Leftist denial.
Lawrence Auster puts his finger on what makes it impossible for realists (i.e., conservatives, traditionalists, reactionaries) to find common ground with leftists:
The essence of the left is to block out vast sectors of reality (e.g., the existence of evil and enemies; the existence of cultural differences, race differences, sex differences, ability differences; the realities power, etc.) and pretend that they don’t exist.
Leftists are often highly intelligent people but that intelligence operates only in limited areas. The remaining areas are ones in which fascination with or fixation on the ideal predominate.
Why that is so is beyond my analytical competence. It seems as though idealists think that world peace and crime-free societies are attainable now because they have discovered novel theories of social and political control (e.g., public ownership of the means of production) in much the same way that scientific discoveries created vast new human opportunities. Once scientists reduced observations of the natural world to workable theories huge changes were possible.
So with social and political problems. New theories in these areas have similar potential to effect tremendous beneficial change and any who fail to sign on in the service of these theories are guilty of simple intellectual failure or willful obtuseness bordering on depravity. If tremendous social amelioration is possible through revolutionary thinking, opposition to revolution must be evil.
Corruption and misery do not come about because of evil, cultural differences, etc. but because non-leftists are the ones with the will to dominance, acquisitiveness, and indifference to environmental degradation. Evil after a fashion but, more properly, capitalist, nationalists, patriarchal, or Christian evil.
To leftists, misery is never the result of evil but is the result of opposition to the ideal. The conservative argues that misery is the result of denial of reality.
This still doesn’t explain why leftists are so impervious to the concrete facts of existence. The attraction of the ideal is understandable but not the ability to block out facts that land on your doorstep like Monty Python’s familiar “16 tons.”
The entire 20th century was a time in which the horrendous consequence of governmental power were meticulously documented, yet leftists in the 21st century rush to hand ever more power to governments as though governments can always and forever be trusted never to abuse power. The same denial is evident throughout the West in the face of the clear failure of the welfare state.
Only Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “pitiless crowbar of events” will be sufficient to break through the shell of this kind of denial.
“Jews’ idiotic (and wicked) anti-nationalism.” By Lawrence Auster, View from the Right, 4/7/06.
What really makes it impossible “to find common ground with leftists” is that they are winning. 50 plus years ago the leftists decided they would take it all and they would use a divide and conquer methodology by using race, sexuality, gender, religion and wealth to accomplish this. They have been and are being successful. Why would they want to find common ground?
Here is how we (the right) always fall into the trap: Someone like Santorum states something he believes, be it a religious or social issue and the left through their media minons attacks him. Santorum has to publicly either back down or double down and if he does choose to stand up then the minions double down and attack until the entire issue has been so distorted and perverted that now the target group (women, blacks, hispanics, moderates) have lost sight of what was said but only remember the attacks. Result Santorum loses and liberalism/socialism wins.
Another way the right loses this arguement is the way Romney or McCain chooses to “fight” and that is they never say anything controversial, never hold a belief, never speak truth, and if they inadvertently do say something provocative they immediately appologize and concede.
The correct approach would be along the lines of what Rush does. He has made a big deal about Fluke’s testimony. The left wing media jumped into this tarball with both feet thinking they finally had Limbaugh. And Limbaugh upped the anti. He began repeating things like Bill Maher calling Sarah Palin a cunt and the many other left wing comments about Bush. Just look at what the left wing has said about breitbart after his death. Attack, never back down. People want a strong leader.
Your first point describes the hard core types who know full well what they are doing and aren’t interested in common ground, as you point out. The type I had in mind is the person whose consciousness is artificially circumscribed. Why is it that important areas of experience are invisible to him?
I might wish that government could be the instrument of a fantastic society but however much I might wish for that it would simply be impossible for me to ignore all the evidence that shows it is dangerous to expect this from government. I am amazed at that ability to ignore obvious contrary evidence.
You’re completely correct about the spinelessness of “our” guys. Not a one will speak the truth about immigration as a threat to America, about the purtrid nature of plain-vanilla Islam, about the ghastly culture of the black underclass, or about the insidious nature of affirmative, legal anti-white discrimination. That they will no man up on the issue of Mr. Obama’s not being a natural born citizen goes without saying.
I saw it first with the nomination of Bush ’41. He was a man of no particular passion or vision but the Republican electorate clustered about him from the git, just as it’s doing with Romney, another wooden man with no center and with no understanding of conservatism whatsoever.
I conclude from this that Republican voters WILL NOT support anyone with any fire in their belly, though I do grant that there was a moment when they went for Newt precisely because he did show some ire and fire.
I booted Larry “call me Lawrence” off my Google Reader a few months back. Reading this caused me to put him back. I missed him. Sure, he sometimes gets obsessed with certain, shall we say, tangential issues instead of the big ones, but at least he is remarkably consistent in his views, and he is relatively terse.
That’s what really gives me a pain in the ass … guys who go on and on to make a point that could be made in two sentences. They just like to hear themselves talk, they are not really making an argument. Moldbug, I am thinking of you, among others. Mr. Mason, my 9th grade English teacher, back when there were actually schools, taught me how to frame an argument in a standard three paragraph essay. It’s perfect for blogs. If you can’t get it said in three, write a book.
I can’t wait to see my Google history file when I get to Room 101. It’s going to be full of starred items from Larry, freefor blogs, race realists (OneStdv, SBPDL), curmudgeons, and hot chicks with guns (Tam, Brigid). “I see here where you starred this item depicting our glorious leader as a common thug.” Well, who wouldn’t? Yeowwww!