.
That situation has existed here (in differing forms) since the turn of the 20th century. But its natural home was Europe and all we did was borrow and adapt.
For the U.S. the factions aligned somewhat differently but they all looked to their learnéd betters in Europe. They had been pro-Wilson until our entry into The War. After that, the Progressives, then later the liberals set about installing eugenics as part of the Settled Consensus. At one point thirty-seven of the forty-eight states (Arizona was added in 1912, shortly before eugenics really began to move) had eugenics laws on their books. In our commonwealth of VA, in the 30s, thousands of black women were sterilized.
Marxism was enthusiastically adopted here, but earlier a kind of Kaiser-ism held sway. The model of German cleanliness, order and intelligence was seen by some as the height toward which we should strive. Bismarck’s proto-welfare state should be adopted here and we were to eliminate the stupidities and commercial ugliness of our Middle Class. The elite wanted to make an alliance with the underclass to drive out these “moronites” (I believe that was Mencken’s coinage. He was a dour, angry anti-Semite, anti-nativist, anti-Anglo).
The elimination of our greatest attribute, i.e., a prosperous and broadly-based middle class – was an end to be attained to the betterment of the U.S. They all admired the Fabians, and later H.G. Wells, as having all the answers for the ugliness they saw all around them. The liberal strain of Hate America First is old and deep.
Those purchased votes were deftly exposed by Trollope just as universal suffrage (for men, anyway) was getting underway in Britain. Several of his novels are brilliant delineations of the process by which votes were bought and the ways that Jews were deliberately cut out of the electoral program. Trollope’s careful descriptions of mid 19th century England’s severe repression of the landless by their landed gentry ‘owners’ is enlightening.
I don’t think anyone here in the U.S. was able to capture a section of our culture quite so well as Trollope did for the England of his time. England could be divided into urban and rural, haves and have-nots, etc., and it was clearly stratified. Here, in a huge country with great regional differences (that depended to some extent on which place in Europe the area’s founders had originated), and constant fluidity, that was harder to do. The South remained gothic and endlessly fascinating, but the rest wasn’t so easy to compress. Thus our novelists (Dreiser, maybe) were more concerned with morality than with mores.
Mark Steyn had an essay a few years ago about visiting the UK and having his cultural moment as he encountered so many people who didn’t work, who had never worked in their lives. For most North Americans that is indeed a strange idea.
Part of that is education -or rather the lack of it; part is a wider cultural degeneration; and part of it is the sad fact that socialist countries aren’t productive enough to provide the jobs to begin with. Regulations get in the way of job creation.
It’s getting to be the same here. The ratio of working people (those in non-government jobs who are paying taxes) to the non-working is 1.7::1 The numbers of people on disability is huge and growing. It’s the same with all the other markers which show the decline – e.g., the growing divide between the elite and average folk, the huge growth of government and especially of governmental regulation. All those factors damp down real growth and creativity. Another marker is the number of patents applied for by a given country.
Here’s an animated graph of what happened to Chicago’s middle class over the years:
http://danielhertz.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/incseggif.gif
Chicago once had a strong middle class and lower middle class. In fact, Michelle Obama came from the latter stratum. But those folks have mostly disappeared. Moved to the suburbs or left entirely…and the only question is, how long will it take Chicago and other northern cities controlled by Democrat socialist political machines to become another Detroit? They all appear to be headed there.
Right now, it’s still legal to vote with your feet.
It is always the darkest before the dawn! WE ARE AMERICA! And the time has not yet come to hear the echo!
“Jones uttered the immortal words: “I have not yet begun to fight! … of Lake Erie, 10 September 1813, “We have met the enemy and they are ours– two ships, … so patted the men on the back and said, “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!” Don’t count us out yet! The left and the guns of the corrupt can go to hell fire to burn for an eternity! Hoo Yah!
Remember the old saying, “The devil’s in the details.”.
The triumph of socialism and the actions of politicians cum rulers such as Harry Reid are enabled by the tampering with the system of government created by the framers of the US Constitution. What the Constitution gave us was a representative Republic, where the interests of the regions were balanced and mediated through the Executive branch and the Supreme Court, the interests of the propertied wealthy class was balanced against the laborer, and the interests of the government bureaucrats was balanced through the clear separation of powers, designed specifically to provide a check and balance against the power of any particular branch of government.
The most egregious dismantling of this carefully-constructed system of government came through the mechanism of Gerrymandering, later known as redistricting and “proportional representation.” This tinkering with electoral districts meant that the politicians had a mechanism to stay in office that did not involve representing their constituents. It also allowed politicians to group together constituents who agreed with them. The Republicans, by the way, are probably much worse offenders than the Democrats. But, such tampering with electoral districts allows legislators to ignore population shifts and the changing conditions in their districts. It also provides a buffer allowing them to ignore pressing needs like immigration control and growing Islamic supremicism.
Another instance of tampering with the original mechanisms of government was the state and federal mandates on how political parties chose their candidates. Political parties should be allowed to express their own interests, even if the interests are elitist or not popular. A party that chooses candidates counter to the public interets will obviously not succeed in the general election. But, to provide a real choice, the parties must be allowed complete discretion in their internal processes.
A third way the electoral process has been corrupted is through the process of limiting campaign contributions by citizens. The fact is, most representatives have to spend a considerable amount of their time in the nuts and bolts of fundraising. There is literally no time for them to learn anything once they become serious candidates.
There is great potential for abuse when a wealthy individual is the prime source of funding for a candidate, but the process of checks and balances by a free press and by the fact that there are wealthy funders of all political philosophies. The one caveat is that NO funding, indirect or direct, by foreign sources should be allowed. It’s totally irrational to allow foreign influences to buy power in US elections. Any politician taking foreign funds, before, during, or after his tenure in office should be subject to felony charges. This includes libraries, charitable foundations, or any other institution.
In sum, the early greatness of the US came not from a particular class or philosophy, but from the genius of the system that allowed a peaceful, or almost peaceful resolution of conflicting interests through a neutral political process. The US is even more diverse now. It is too much to hope for that we will all come to share the individualism of, say, Nevada rugged ranchers. But, we can still look to a political system that provides checks and balances and a number of different avenues to representation.
Very enjoyable article . Almost poetic in it’s appeal , well done.
Excellent article, MC (and too many interesting comments to pick up on a couple of days late).
I’m aware that you help at a food bank, and my respect for that generous gift of time. I don’t know the situation of your clients, but in the UK, 60% are actually in work; the proportion on benefits is in the same ballpark. To me, this is a failure of the market to ensure a decent standard of living for those who are actually trying to do the right thing.