Progressivism in Three Easy Steps: Seduction, Hypnosis, Regression

Now, we all know -- half of us anyway -- that of all the forms of maya, the beauty of woman is supreme. My son is what, 19 months old now? And yet, I’ve already drilled this important life lesson into him. “What is nice from afar may be far from nice,” and all that.

But just to show that biology isn’t destiny, there is a different half of the population -- comprised of both male and female -- who know that, of all the forms of intellectual illusion, the beauty of liberalism is supreme. These two forms of maya are not unrelated; you might say that heathens have two mamamayas.

Being that I was once a liberal, I am now fully aware of just how seductive their ideas are. It is a commonplace to point out that liberalism is felt and not thought, but it’s worse than that. Liberalism seduces the mind by appealing to weakness and to a desire to regress, while conservatism imposes itself on the mind with ineluctable truths. Liberals very much resent this imposition, as it feels “aggressive” to them. On the other side, conservatives resent the seductiveness of liberalism, as they know it is manipulative.

Now this principle of seduction is something that Genesis, in its uncreated wisdom, has been trying to warn us about through 3000 years of beautiful tradition, from Moses to Sandy Koufax. It’s the first thing that really “happens” to man, and coincides with his awakening to self-consciousness. Let’s call them “Wanda” and “Duane” to protect the innocent. The snake -- the perfect symbol of an earthbound horizontality -- seduces Wanda, Wanda seduces Duane, and gravity takes care of the rest, down through the ages.

So a troublesome principle of seduction seems to be woven into the fabric of our existence and is deeply implicated in our primordial calamity.

It is a banality to point out that satan -- or whoever this rascal is -- never “forces the issue.” He never relies upon the principle of conquest. Rather, he is a seducer. A tempter. A flatterer. A genial chap. Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste... my name is Kofi Annan. He actually has two powers, the seducing principle and a hypnotizing principle. Thanks to the latter, you “won’t feel a thing,” so to speak, as he lays your soul to waste. For one thing, you’ll do it to yourself, because his only power over you is your own temptation externalized.

The fall into error begins with seduction and hypnosis, but ends in a forfeiture of freedom that has the appearance of adolescent, pseudo-manly “rebellion” as a consolation. This rebellion is associated with intoxication, which is why you see the same pattern over and over with regard to the left: hypnotized hordes intoxicated by the spirit of rebellion.

You may remember that last week I stumbled upon the Mother of all Moonbat Psychobloggers. Well, this week I may have chanced upon the Father of all Anti-Idiotarian Psychiatrists, Dr. Lyle Rossiter, who has written a book entitled The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness. From some of the excerpts posted on his website, it looks quite promising, a bit like Dr. Sanity after a night of shoooting limoncellos with George Clooney, when she'll say anything.

In a recent editorial, Dr. Rossiter describes the unhappy psychological world of the liberal, which is

“filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation and injustice. Those who occupy this world are.... poor, weak, sick, wronged, cheated, oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited and victimized."

But here we see the principle of seduction in all its naked glory. For as Dr. Rossiter writes, these victims are sympathetically assured by Wanda and the snake that they "bear no responsibility for their problems. None of their agonies are attributable to faults or failings of their own: not to poor choices, bad habits, faulty judgment, wishful thinking, lack of ambition, low frustration tolerance, mental illness or defects in character. None of the victims’ plight is caused by failure to plan for the future or learn from experience. Instead, the ‘root causes’ of all this pain lie in faulty social conditions: poverty, disease, war, ignorance, unemployment, racial prejudice, ethnic and gender discrimination, modern technology, capitalism, globalization and imperialism. In the radical liberal mind, this suffering is inflicted on the innocent by various predators and persecutors...”

Furthermore, once seduced and under the hypnotic spell of regressive progressivism, Duane is freed from the need to achieve emotional maturity, and “is instead invited to begin a second childhood.  Like the child at play, he is given, or at least promised, ultimate economic, social and political security without having to assume responsibility for himself.  The liberal agenda requires him to remain in an artificial environment -- the daycare program of the grandiose state -- where he need not become an adult, take responsibility for his own welfare, nor cooperate with others to achieve what the state will give him for nothing.”
   
Like me, Dr. Rossiter traces these regressive liberal impulses to their origins in infancy: “These longings to be taken care of, to be relieved of the responsibilities of adult life.... are properly satisfied in the dependent attachments of children to their parents.  They are not properly satisfied in the dependent attachment of adults to the state.  Instead, the gradual replacement of the dependency longings of the child with mature capacities for competent self-reliance and cooperation with others, as opposed to parasitism on the state, is a critical developmental goal.  Whether or not that goal is achieved has profound implications for the nature and extent of government in a given society.”

Once again we see the deep irony in naming their movement “progressive,” because this is an agenda that specifically prevents it. Rather, it facilitates “denial of personal responsibility, encourages self-pity... fosters government dependency, promotes sexual indulgence, rationalizes violence, excuses financial obligation, justifies theft, ignores rudeness, prescribes complaining and blaming, denigrates marriage and the family,” and so much more.

Hmm, we’ve probably exceeded the fair use limit in quoting Dr. Rossiter. Perhaps we can make it up to him by purchasing his book. I know I will.

Humanism is the reign of horizontality, either naïve or perfidious; and since it is also – and by that very fact – the negation of the Absolute, it is a door open to a multitude of sham absolutes, which in addition are often negative, subversive, and destructive....

In a word, there is nothing more inhuman than humanism, by the fact that it, so to speak, decapitates man: wishing to make of him an animal which is perfect, it succeeds in turning him into a perfect animal... --F. Schuon