Amazon Has A Good Buy On The Paperback Version Titled...

[jackflash]

..."The Closing Of The Liberal Mind", by Kim R. Holmes. The used editions are definitely priced to sell!

Amazon product

Excerpt below.

How the Left Became So Intolerant

When most people think of intolerance, they imagine a racist taunting a black person. Or they think of the white supremacist who killed a demonstrator in Charlottesville, Virginia. It seldom occurs to them that intolerance comes in all political shapes and sizes.

www.heritage.org

 

[Mac1958]

Yes, and now the two ends of the spectrum are both intolerant, narcissistic and closed-minded.

Hence our deepening divisions. What a shock.

 

[frigidweirdo]

..."The Closing Of The Liberal Mind", by Kim R. Holmes. The used editions are definitely priced to sell!

Amazon product

Excerpt below.

How the Left Became So Intolerant

When most people think of intolerance, they imagine a racist taunting a black person. Or they think of the white supremacist who killed a demonstrator in Charlottesville, Virginia. It seldom occurs to them that intolerance comes in all political shapes and sizes.

www.heritage.org

The best way of making money, tell ignorant people that OTHERS are the ignorant ones.

It's called "massaging egos".

 

[Doug1943]

Thank you for this!

The reality of the Left's adoption of the worldview of fascism/communism is so horrible, that the fact that it's an interesting topic is overshadowed. But it is an interesting topic ... and one reason is that it runs counter to the general social evolution of humanity. Why has it occurred? Maybe this book will help supply an answer.

It's not an adequate -- or even partially correct -- answer to just say, "They're all commies". In actual fact, the beliefs of the mainstream modern Left have almost nothing to do with 'classical' communism, which, like fascism, was a reaction to a society in deep economic trouble. Modern American Leftist totalitarianism has arisen out of a society which is -- for its upper half, the ones who have adopted it -- a success.

It's a paradox: the people in America who have NOT benefitted from globalization have turned to the Right, but not -- yet -- to extreme authoritarianism. Our authoritarians are the well-off college-graduates with agreeable jobs. Yet another refutation of the simple-minded economic determinist theory of history.

We need more book recommendations like this.

 

[Doug1943]

Yes, and now the two ends of the spectrum are both intolerant, narcissistic and closed-minded.

Hence our deepening divisions. What a shock.

There are definitely authoritarian impulses on the Right. I follow a lot of rightwing forums and comment pages, including those of the militia movement, and it's not uncommon to see people posting things like "We need to hang all the traitors in Washington". It's just super-macho hot air from men whose daily lives probably make them feel inadeqauate, but it definitely runs against the idea of the Rule of Law which should be central to conservative thought.

And -- let's be frank -- I don't think Mr Trump's grasp of -- belief in -- this concept is very deep.

BUT ... at the moment, you will not find, on conservative college campuses (there are a few), students shouting down and attacking leftist speakers. You won't find conservative college presidents endorsing the murder of people they find offensive. [ Wayne State professor suspended for saying it's 'admirable to kill' right-wing speakers ]

As a micro-sample, on this forum, whenever I mention the behavior of leftist college students in attacking conservative speakers, the liberals and progressives here go silent. At best, you can prod one or two to reluctantly murmur that they're "against all violence", but this tepid generality is clearly just a CYA statement.

Liberals and progressives -- with a few honorable exceptions [ A Violent Attack on Free Speech at Middlebury ] simply do not believe in free speech any more.

It is the same with the concept of the Rule of Law. People who happily overlooked Hillary's emails and the Bidens' corruption, cheer at the idea that Trump will be prosecuted for a trivial act. No honest person can say that if a similar thing had been found for another previous President, that he would have been prosecuted for it. (But it must be said that the Republicans helped erode respect for the Rule of Law with the Clinton/Monica affair. Utter hypocrites.)

And it's not to be expected that the Right will continue to respect free speech and the Rule of Law, if the Left doesn't. It's too much like fighting by the rules when your opponent is ignoring them.

 

[Mac1958]

There are definitely authoritarian impulses on the Right. I follow a lot of rightwing forums and comment pages, including those of the militia movement, and it's not uncommon to see people posting things like "We need to hang all the traitors in Washington". It's just super-macho hot air from men whose daily lives probably make them feel inadeqauate, but it definitely runs against the idea of the Rule of Law which should be central to conservative thought.

And -- let's be frank -- I don't think Mr Trump's grasp of -- belief in -- this concept is very deep.

BUT ... at the moment, you will not find, on conservative college campuses (there are a few), students shouting down and attacking leftist speakers. You won't find conservative college presidents endorsing the murder of people they find offensive. [ Wayne State professor suspended for saying it's 'admirable to kill' right-wing speakers ]

As a micro-sample, on this forum, whenever I mention the behavior of leftist college students in attacking conservative speakers, the liberals and progressives here go silent. At best, you can prod one or two to reluctantly murmur that they're "against all violence", but this tepid generality is clearly just a CYA statement.

Liberals and progressives -- with a few honorable exceptions [ A Violent Attack on Free Speech at Middlebury ] simply do not believe in free speech any more.

It is the same with the concept of the Rule of Law. People who happily overlooked Hillary's emails and the Bidens' corruption, cheer at the idea that Trump will be prosecuted for a trivial act. No honest person can say that if a similar thing had been found for another previous President, that he would have been prosecuted for it. (But it must be said that the Republicans helped erode respect for the Rule of Law with the Clinton/Monica affair. Utter hypocrites.)

And it's not to be expected that the Right will continue to respect free speech and the Rule of Law, if the Left doesn't. It's too much like fighting by the rules when your opponent is ignoring them.

I agree fully that the Left abandoned its principles of tolerance when it embraced (and far worse, enforced) political correctness and Identity Politics. And the tactics they have used have contributed significantly to the mess we're in now.

I also know that the Right has been fully guilty of intolerance as well. And I truly don't care which side is "worse". When the shit is coming out of both ends like water through a fire hose, I'm not worried about deciding which side is "worse".

Until and unless both ends of this honestly look in the mirror and hold their own accountable, this continues, and so does the decay.

 

[Doug1943]

I agree fully that the Left abandoned its principles of tolerance when it embraced (and far worse, enforced) political correctness and Identity Politics. And the tactics they have used have contributed significantly to the mess we're in now.

I also know that the Right has been fully guilty of intolerance as well. And I truly don't care which side is "worse". When the shit is coming out of both ends like water through a fire hose, I'm not worried about deciding which side is "worse".

Until and unless both ends of this honestly look in the mirror and hold their own accountable, this continues, and so does the decay.

What we're witnessing -- not to be over-dramatic -- is the winding down of traditional Western civilization. It's not a plot by anyone. It's a profound, deep social change. There is a superficial view that all social change is progress, but that's a quasi-religious view, a secular version of the idea that there is a benevolent supernatural creature watching over us. (Given the terrible realities of human history, if we are the objects of the interference of a some supernatural creature, it must be a very cruel sadist.)

We still use the terms 'Left' and 'Right', but they're really outmoded. The Left used to mean, roughly, those who wanted to change government in order to favor the bottom half of society, whom they saw as unfairly disadantaged: old-age pensions, trade union recognition, votes for women, fair treatment for racial minorities. Conservatives tended to resist this, and finally accept the changes after a period of time.

Now, with respect to things like old-age pensions, the legitimacy of trade unions, votes for women, fair treatment for racial minorities -- conservatives have generally accepted the liberal reforms. A few conservative politicians try to nibble around the edges of these things, but no serious Republican politician proposes, for example, the repeal of Social Security. A fair number of conservatives, at least those who post online, pretend to be libertarians in their economics, but they're just seduced by the attractions of a simple ideology.

Now things have inverted, literally, not just in political stances. The top half of society are not only the wealthy, the property owners, the independent professionals, and those who aspired to these positions -- it includes them, but is now mainly made up of the college-educated. They're the employees and much of the market for the biggest modern hitech corporations.

All of these people benefit from globalization, and mass immigration. They can support defunding the police, because they don't live in neighborhoods where violent crime is common. Their soft, cocooned life means that they don't appreciate the hard realities of international relations, where 'blood and iron' really are the final arbiter, so the idea of Marine rifle companies accommodating nubile young women, homosexuals, and transgenders is fine with them: let social justice be done. (The fact that those Marine rifle companies will probably never have to be used in defense of the US, due to our amazingly favorable geography, but only in our wars of choice abroad, supports this indifference to military efficiency.)

Ideologically, what we're seeing is the ultimate expression of what made the West different from the rest of the world: individualism, individual rights. We're being hoist on our own petard.

It's UK-centered, but there is a good recent book on what's happening to us, well worth reading: Matthew Goodwin's Values, Voice and Virtue. He's a professor of politics at the University of Kent, and has studied the phenomenon of populism and its rise over the last couple of decades. He's on the Left side of politics, but has a deep appreciation for what is driving those on the bottom.
[https:// www.amazon.com/Values-Voice-Virtue-British-Politics/dp/0141999098/ ]

 

[jackflash]

Yes, and now the two ends of the spectrum are both intolerant, narcissistic and closed-minded.

Hence our deepening divisions. What a shock.

I call them what they actually are, the "RepubliCratic Duopoly Party"(RCDP). If Americans can ever get their act together they can unite behind original intent Constitutional values & fire those RNC/DNC narcissistic war mongering bass-turds. With the American constituency divided it's highly doubtful @ best that we'll ever see more Tom Jefferson/Ron Paul types in the U.S. Capital bldg. Looks like we got to ride America right into hell, all the while cursing ourselves for being so brain dead stupid. The human condition(human nature) is just so predictable!

 

[Doug1943]

I call them what they actually are, the "RepubliCratic Duopoly Party"(RCDP). If Americans can ever get their act together they can unite behind original intent Constitutional values & fire those RNC/DNC narcissistic war mongering bass-turds. With the American constituency divided it's highly doubtful @ best that we'll ever see more Tom Jefferson/Ron Paul types in the U.S. Capital bldg. Looks like we got to ride America right into hell, all the while cursing ourselves for being so brain dead stupid. The human condition(human nature) is just so predictable!

It's a mistake to see social reality as static ... the idea that, 'the way things are now, is the way they'll be forever'.

We're encouraged to do this, because our brains in their day-to-day working have evolved to apprehend time in fairly short chunks, because most cause-and-effect is that way. We also become aware of annual seasonal cycles. But to go beyond that is difficult. We have to make an effort to step back and view long time spans, like decades.

Today was like yesterday and tomorrow will probably be like today. So we project linearly into the future.

But, as Lenin is supposed to have said, there are decades when nothing happens, and then weeks when decades happen. People who were mainly concerned about their personal lives -- family, career, hobbies -- get shocked into becoming involved in politics, when politics-as-usual breaks down.

This will happen at some point on the future. If patriots are organized on the local level to be able to respond effectively to a big disruption on the normal order of things, we'll have a chance to reclaim the Republic. (And in the meantime, there are enough natural disasters to give us practice in doing this. And the visible involvement of an organized patriotic group in disaster relief is a way to win public support and get more people involved.)

It's no time to be passive!