Following on from my earlier post; I'd like to add a comment on the absurdity of that oft-repeated claim or insinuation that the (undoubted) triumph of the New Left in the West; was planned and driven by some kind of blueprint for a "long march through the institutions" - a scheme devised by intellectual theoreticians such as Gramsci, Marcuse and their disciples.
This is nonsense of a kind that this only possible to those with an inverted understanding of the world.
I mean the kind of people who believe that "the history of ideas" is something caused by top-down influences from the words of philosophers - for instance that the subjective-objective split in modern minds derives from the publications of Descartes; or that the pronouncements of Professor Kant in Konigsberg led to the common belief that reality cannot be known directly and therefore "everything is relative/ a-matter-of-opinion".
The kind of people who see the Left as a Christian heresy, as caused-by Christianity! Rather than the truth that the rise of Leftism reciprocally mirrored the decline in Christian faith; and that the triumph of Leftism was completed only after Western apostasy from Christianity, and the establishment of fully secular social institutions and discourses.
The non-religious opponents of mainstream New Leftism, or the Secular Right, are very keen on attributing the triumph of the Left to theories and plans; because radical Right theorists intend, or at least hope, to use the same kind of strategy to impose their own ideas.
That is, the Secular Right believe that if only they could come-up with the correct theoretical strategy, disseminate it sufficiently widely, and then get it implemented - they will be able to influence the West in the direction that they desire.
In other words - and this is often stated explicitly - the intent among at least the more radical members of the Secualr Right is to to use what they suppose to be the methods of the Left, but to redirect them to supposedly "Right Wings" objectives: Leftist means to Rightist ends.
Aside from the fact that this is an instance of the Boromir Strategy - or Hey lads, let's use the One Ring to fight Sauron! - and therefore will inevitably have the actual effect of promoting the Left; this theoretical, top-down, Rightism is based on false understandings of the reasons for the triumph of the Left.
This false understanding of the Left derives, ultimately, from the fact that the Secular Right actually is itself of-the-Left in that it is based in materialist non-religious assumptions, and rooted in values that are psychological - in some version of a utilitarian and hedonic calculus of gratification and suffering.
The only true opposition to the Left is religion; and the only true religion of salvation is by following Jesus Christ.
But this is a religion "not of this world" in its essence...
Therefore; socio-political theories rooted in denial of a personal creator God, materialism, and exclusion of the spiritual from life, can only do net-harm.
2 comments:
A big part of the success of the leftist capture of institutions is the increasing power of institutions in ordinary life. Before the mid-20th century, when so much was done on a personal rather than institutional basis, a capture of institutions could not have been so powerful.
One thing that is going on is that while the secular right reject some of the narratives about how the changes in the modern era (from the early to mid 1700's or so) represent inevitable progress and betterment, they accept others.
There's the idea that first we had small tribes, then small kingdoms, then nation states, and so the natural progression is to have bodies overseeing multiple nations, such as the EU and then finally a world government.
Then there is the narrative that first things were done informally in hunter gather times, then we have some institutions in the agrarian era, then more institutions in the early modern era, and so the natural progression must be to finally put everything on an institutional basis, which can only lead to the betterment of mankind.
The secular right correctly reject the first of these narratives, seeing that the nation state is a natural grouping of humans while multi-national bureaucracies are artificially imposed. But they accept too much of the second. The mid to late 20th century institutions were successful *in spite of* their increasing bureaucratization, not because of it.
There's a narrative about finance, that we have progressed to increasingly abstract and technically sophisticated forms of currency: beginning with bartering, coins made of precious metals emerged, then paper money backed by precious metals, then fiat currency, then electronic fiat currency, and now money entirely in digital form such as cryptocurrency.
Actually, each increasing level of abstraction is a disadvantage, which only works because of concrete things already in place. The secular right correctly reject this narrative as well as associated developments such as the financialization of the economy.
And yet, too many of them accept the narrative that so-called AI is the latest development in a progression of technical advancement that can only be good or at least neutral.
In general, the right suffers from residual unresolved inevitabilism. That's not a great term, but hopefully it expresses the the idea that they give too much credence to these highly influential, but tendentious narratives that give a mistaken picture of the changes over the last 250 to 300 years.
@NLR - " the increasing power of institutions"
Yes indeed. Specifically institutional *bureaucracy* - which is intrinsically leftist, and evil (because non-responsible and totalitarian) - and destructive and expansionist.
The nation state was always a very unsatisfactory entity, and was only thus conceptualized after religion had ceased to be primary. It is better than globalism; but that does not mean it is a possible basis for strategy now and from-here. Its current apparent (theoretical) popularity is only due to opposition to globalism.
The problem is that the nation state is not motivating any more and only was for a relatively brief and transitional period of history - it depends on a consciousness that genuinely puts the interests of the national group above individual self-interest - and is prepared to strive and make sacrifices on that basis.
The deep problem of the secular right is that it is incoherent, because ultimately oppositional - so it is incapable even of wanting to fix its own problems.
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