Here is a revealing interview (in Norwegian) with the leading academic Multiculturalist in my country, Professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen of the University in Oslo, who has received millions in government funding for his projects and is something of a national celebrity. It’s a few months old, but I haven’t seen it until now. He says point blank that in his view the most important thing to do right now is to “deconstruct the majority [population] so thoroughly that it can never be called the majority again.” End of quote. And this is the agenda of the Multiculturalists in all Western nations. Make no mistake about it. I have honored him with a mention in my book Defeating Eurabia :- - - - - - - - -
Thomas Hylland Eriksen, professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, heads a multi-million project sponsored by the state trying to envision how the new Multicultural society will work. He is a career Multiculturalist and intellectual celebrity in his country, a frequent contributor to the public debate and lives, according to himself, in a boring, white monocultural part of the city, insulated from the effects of cultural diversity. Hylland Eriksen has proclaimed the death of (Western) nation states as if he derives pleasure from it, and has stated that the Nidaros Cathedral (Nidarosdomen), the most prominent church in the country, should no longer serve as a national symbol in our Multicultural society.
Mr. Eriksen has clashed with Ole Jørgen Anfindsen, who runs the bilingual quality website HonestThinking.org and warns against the effects of uncontrolled mass immigration. According to Hylland Eriksen, “Cosmopolites insist on a world comprising of more colors than black and white. In such a world, the problems presented by Ole-Jørgen Anfindsen are not just petty, but irrelevant.”
What are the problems presented by Mr. Anfindsen? Well, he has published calculations indicating that if the current immigration continues, native Norwegians will be a minority in their own country within a couple of generations. Given the fact that ethnic groups who become minorities in their own lands usually have a hard time, and always get persecuted when the newcomers are Muslims, one would assume that this would be interesting information. But for self-proclaimed “Multicultural cosmopolites,” it is “petty and irrelevant” to even consider that this could represent a problem. Eriksen calls Anfindsen “stupid and ignorant,” and hints that “Maybe Anfindsen’s agenda is inspired by a kind of perverted Christianity (he has a Christian background).”
Yes, Anfindsen does have a Christian background. Is that supposed to disqualify a person from worrying about whether his grandchildren will be persecuted? Mr. Eriksen, like other Western Multiculturalists, worries about Islamophobia but is more than willing to mock Christianity. A newspaper essay co-authored by Eriksen states that: “Is he [Anfindsen] asking us to once again repeat the obvious in that the murder of Theo van Gogh, various acts of terrorism and death threats against newspaper editors have nothing to do with Islam?”
Nothing to do with Islam? Really?
Mohammed Bouyeri, born in Amsterdam of Moroccan parents, killed Theo van Gogh as he was cycling in Amsterdam on Nov. 2, 2004, shooting and stabbing before slashing his throat and pinning a note to his body with a knife. “I did what I did purely out my beliefs,” he told judges while clutching a Koran. “I want you to know that I acted out of conviction and not that I took his life because he was Dutch or because I was Moroccan,” but because he believed van Gogh insulted Islam in his film criticizing the treatment of Muslim women.
Read the rest at the Brussels Journal.
38 comments:
We'll it's settled then, democide is the order of the day.
They do this because life would be just too boring without it. Talk about Millennium People.
An English (non-machine) translation of the Eriksen interview may be seen at:
http://www.culcom.uio.no/english/news/2008/hylland-eriksen.html
Like the useful idiots they are, people like Thomas Hylland Eriksen will be the first to be eliminated once the Islamist hegemonists form the critical mass necessary to take control and usher in their beloved religion of the Beast.
Don't these people ever take lessons from the former Soviet dissidents. (Of course not.. too much truth will make their heads implode)
Yuri Bezmenov, former KGB operative who defected in the late 70's spoke of the "demoralization" phase of Soviet Active Measures. Soviet "active measures" worked hard to change a generation of students through the academy (insert here Thomas Hylland Eriksen)by co-opting leftists, postmodern liberals, islamists etc. to pump into their soft heads, values most favourable to Soviet hegemony.
These "intellectuals" were not to be challenged with the basic values of American liberty, democracy or Western civilization. The spawn of these active measures, carefully cultivated in the 1960's and 1970's, then went on to take positions in government, civil service, business, mass media and the educational system.
Had the Soviets achieved their takeover of the hated west, these useful idiots, so carefully cultivated were to go to the head of the line in the first harvest in blood. Why? Because these idiots, who prided themselves on their putative abilities at independent thought and critical formulations, would suddenly find themselves serving a master so antithetical to what they once thought in their intellectual wet dreams.
Now they would be stuck with a choice. Many would have to apply a totally unused exercise of real critical thinking and rebel against the new masters. Of course, the new masters could not allow that... they would be prepared for such a rebellion and would have a fine action plan to bring in the harvest of blood upon the once useful idiots.
Mr. Thomas Hylland Eriksen... should you have the extreme good fortune to read these words, you would go to the head of this line. Peace be upon you ... .my friend!
"Aktivniye meropriyatiye" -- yes, indeed. Creatures like Eriksen would not go to the block, though. They would be the intellectual enforcers of dhimmitude, and, as such, receive "inner party" privileges.
Reading the rhetoric of Eriksen and his colleagues brought this excellent essay to mind:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_4_oh_to_be.html
It's collected in a new book by Dalrymple, the whole of which is well worth a read.
"Fjordman: On Deconstructing the Majority: Nothing To Do With Islam? Really?"
Well, I couldn't imagine a worst title. I haven't readFjordman's essay yet, I will but that title is really stupid.
It has nothing to due with islam. Islam has some "special" features, agreed but, with islam's problems I can handle well.
THE PROBLEM IS US. For instance, if the descendents of the Americans of the 1960s had voted, Mr. Obama would never had won.
The United States is being invaded, not by muslims, the muslims have nothing to due with that. Canada is importing a hell out of "ethnics", so that Canada's non European population jumped to one fifth, that is ten times, ten times the number of the non European population there just 20 years ago.
And a great proportion of the immigrant trouble-makers in Europe are not muslims.
The desconstruction of the majority HAS NOTHING TO DUE WITH MUSLIMS OR ISLAM and everything to due with Europeans.
Paul Green said:
"Creatures like Eriksen would not go to the block, though. They would be the intellectual enforcers of dhimmitude, and, as such, receive "inner party" privileges."
Quite right Paul. That's the second option after the block.
Yuri Bezmenov goes further: Of these useful idiots, he declares them unreformable (most likely to volunteer for the second option.)
He says," we are stuck with them. They are contaminated, they are programmed to react and think in a certain pattern. They can't change their mind. Even when exposed to authentic information or truth they cannot change their basic perceptions and illogical behaviour. The process of "demoralization" is complete and irreversable." Optimistically Bezmenov states, To get rid of them you need another fifteen years to produce patriotic and common sense people who act in favour and interest of the society at large." Bezmenov said this in 1986... he didn't foresee the advent of the religion of peace I guess.
I just love these old ex-Soviet operatives. They speak such merciless flesh ripping truth with their feet firmly planted on the ground. I guess Islam has it's equivalent... the likes of Walid Shoebat, Wafa Sultan etc.
"to envision how the new Multicultural society will work",
the same happiness like watching the new Communist society "working".
I am afraid we can never impress these guys with some logic or facts.
It worked so well all their life without logic and facts that it would be illogical for them to stick to the logic or facts.
To perforate their brain-balloons we should invent some simple techniques.
For ex. what about elaborating a new confusing theory that multiculturalism is fascist and racist? Try to bring some arguments, on purely abstract level there is total freedom of stiching this and that together. Until now they lived under false assumption that they are not racists and fascists. As we know already these terms apply to everybody perfectly.
"multiculturalism is fascist and racist"
Multiculturalists are logocentric social darwinists, like Nazis, they believe that the new paradigm, the spirit of the age, has given them a special visionary mission to upgrade humanity's meme-sphere. All out of date and unfit memes have been rendered useless and will be destroyed.
Nationality is top of the list.
Multiculturalism has happened before, occupied Poland, Soviet Ukraine, and others.
Here is my criticism of Fjordman.
Erikson has his idiot ideas for sale. But who buys them?
After all, his explicit policies in one form or another find widespread support in Europe AND the United States. So who supports them, and why?
I would suggest the answer can be found in advertising. Advertising, must, on average appeal to the consumer and form an effective mental image of the product or services well, advertised. There is also an easily discernible target for the message, as well.
Advertisers have specific targets, and broadcast media, particularly night-time television, over a wide range of programs will give one an idea of who holds social and economic power in Western societies, and thus who are the "buyers" of Erikson's ideas of cultural and ethnic replacement.
[Answer: it is upper income, middle class and up, single women. Who hold social, financial, and political power in most nations.]
The ills that befall the West (and even, ironically, Iran in social attitudes, no matter how many 16 year old girls they hang, and they sadly do) are not a Communist conspiracy but technology driven by the pill and condom. It is global, it is evident everywhere, even China, and it is the result of women controlling their own destiny (for the first time in history).
Has something happened to you in life Whiskey?
Something happened to Whiskey, you ask? Yeah, same thing that's happened to me and to so many of the rest of the white male population. Lived in school as 'nerd' or 'geek,' became an adult, and found out that it doesn't change now, grew older, and looked at the aftermath and found it all to be...well, I can't think of a word that describes the dessicated bitter bile that threatens to spew forth when I meditate on it overly long, but it's pretty bad.
He's just taken it to one of the more extreme conclusions. And while I don't agree with everything, even in the worst of his, what might be called misogyny, there's that kernel of truth I see, because I've been there and so help me, I've done that to the point of incontinence. Seen the behaviors described and I know personally what effect they have on me, and those like me; it's was a vile dirty pill I was made to swallow over and over, and worse, I wasn't the only one...or even the worst.
So yeah, something's happened to him in life, I expect. Same damn thing that's happened to so many of us. Best we can hope for anymore is that when the 5#|+ hits the fan, that we die on our feet, fighting for what we had, then live our lives as slaves and to the end with no hope at all.
Czechmade suggested:
"For ex. what about elaborating a new confusing theory that multiculturalism is fascist and racist? Try to bring some arguments, on purely abstract level there is total freedom of stiching this and that together. Until now they lived under false assumption that they are not racists and fascists. As we know already these terms apply to everybody perfectly."
The Ayn Rand Institute has collected some brilliant research essays made for educational purposes totally ripping multiculturalism apart and with irrefutable arguments that multiculturalism IS RACISM by all accounts and how it is a complete sham.
Diversity and Multiculturalism: The New Racism
A good idea would be to translate those essays into different languages.
These essays assaulting multiculturalism as well as promoting western civilization deserves to be spread far and wide, they are made with the purpose to educate students exposing the evils of those ideologies.
Let me extract this jewel from the Ayn Rand article Rolf points to:
Ayn Rand On Racism
Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage—the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry.
Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the character and actions of a collective of ancestors.
Racism claims that the content of man’s mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control.
This is the caveman’s version of the doctrine of innate ideas—or of inherited knowledge—which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.
Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination.
—from “Racism” in The Virtue of Selfishness, by Ayn Rand.
This is the way to put an end to racism, by assaulting the idea directly for the raw stupidity it represents. Mind-controlling EU Framework Decisions will not help, only hurt.
Ohh, I know what you mean, I am familiar with what you describe and the nature of evil women. Do not let yourself be dragged down with their hatred, do not countenance their self-love. Justice will come on them for their pride, it is the way of the cosmos.
As I always point out, I do not agree with the tendency to blame women for our current predicament. The power used to belong the men, and today it doesn't. And since women never in any existing society have ever been able to grab the power themselves, the only thing that could have happened is that the men gave away the power to the women. And this is also how it happened.
Which doesn't imply that the younger generations of men has any blame, they are just victims, defenseless and vulnerable. Like all of us are btw. In fact the women are the ones that are worse off under feminism. Just look at all the brutal rapes (gang rapes with virtually eternal torture of underage virgins finished off with caustic soda to deform them for life). These brutal rapes are the most characteristic signum of the America-led West, with its Enlightenment frenzy.
The blame is to be put on the destructive and suicidal reverse moral code that developed within Western Christianity, with revolutionary nations France and America as the front runners.
Ayn Rand is a good example of this destructive Enlightenment radicalism. This is poison that has to be decisively rejected.
Isn't diversity wonderful? Here in the US, the brown supremacists are telling us pale folk to "go back to Europe," while over there "people of color" and their contemptuous, self-hating allies are busy trying to replace us while forcing us to pay for it. Oh, and threatening jail time if we venture to object.
In Australia, they're about to mandate discrimination against white males, so everyone else can have "a fair go," you understand, and in the UK, a pub owner (and BNP member) was arrested for posting newspaper clippings on his wall.
Based on the evidence we, as a people, are either insane or terminally stupid. Possibly both.
What's the meaning of the West? The meaning of the West has been defined by France and America, using terminology such as "social contract", "human rights", equality, liberty etc.
But the effective meaning of it is a society where innocent girls, virgin girls, underage girls are hit by brutal rapes by "people of colour", and where nobody reacts to it. The girls have every bone in their face broken while being brutally raped for hours. They are gang raped by a dozen of thugs for hours or even days. Their private parts are cut up with a knife, and after the prolonged rape caustic soda is poured over their face and private parts. They are left to die tied up and set on fire. Etc. etc.
And there is no outrage. Not even a registrable reaction. This is the kind of society we live in. It's the most evil tyranny that has ever existed. In no other tyranny has so innocent people been hit so brutally in such a random way. In most other tyrannies it was people who where sen as a threat to the tyrants that where hit with brutality. But in the evil tyranny of the West it's the most innocent people that are hit in the most random way, and more brutally than any other tyranny known to mankind.
And in other tyrannies there was solidarity among the people against the system. In the evil tyranny of the West it the complete opposite. There's no solidarity among the people and anyone who oppose the order of having innocent virgins brutally raped in a random manner by "people of colour" is severely ostracized and rendered socially dead.
There's no humanity, no fairness, no freedom in the West. Only brutal nihilism; only tyranny.
Ayn Rand:
Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.... Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the character and actions of a collective of ancestors.
I'm sure this French Revolution style demagoguery provided Rand with a place in Secular Heaven.
According to Randism each Muslim would have to be assessed individually. Halting immigration (or deportation) based on group identity becomes unthinkable. There's no way to fight larger threats like Islam from the point of view of the extreme cultural leftist of Ayn Rand.
Throw her in the garbage can together with Marx and the other extremist populists!
Since someone is sure to bring up how being a Muslim technically does not mean belonging to a race/ethnicity (Which being Jewish btw just as technically doesn't mean either. So anti-Jewishness cannot be racism right?):
The essence of Rand's view is how it's morally wrong (and a doctrine for cavemen, brutes etc.) to judge people "by the character and actions of a collective of ancestors".
I'd like to see who wants to claim with a straight face that Muslims, quite as any (technically) ethnic group, do not have a discernible "collective of ancestors" by which to be judged from. What's the point of Spencer's and Bostom's books on Islamic history otherwise?
"So anti-Jewishness cannot be racism right?)"
Can be. You have Catholic Jews, Protestant Jews, Atheist Jews, Agnostic Jews. You dont have Catholic muslims, Protestant muslims, Atheist muslims etc.
I find Rand boring. My point is to turn the racist/fascist gun against MCists and see what comes out. Obviously anybody using this machine gun is not fascist or racist. ____This is very interesting. That means the shooting never stops.
You dont have Catholic muslims, Protestant muslims, Atheist muslims etc.
We do. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is referred to as a Muslim, for example.
Yet another example:
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/012066.html
that would lead to the steady unvoluntary and voluntary departure of Muslims from this country, until the only ones remaining, if any remained, would be a small remnant of apostates and non-believers.
Apostate Muslims, non-believer Muslims, etc...
Yes, if we follow the muslim point of view we get Hitler as a Christian. All those things are produced by dhimmified minds or:
My Catholic Jews or Protestant Jews etc. were so for generations. You hint on a transient group of people who apostasized during their lives. This is a week point - you might easily get Andalusians as Catholic muslims (???), if you enlarge your group like this.
Non-believer muslim might be a guy embedded in his muslim family sharing all the cultural ballast.
He keeps quite, but acc. to muslim law he is not a muslim and acc. to our freedom of speech/religion he is not a muslim as well. How do you measure a "cultural muslim"? A German kid in his class with many Turkish kids is also a cultural muslim, since he shares their background?
We are also sort of muslims - since we know about islam more than a Joe muslim, or an atheist arabist perfectly familiar with all things muslim - might be also a muslim according to you. Strange.
Our crazy friend Kalisch is also an apostate. Only his infidel University allows him to think otherwise.
CS, last time I checked, Islam was an ideology, not a race :)
CS,
Ayaan doesn't describe herself as a Muslim. She abandoned Islam and for all I know she ascribes to a textbook version of "Enlightenment" emancipation. In Muslim circles she's considered to be an apostate, hence the death threats.
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
@Henrik,
How about Islam being a waycist ideology? ;)
Well, precisely as I predicted...
Just as I predicted people lose themselves in some insignificant technical detail and fail to get the overall message, and even more the point.
Analytical and fair-minded thinking is very rare. Turing machine style repetition of rote learning is very common.
Henrik,
CS, last time I checked, Islam was an ideology, not a race :)
Do you seriously claim that the Ummah does not have a "collective of ancestors" by which to be judged from? Or are you just being deliberately disingenuous here? Or am I mistaken when I assume that you are serious at all?
Well said CS,
I also hate it when certain people think they can just comment at will, without ending with ten "winkies" in a row, just to make sure that even the most easily provoked understand that some irony might be involved ;-)
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
Well Sag,
Everything you wink can be held against you. You have the right to remain winkless ;-)
Before I go into this secondary technical issue, which the people here prefer rather than the real discussion; since they have learned until automation several one-liners about it. Which makes them feel that they have said something intelligent:
The real issue was Ayn Rand. To make my overall point clearer. The problem with the Randists is that their attack on the left is of the "holier than thou" sort. Instead of the real remedy, which means meeting ideology with realism, they go deeper into ideology, seeing themselves as better proponents of the Enlightenment ideals. Which makes them part of the problem, instead of part of the solution.
The Rand quote described by Henrik as a "jewel" above is the worst sort of culturally leftist stuff, just as evil and destructive as communism. There's no political flank that has been so aggressively pro mass immigration and multi-ethnic chaos as the libertarian right. And this is exactly the mentality shown by Rand above.
Anything that is useful for defending sustainable and functional society is attacked by Randists and other internationalist right-wingers as "collectivism", which is the highest of all evils in their view. And as we see in the quote above the language is hysterically hyper-ideological. This is the language of a bully and aggressive propagandist.
Ok CS,
Since I cannot edit my last post, I hereby retract my winky (this sounds a bit funny?) but I don't know the sign for an anti-wink :(
Got the bigger pic., though I'm not sure if the left/right scheme is adding useful info to the simple fact that Ayn Rand is strongly - well, radically really - opposed to any form of "collectivism". When I read about left vs. right, the first thing that comes to mind is economics. From that perspective, people who are in favour of free markets and individual property rights can't be leftists.
Conservative vs. Progressive; Left vs. Right; Collectivist vs. Individualist. Where would you plot Ayn Rand if you'd view these polarities as an x,y,z coordinate system?
And isn't it ironic that an anti-collectivist like Rand has received such a cult-following, almost like a sect?
Sag.
Hi Sag,
Wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more!
Got the bigger pic., though I'm not sure if the left/right scheme is adding useful info to the simple fact that Ayn Rand is strongly - well, radically really - opposed to any form of "collectivism".
"Radically" is the keyword here!
Being anti-collectivism is a way of being anti-society. There are of course many collectivisms that we want to discard, as e.g Nazism. Anti-nationalism would cover that too, but I think we can agree that that would hit too broadly and flush out not only Nazism but the good nationalisms, the ones that are the true anti-dotes to Nazism and Islam (the original Nazism).
Same with anti-collectivism. It hits far too broadly. And considering the ideological zeal with which Randists oppose "collectivism" and several other necessary features of a functioning society, if they ever had taken over the power of a society it would become as evil as a communist society. Randist are not interesting in changing the course of our civilization in free fall, they are just interested in being "holier than thou" then the leftists.
When I read about left vs. right, the first thing that comes to mind is economics. From that perspective, people who are in favour of free markets and individual property rights can't be leftists.
The reason why it's economics that comes to your mind is that since WWII it's been the only area left open for left-vs-right disputes. At the cultural level there has been a very strong consensus. After WWII there has only been internationalist left on both the left and the right. Most people are not even aware that there can be different opinions about these things. Any opposition expressed to this strong consensus of cultural leftism is treated as "satanism" and heavily ostracized. In effect the opinions of cultural rightism have not even existed on the political arenas. Opposition to internationalism, democratism and the ideologized vision of an open society -- all of which is the soil from which we got multiculturalism and mass immigration -- has been virtually non-existent. That's why you think of economics when you hear of left and right. The game has been rigged in such a way.
So being in favour of free markets and individual property rights does not tell us anything about where people stand in the more decisive left-right scale: the cultural one. Mostly, however, people with such stances belong to the establishment right: i.e. they are culturally leftist. I.e. internationalists, in favour of mass immigration and the so-called open society etc.
Conservative vs. Progressive; Left vs. Right; Collectivist vs. Individualist. Where would you plot Ayn Rand if you'd view these polarities as an x,y,z coordinate system?
Economically to the right. Culturally to the left, and therefore also a progressive (and very radical as you pointed out).
Re Collectivist vs. Individualist:
The interesting thing here is how, while being seen as opposites within the current paradigm, both these sides belong to the same mindset. Quite as e.g. Wilson and Lenin belonged to the same mindset. The truly different that was the real enemy of them both, the traditional society, was defeated in WWI. Wilson and Lenin, and subsequently USA and USSR, were rivals, not enemies, not opposites.
In the same way collectivism and individualism are rivaling variations of French Revolution ideas. They have everything in common except for the final touch of symbolism. Both live in the mindset where the society is only the state and its atoms (the individuals). Every single layer in between has been eradicated: church community, village community, regional self-government, even the family. These were all part of the old traditional society, the one that all derivatives of the French Revolution oppose (individualism, collectivism, Lenin and Wilson all alike).
And isn't it ironic that an anti-collectivist like Rand has received such a cult-following, almost like a sect?
Maybe that's not so surprising after all.
It should say above:
After WWII there have only been internationalists left on both the left and the right.
Be careful CS,
that's two more winkies and even two nudges added to your total!
And yes, I couldn't agree with you more:
"..So being in favour of free markets and individual property rights does not tell us anything about where people stand in the more decisive left-right scale: the cultural one.."
Indeed. That's why I came up with some extra "dimensions" in a coordinate system. It's all a matter of descripition, with the essential background knowledge that modern history is tainted by leftist (broad sense) infighting between so-called "opponents", who in reality were sometimes rivals but also allies, the "Hegelian" point of synthesis being radicalism.
That's the dimension I forgot to mention: Radicalism vs. eh.. Moderateness (balance).
There are debates in which the left-right "opposition" is obviously reduced to economic matters. It is instructive to see who's eager to forget the other (cultural) dimensions and who isn't. Furthermore, when leftists are talking about economics, it often appears to me that they're actually motivated by moral indignation, not backed by any knowledge or a basic understanding of economics (of course the Austrian school is basic, see Hazlitt's famous work).
In other discussions it appears that the left-right dimension is applied in the broad sense, and it is often not too difficult to discern who is talking about culture, about statehood, about economics or the whole lot together.
Basically what leftists have done is framing the discussion within an alleged "economical" framework, based upon philosophies that were explicitly devised to suck economic science out and replace it with a Hegelian debate on the course of economic history. Enter the invention of the myth of Manchester (Engels), enter the progressive mindset about the inevitable course of history, enter the radical assault on traditional society and enter "statolatry", i.e. the artificial State as surrogate God. Your mentioning Wilson is very appropriate in this context. Of course a lot more could be said about him, most notably his politicized Christianity, reflecting the heydays of the Progressive movement and something called the "Social Gospel" movement in the US.
This was all old-school Progressivism, mixed with "undogmatic Christianity", combined with radical thoughts (and practices) on the grand collectivity of the Modern State. Today, when some in the counterjihad "movement" (I still regard it more of a network really) ponder upon the feasibility of a 'new' kind of "basic", "cultural" or otherwise secularized Christianity as some sort of inherited Western "identity", I sometimes wish those people knew a bit more about the history of political religions. Undogmatic Christianity sounds oh so nice to many people, but it has been tried before, with either little or sometimes disastrous consequences, especially when wedded to State power.
Thnx for your lucid comments, CS. And don't let those winkies haunt you :)
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
Sag,
Basically what leftists have done is framing the discussion within an alleged "economical" framework...
Leftists haven't done anything, and couldn't have, to change the debate in this way. It's all due to one thing: How America won the two world wars. America is the leftist empire. Together with France it has always been one farthest left side among the Western nations; with cultural radicalism, social experimenting, etc.
To win an argument so devastatingly you need to defeat your opponent with tanks and guns. France was never able to do that. America was however. In WWI all the old monarchies were defeated, effectively completely. In WWII, and its ensuing America-led cultural revolution, also everything that was left of European nationalism, conservatism, pride and identity was sucked away too.
The only thing left now in the West is leftism, in some different flavours. The American variant now appears as right-wing, in a world in which all real right-wing has been efficiently wiped out. For the new generations America is the most right-wing thing they can even imagine. For anyone with a historical perspective it's clear that America is not only one of the two most leftist countries in the history of the West, but the very reason we are struck with leftism all across our civilization. No political cause ever had such a mighty warrior fighting for it.
I got your point CS, yet..
"..Leftists haven't done anything, and couldn't have.."
Oh but they have, and to great and devastating effect. But perhaps I haven't been clear enough. My specific comment was about the history of economic thought and concerns the 19th century. The phrase "myth of Manchester" undoubtedly rings some bells, doesn't it? I made this comment with a close eye on Hayek's "Capitalism and the Historians" and Schumpeter's "History of economic analysis". It is true that the Austrian school of economics offers a broader view on society associated with free markets, but I fear I've been somewhat of a reductionist, for the sake of clarity.
Your comments were about another period, 20th cent, and about something else, i.e. the moribund cultural leftism of our time.
Sag.
Sag,
OK sure, Thomas Hodgskin invented modern socialism in 1825, which framed the discussion within an economical framework. And his ideas were a direct consequence of the theories of Classic Economics.
But it was not until the America-led cultural revolution, that was pushed upon Europe after WWII, that every other issue than economy had been virtually eradicated from public debate. The hegemony of the Franco-American consensus about leftist positions on every cultural issue was firmly established and total (leaving only some minor symbolic issues of little significance).
Surely the French Revolution, and the framing of issues in economical terms in the 19th century, were build-ups to this. But it was the American victory in WWII that was the decisive change, and firmly established the West as the Leftist Civilization.
Issues are not resolved with conversation, but with tanks and bombers. America emerged as the dominating military power and decided how it should be. They still have 75,000 troops in Germany. There's a reason for that.
"In the same way collectivism and individualism are rivaling variations of French Revolution ideas. They have everything in common except for the final touch of symbolism. Both live in the mindset where the society is only the state and its atoms (the individuals). Every single layer in between has been eradicated: church community, village community, regional self-government, even the family. These were all part of the old traditional society, the one that all derivatives of the French Revolution oppose (individualism, collectivism, Lenin and Wilson all alike)."
Don't forget homosexual "marriage" which will abolish motherhood and fatherhood, husband and wife because those terms carry an authority that privileges heterosexual couple's.
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