After I did yesterday’s post about the Israeli media’s attack on Yoni Netanyahu, I kept thinking about the Leftist assaults on iconic American figures. The approaches that most immediately spring to mind are the almost obsessives reports about Washington’s and Jefferson’s role as slave holders. There are a lot of superficially obvious reasons for these challenges to these men’s previously exalted status — and, indeed, there are even some very good reason for filling in the blanks that previously surrounded the almost saint-like reports of their lives.
Most obviously, a legitimate history of anyone’s life can’t shy away from the warts that may characterize them. It’s true that Washington and Jefferson had slaves. Both were anguished by their slave-owning status, but selfishly could not bring themselves to abandon the comforts of their own existence, even though they were aware that they were hypocritically abandoning their much vaunted principles. (To do him justice, Washington did eventually free his slaves, but he did so only in his will, so he was not personally affected by that act.) So, certainly, an honest history brings out these facts.
These same facts are also exciting, in that they make for an interesting story. They’re the man bites dog versions of biography. Let’s face it: Parson Weems’ little Washington, holding a hatchet, and refusing to tell a lie is old hat; it’s boring by now. How much more exciting to learn that Washington had a volcanic temper, whined a lot and had slaves. And isn’t it thrilling that Jefferson not only had slaves, but slept with the women among them?
The problem, as I see it, is the tendency on the Left, not to report these stories in order to flesh out and humanize historic figures, but to elevate these same less than savory facts to centrality. Amongst school children, Jefferson isn’t the man who authored immortal words about the human condition; he’s a sleazy slaveholder. And with that angle of attack, it’s perfectly easy to discount his intellectual genius.
The other problem, it seems to me, is that the attack on individuals is a way of emphasizing the State over the individual. America was always so proud of the individuality that characterized her citizens: certain men (and, albeit more rarely, women) stepped forward and changed history through the force of their personalities and the strength of their beliefs. This kind of rugged individualism, however, is antithetical to a mind set that believes the State provides all benefits, both for the mind and the body. To allow for the possibility that each individual might provide such benefits, that these people might be a vehicle for change or strength, is a State-ist’s nightmare. And the best way to defeat the rich power of the individual is to make sure that our children know that individual actors are all irreparably flawed.
Anyhoo . . . these are just ruminations. I have a project to get out today, and just wanted to pound this out before I headed off. I’d like your comments, especially because I suspect there are cavernous holes in my analysis.
Filed under: Bits and Pieces |
Bookworm Room (ARCHIVES) 
I think it’s simpler than that. You don’t see revisionist accounts of Lenin’s life, or Mao’s, or Che Guevara’s. Only American (and sometimes British) icons get the “deconstruction” treatment. It’s not so much an attack on the idea of Great Men as simply an attack on visible symbols of America. The Modern Left just plain detests America, and so America’s founders are prime targets.
Weak and unstable systems like totalitarian tyrannies, socialist democracies, communist dictatorships, and various other warts on the face of human beauty and progress, inherently must restrict people’s access of and beliefs in different values and philosophies. They do this through simple corruption and destruction. It is easier to destroy than to create after all, and these weak institutions are quite capable of destroying (even if they couldn’t maintain jack in real life).
Possibly the only thing lacking in your analysis, Book, is a look into why states repress challengers to their rule. We all know they do it, but the why of the matter is a philosophical question that probes a little bit deeper.
My answer to the why is of course that they are weak. Weak people, let alone institutions full of weak people, cover up their weaknesses through various methods such as denial, projection, bullying, violence, and killing. Lying is only the least destructive out of the destructive grab bag of self-destruction.
We know this with the Islamic Jihad, because they oppress their women and Iran has tried to ban Barbie Dolls. It seems the great and terrifying Islamic Revolution of Iran is afraid of a piece of small plastic. How manly of them. How strong. So very strong… or maybe not.
The path of individual liberty for women and men is a clear challenge to the position of our enemies, the servants of entropy. For they cannot enslave humanity to their master’s whims without stripping an individual of his strengths, of his will, of his mind and spirit.
Two SS podcasts ago, Dr Sanity was talking about this I believe. How… oh wait, I think I misremembered. Hold on while I check EternityRoad’s site.
Politics and the definition of political systems are moral-ethical pursuits. As such, they must be premised upon some set of postulates about right, wrong, and State power. Thus, every specific political system is an ideon dependent upon the soundness of its moral and ethical axioms.
There are a number of political ideons “in play” at this time, but the one that concerns us today is that of the United States of America. What are the “strut” ideas that undergird this unique, and uniquely successful, political system?
1. Rights to one’s life, liberty, and property;
2. Government subservient to the people, rather than superior to them;
3. Law as superior to the whims of rulers;
4. Equality of all persons before the law;
5. Secular, uniform, and impartial justice.
And beneath those?
1. The Lockean concept of individual rights that descend from God through Nature, rather than as grants from an unassailable temporal power;
2. The Christian ethos of personal responsibility, general benevolence, and self-restraint;
3. The rightness of defiance and resistance to arbitrary claims of authority.
***
Only about 10% of the colonial population supported the American Revolution actively, but that tenth was on fire with the ideas enumerated above. After the war, it managed to ignite a similar passion for them in the more passive majority, sufficient to win general assent to the Constitution based upon them
Just a note, but after the war all the Crown loyalists were exiled and kicked out of the country. Easy to have unity then, since only the victors remained, everyone else became the losers and packed their bags. American needs a similar purge right now…
“You know, when I was a young man, hypocrisy was deemed the worst of vices,” Finkle-McGraw said. “It was all because of moral relativism. You see, in that sort of climate, you are not allowed to criticise others — after all, if there is no absolute right and wrong, then what grounds is there for criticism?…
“Now, this led to a good deal of general frustration, for people are naturally censorious and love nothing better than to criticise others’ shortcomings. And so it was that they seized on hypocrisy and elevated it from a ubiquitous peccadillo into the monarch of all the vices. For, you see, if there is no right and wrong, you can find grounds to criticise another person by contrasting what he has espoused with what he has actually done. In this case, you are not making any judgment whatsoever as to the correctness of his views or the morality of his behaviour — you are merely pointing out that he has said one thing and done another. Virtually all the political discourse in the days of my youth was devoted to the ferreting out of hypocrisy.
“You wouldn’t believe the things they said about the original Victorians. Calling someone a Victorian in those days was almost like calling them a fascist or a Nazi….
“Because they were hypocrites… the Victorians were despised in the late Twentieth Century. Many of the persons who held such opinions were, of course, guilty of the most nefarious conduct themselves, and yet saw no paradox in holding such views because they were not hypocrites themselves — they took no moral stances and lived by none.”
“So they were morally superior to the Victorians — ” Major Napier said, still a bit snowed under.
“– even though — in fact, because — they had no morals at all.”
“We take a somewhat different view of hypocrisy,” Finkle-McGraw continued. “In the late Twentieth Century Weltanschaaung, a hypocrite was someone who espoused high moral views as part of a planned campaign of deception — he never held these beliefs sincerely and routinely violated them in privacy. Of course. most hypocrites are not like that. Most of the time it’s a spirit-is willing, flesh-is-weak sort of thing.”
“That we occasionally violate our own moral code,” Major Napier said, working it through, “does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code.”
“Of course not,” Finkle-McGraw said. “It’s perfectly obvious, really. No one ever said it was easy to hew to a strict code of conduct. Really, the difficulties involved — the missteps we make along the way — are what make it interesting. The internal, and eternal, struggle between our base impulses and the rigorous demands of our own moral system is quintessentially human. It is how we conduct ourselves in that struggle that determines how we may in time be judged by a higher power.”
I think these attacks fit the Leftist trope that we are all the same (ergo, there are no “great men”), although as the first comment on your post pointed out, the trope is typically applied only to British and American figures.
Remember the flap over whether Thomas Jefferson fathered any children by Sally Hemings a few years ago? That was a briefly fashionable idea that was soon discredited by reputable historians and scientists, but their debunking didn’t get nearly the attention that the original story had.
[…] Civilization’s Fall and Rise Filed under: Arguments, Culture, Politics, Humanity — ymarsakar @ 12:23 pm [Comment written to Bookworm at Bookworm’s Room] […]
Read that over again. The Eternal struggle… between our base impulses…. and the demands of duty and morality. Quintessentially human, and quintessentially an attempt at human progress, through resisting evil, entropy, and the cycle of self-destruction. The Left won’t allow you to resist evil. If they have to serve evil and cannot resist its lures, then you have to be with them… you cannot leave the fold of the Left freely, as they will put inquisitors on your trail. Book and Neo should know that by now, if nobody else.
The struggle for human progress…. is not something the Left ever believed in, you see. Does Al Gore believe in protecting the environment? You see, it isn’t about any “struggle” or “flaw”. What we see as flaws in the Left’s machinations and corrupt policies (EU, UN, Domestic related or not) are not flaws to the Left, but items of praise and signs of progress at getting to perfection. Entropy is a force. That’s important because human beings can go either way. The Democrats had better people before the 21st century. Well, except for the Democrat guys in the South that lynched blacks. Except the white plantation owners that were Democrats and sought to disenfranchise blacks before the Civil War. And except those Democrat politicians who sought to disenfranchise blacks via intimidation and poll laws, using the KKK, after the Civil War because they feared blacks voting Republican. And… well I could go on, but the point is that so long as people resist evil, evil can be held in check. But when you give in to evil, then turning back becomes much harder. The Left, as we know, has more or less taken over the Democrat party starting before WWII even, at the onset of the Russian Revolution and Socialism even in the 19th century. One of the best progressives was Teddy Roosevelt… a Republican, and hated by his fellow Republicans for that matter. You see, the geography changed. The South used to be Democrat, and the North (New York) Republican. In fact, one of the Republican governors was Teddy’s enemy, for he held a huge slice of political power via his corrupt hold on New York’s harbor. Memory might be a bit sketchy on this.
From all this, I draw a simple conclusion that goes back to what Book said. Only individuals may resist evil, never groups of individuals. Why? Because each person must make the choice, the choice of what he will do, who he will harm, who he will protect, kill, and die for. If the group makes such a decision… it is never unanimous, and if it is unanimous… evil takes its hold and begins the corruption, spinning it faster and faster as time progresses. True strength only lies in the individual, and the true strength of a nation is based upon the strength of the individuals in that nation. The Heroic Epic of Thermopylae, the United States Marine Corps, and De Oppressor Liber motto of the United States Special Forces are all examples of individual heroism, power, wisdom, and strength in the infinite fight against evil and its tools of destruction.
Everyone hears the Left talk about that they have the best of intentions. Well guess what, a nuclear ballistic missile also has the best of intentions in accomplishing the goal it exists for. But that doesn’t mean the nuke isn’t still a weapon of destruction, people. Don’t be fooled by people’s claims, for their actions will dictate in the end which path they truly follow. Light or Dark, Good or Evil. Order or Chaos.
That’s it for me. If you wish to read the links that I quoted from, go here and scroll down to the end.
http://www.specialforces.com/store/customer/special_category.php?sp_category=363
Take a look at the picture. Take a good and long look. For this is only one of the many symbols of what a truly great civilization means.
People like Gridlock (small g greg) believe that you had nothing to be worried about, that you could let everything hang out, be free even. Freedom from the consequences is not the same as freedom to choose.
The Left in their anti-religious persecution, believed that by killing God, they could kill good and evil, and never have to be judged or feel “terrible” for smoking crack and swinging.
Well Guess what. You cannot kill entropy. But it can kill you. They thought they were free from the effects of decay and their own decisions… they thought that they could be young forever. They do not even approach the level of Power and Strength necessary to be worthy of such gifts.
The fact that the United States military fights and dies for such a motto… says much about the position of a civilization. And the unwillingness of the Left to die or kill for anything, is also telling, of a different symptom.
Which has more personal power in the individuals that compromise their group? The United States Special Forces? Or the Kos Kidz, MoveOn, NanFran, and their Leftist allies? It all comes down to strength in the end. Which is more powerful. Who can resist evil longer. Who can fight evil harder. Who can understand more, who can defend against more, and who can endure more.
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2007/04/war_for_profit.html#more
I recommend reading Grim Beorn’s post (he calls himself the Old Guard Southern Democrat, and he still thinks of himself as a Democrat), has he tells you why war for profit is a good thing for the world, if done by America.