Thank You, Rousseau and Marx

My problem with Leftist thought in general, and these two thinkers in particular, is their propensity to make statements that cannot be falsified, and that even though they begin with vaporous assertion they build on these shifting foundations entire ideological paradigms.

For instance, look at Marx's opening to The Communist Manifesto:

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master [3] and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

Do you see what he is doing? He makes a descriptive statement, that there are indeed distinctive stations in most societies, and then inserts an interpretive statement as a modifier: all distinctions are one of class, of oppressor and oppressed, master and slave.

And the paradigm builds. In addition to the language of oppression, Marx now brings in the use of the words "fight" and "revolution". And notice how he perverts the word "fight" into meaning open engagement and hidden struggle, implying that cleansing violence and shameful impotence are both types of fighting. So now we have "class", "oppression", "fight", and "revolution". If you accept social distinction, you must accept this paradigm. The reader, without being aware, has just been duped into joining Marx in a flight from falsification.

The same thing happens with Rousseau's 'Noble Savage', where he posits that the individual is essentially good but corrupted by society. Therefore, society becomes either a hindrance to the grace of mankind, or a vehicle to let out the savage's nobility, instead of what it really is: a tool to restrain the evil of man's nature and an evolutionary strategy to maximize gene-propagation. The very reality of the world, with societies everywhere and solitary man nowhere to be found, makes Rousseau's statement laughably sentimental, yet time after time it is used as a philosophical spring board for all types of anarchist and tyrannical ideologies.

And thus we have the foundation of all Leftist mumbo-jumbo, the flights from falsification we see in the solutions and strategies put forth by the Left. Welfare, because if we can just support him, man will make the right decision. Aid to Africa, because if we just give enough money, their nobility will shine through. Apology and Good Thoughts in foreign policy will make them love us, because underneath that gruff exterior lies a latte-sipping sophisticate just waiting to be given a Gap Card. Western culture is bad because it is self-evidently corruptive of the divine nature of man, and all Eastern cultures are good because they are authentic expressions of the noble savage.

And so, I am convinced we are going to have to go back and disprove the unprovable if we are to make any strides in the current war for Western Civilization. We must be consistent with our evidence that yes, there is indeed a difference between cultures, but this difference is one of value, not one of oppression. That yes, society can be corruptive, but only insofar that it encourages the evil nature of man while retarding his desire to do good. Man, like the beast, responds to incentive structures, and perhaps his greatest single attribute is his desire to live well according to his own lights, but within a system of cooperation and society where he feels he belongs. We need to show them that a kid from Iowa does not grow up to be a terrorist only because of the culture that surrounds him, and a Palestinian kid blows himself up for the same reason.

We need to show the Leftists that there are such things as values, that they do relate to a thing called reality, and if we do not pay attention, we will be mugged by it.