The Logophobia of the Left

Not much time this morning. Let's see what we can cover before it's too soon. I have an early morning doctor's appointment, followed by my day gig.

Speaking of which, any other Coons out there have Reynaud's phenomenon? It's pretty common. It's where your peripheral vascular system goes haywire and makes your hands and feet cold all the time. In my case, I guess it's pretty mild. I looked it up on line, and they showed photos of some bad cases, in which the digits turn either white as a sheet or dark blue because of the lack of blood and oxygen. Mine's nothing like that. Ran it by my endo, but he's useless -- said words to the effect of, "well, it's not my fingers, so frankly I'm not that interested" -- so I thought I'd check with an actual vascular specialist, just to make sure there's nothing I can do about it. Usually it's idiopathic, meaning that the idiots don't know what causes it, although diabetics often have cold extremities. Generally it's just a nuisance, but it would be nice to be able to do something about it.

Anyway, neocoon James picked up on what we was puttin' down yesterday about language, and commented that

'The need to reduce everything to something measurable is fine as far as measurable things go, but what factsimians don't appreciate is that so much of the cosmos cannot be measured at all. I just wanted to point out that this idea applies to many areas considered non-spiritual. For example, how do you measure education, or pornography? I've met many people who consider themselves educated and intelligent. They have taken all the tests, and they have the skills that are measured, but frankly they are complete dinks. I work in higher education and the stereotypes are true. It seems that they have focused on skills that can be tested and measured and haven't really thought about the big picture....

"This trend to measure everything and if it can't be measured or defined precisely then it isn't important creates other problems in society besides the loss of all things spiritual.... What about the loss of human judgment? I think a lot of trouble with our legal system comes from people following the rules and ignoring good judgment or common sense. I'm not suggesting we ignore empirical evidence and return to the dark ages, but we have gone too far the other way. Perhaps the pendulum has reached the limit of its empirical swing, and now it's time to swing back towards human judgment. We need a healthy balance, or a recognition that trying to measure the unmeasurable is folly. The factsimian mindset threatens civilization the same way anti-rational Islamists threaten society. We see one clearly, because we have the lens of history. The other we see darkly because we are living it right now."

Much to ponder here, for James has brought awareness to the ultimate "wedge issue," that is, the wedge that modernity placed between language and essences, or between immanence and transcendence. You might say that modernity initially drove in the wedge, but that the postmodernists pounded it all the way in with the axe, thus splitting the log right down the center of the logos.

This gets to the very heart of the luciferian program of the left, for once you have mauled language in this way -- once you have shattered the sacred covenant between word and thing, whether that thing is a material object or immaterial essence -- you have created a linguistic tyranny that clears the way for political tyranny. America could never have even been founded had the framers not had an unproblematic grasp of "self-evident" immaterial essences such as liberty, private property, and other rights that inhere "in the nature of things."

Put another way, almost everything objectionable about the left begins with an assault on human language, which is not this or that specific language, but our very means of access to a transcendent realm charged with the noetic light of the Other. This simply cannot be overemphasized, for it explains the specific way in which revelation is "eternally true," whereas any form of materialism is "eternally false" -- including secular leftism a priori. You will have noticed, however, that leftism must always -- always -- misappropriate and piggyback on this or that liberal or religious truth, truth that it covertly denies at the outset.

To cite just one obvious example, the use of the the state to force "homosexual marriage" upon us obviously has nothing to do with promoting marriage but destroying its very foundation -- including, of course, its linguistic foundation. "Marriage" is a word that actually means something, both literally and spiritually, which is to say, a sacred union between a Man and a Woman. Therefore, anyone with a remnant of common sense -- anyone not already infected by leftism -- knows without thinking about it that homosexuals cannot marry for the same reason that a baseball player cannot kick a field goal. A classical liberal would affirm that homosexuals are free to invent most any form of human arrangement they wish, but they cannot marry without forever destroying both the literal word and the very real -- but "invisible" -- spiritual state it signifies.

But you will also notice that the illiberal left steals another classical liberal concept in order to undermine the meaning of marriage, which is equality. Because of the abuse of language, the illiberal leftist does not mean the same thing as the liberal does by the term "equality." For the classical liberal, equality before the law inevitably redounds to hierarchy, whereas to the leftist, the natural hierarchy that emerges from equality represents de facto inequality, so that full equality must therefore involve the destruction of all hierarchy.

I hope you're getting the point, and that this is not too abstract, for it is a key idea. For the illiberal leftist, "equivalence" is substituted for equality, so that all of the good things that result from equality -- for degrees of goodness can only manifest in a hierarchy of values -- must be undone by a heavy-handed state to enforce equivalence, thereby undermining excellence. The redefinition of marriage is just one example. Due to various anxiety-provoking psychosexual mind parasites that have always been with us, the left hates the idea that men and woman are equal but not equivalent. Therefore, a major part of their perverse agenda is the effacement of sexual differences and the invention of the concept of "gender." Once everyone is a gender and no longer a sex, they are equivalent. And once the sexes are equivalent, then "homosexual marriage" is no different than marriage properly so-called.

To say that my metaphysics has nothing whatsoever to do with "homophobia" should be obvious to all. But it isn't. To further abuse the language -- and use it to further abuse others -- the left invented a new word, "homophobia," with which to club anyone who does not bend over before their rigid agenda. Which only emphasizes that the illiberal leftist obviously believes in hierarchy, just not a natural one. Rather, they wish to impose their hierarchy on the rest of us, always with the assistance of a powerful state that Knows Best.

This ubiquitous pattern of language abuse by the illiberal left was described by Michael Polanyi back in the 1940s. First, undermine the possibility of truth and meaning, so that there is no way to arbitrate between competing "truth claims." Next, seize positions of power in order to arbitrarily impose your own truth. This is how the academy was successfully taken over by people who do not believe in any truth except the one they impose on others and enforce through the mechanisms of speech codes, political correctness, and denial of tenure to those who do not conform. Free scholarship is replaced by all sorts of mechanisms of coercion. You may not be aware of the coercion until you step outside the bounds of what is acceptable, as we see in the global warming debate.

I only have some peripheral awareness of what this idiot Imus is going through. First of all, Imus' greatest offense is that he is an idiot, not a racist. That there are people who do not notice his idiocy mystifies me. In any event, he is now being ground up by the machinery of the compassionate left for using words in such a way that they do not approve.

But of just what abuse of language can the left disapprove in good faith? Do they disapprove of racial animus? Hardly. The Democrats could not even be a functioning party without guilt-ridden whites who gain power by shamelessly exploiting and caricaturing blacks as helpless and dependent children. Are they opposed to degenerate language? Hardly. In most any other context, they celebrate linguistic depravity as "courage," "authenticity," or "being real." Are they opposed to disgusting depictions of blacks as sex-crazed animals and ghetto hos? Er, I don't think so. I have never heard a leftist attack the generally debased world of rap and hip hip (I know, I know, there are exceptions), let alone with the sort of frenzy with which they are piling on the useless Imus.

But this whole pecadillo begs the question, for if language is just a "play of signifiers," what does it matter what anyone says? Certainly this is always the first defense of any prominent leftist who says something vile, which they only do every day. They immediately skirt the content by emphasizing that they are simply patriots engaging in that highest of callings, dissent. If dissent is the highest form of patriotism, why can't Imus just say that he is dissenting from the PC mind control of the left? For one thing, he's too stupid and probably not devious enough to think in that way.

Unlike the left. A couple of weeks ago, Rosie O'Donnell said something far more hateful, implicitly accusing the United States of blowing up the World Trade Centers -- including all the blacks therein. And in her case, it wasn't even a stupid joke. When called on it, she shifted the debate from the insanely vile content of what she said to the noble process in which she had been engaged, and lashed back at those who would dominate and oppress her in her free pursuit of truth!

Damn. Future Leader is stirring. We'll have to continue this line of thought tomorrow. Just ponder this disgusting non-apology by Rosie O'Donnell -- not just the words, but the abuse of language:

--"9/11 affected me deeply, as I know it did many Americans."

Wow, nothing gets past you, does it! Next:

--"The falling of the twin towers served to remind me that many of the assumptions Americans have about their lives are rooted in false feelings of security. "

Hmm. That's an odd thing to be reminded of when people are jumping to their death from a hundred floors up. Where's she going with this? "Assumptions rooted in false feelings of security." Is she talking about our denial of the evils of contemporary Islam? I guess I'm on board.

--"In light of this reminder, I have begun doing exactly what this country, at its best, allows for me to do: inquire. Investigate."

I see. Very good. So you've been reading the Koran, logging onto MEMRI.org., checking out Little Green Footballs, that kind of thing?

"America is great in so many ways, one of which is the freedom to speak, and indeed think, freely."

Indeed. But you sound a little defensive. What does this have to do with accusing the American government of attacking its own citizens on 9-11?

--"I have, of late, begun exercising the rights bestowed upon me by the democratic system I value, and the exercising of these rights has taken the form of an inquiry into what happened five years ago, an inquiry that resists the dominant explanations and that dares to entertain ideas that push me to the edge of what is bearable."

Wo, wo, slow down, sister. Are you suggesting that you're not really a vicious and paranoid hater and kook, but a daring intellectual adventerer who refuses to be dominated by racistsexisthomophobicwhiterethuglicanoppressors and is courageously skirting the edge of unbearable truth? Is that it?

--"I have come to no conclusions and, given the scope of the subject, will not for some time."

Sounds like you've concluded that you'd better shut your piehole about your daring discoveries in order to appease your corporate oppressors and keep your job.

--"If the very act of asking is so destabilizing for people, than I have to wonder whether the fabric of our democracy is indeed so raveled it is beyond salvage."

I see. The people who are exercising their free speech by questioning your sanity are "destabilized" and evidence that our system is beyond repair. Would it surprise you to learn that your continuing presence on national TV is prima faeces evidence of a liberal news media establishment so lacking in credibility or even basic decency that is broken beyond repair?

--"My own belief is that the act of asking is itself reparative, because it brings to life the values on which our constitution rests."

But why then isn't questioning your evil ideas reparative?

--"I am, therefore, pledging my allegiance, hand over heart, trying, as always, for a rigorous truth."

The news-speak credo of the leftist MSMistry of Truth. Pledge allegiance to the Truth you have spent your life undermining.

Not so strange bedfellows and well-fed bellowers: Rosie O'Donnell, New York Times Honored For Liberal Bias By GLAAD.

More on Imus, the decay of language, and the lost art of really insulting someone. Dupree is taking notes.

More on the disorder of Rosie crass and other fascists.