Sunday, April 26, 2009

Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Tax

Since American style liberty was conceived primarily in negative terms, it is either unappreciated or wasted by anyone without a spiritual grounding. This is because our political liberty is not fundamentally "freedom to" but "freedom from," specifically, from the coercion of government. However, at the same time, if it is only freedom from, then it can quickly descend into mere license, or nihilism, or anarchy.

In turn, this is why religion is always the enemy of the state (but not vice versa), and the real reason for the left's antipathy to it. The elimination of religion is always at the heart of the leftist project, whether we're talking about communists, fascists, or the ACLU. The antipathy is not accidental, but essential, for the religious person is intrinsically at odds with the goals of the state, which is an autopoeitic system that, left to its own devices, slowly gobbles up more and more liberty; this system "eats" freedom and dissipates wealth, as we see in Obama's unprecedented expansion of government. (Insert countless other historical/contemporary examples here ________.)

[And please do not caricature our position, as we strongly believe in the necessity of the state, specifically, the one envisaged by our Constitution.]

This conflict has to do with the fundamental dialectic between our individual-ism and social-ism. There is nothing wrong with the latter, as we cannot be an individual in the absence of the group. The problem with the left is that they replace the "interior we" with the "exterior us," which means that they replace spontaneous civil society with state coercion. This is how to best understand, say, the attempt to undermine marriage (the fundamental "we" of civilization), or destroy the Boy Scouts, or eliminate conservative radio, or reduce the deduction for charitable giving. The left wants you to always look first to the government for help (and information, which is the purpose of the moonstream media), not fellow human beings.

Again, when I use the word "left," I mean it as a shorthand to designate any philosophy that conceives of our liberty in the opposite way -- as only freedom to -- say, to get an abortion, or to be paid a "living wage," or to receive free health care, or to "marry" someone of the same sex. These are not real freedoms, if only because they involve coercion of someone else. For example, a "living wage" simply means that the government must force someone to pay you more than you are worth, while "free" healthcare simply means that you want to force someone else to pay for it.

Likewise, the absolute "right" to abortion can only be grounded in a metaphysic that maintains that human beings are literally worthless. The absurd outcome for the leftist is that human rights are more precious than human beings (which we see replayed in the interrogation debate). For the leftist, the right to abortion is sacred, while the human being to whom the right is owed is of no more value than a decayed tooth. But stranger beliefs can be found on the left, the reason being that it is fundamentally rooted in the absolutization of the relative, which is the very essence of the absurd.

Furthermore, when I discuss leftist philosophies, I am not trying -- or only trying -- to be insultaining, but as accurate as I can be, so I don't know why anyone should take offense. It is simply a fact that if you believe you are entitled to "free" healthcare, then you have a very different conception of freedom than I do or than the American founders did.

Likewise if you believe it is appropriate for the federal government to make it a crime to be racially colorblind, then you have a very different conception of liberty than I do. Or if you believe unlawful combatants are entitled to Geneva Convention rights, we differ. All we can do is acknowledge our differences and go our separate ways.

I am hardly offended if someone simply describes my views accurately, so I don't really understand why leftists don't feel the same way. For example if you express the truism that Democrats wish for us to surrender in Iraq, they go ballistic [which they apparently no longer wish to do, now that George Bush is not president]. They seem to have a fundamental difficulty in simply saying what they believe in a straightforward manner.

But it's not really a mystery why they are so deceptive, for if they came out and said what they believed, they could never get elected. For example, if citizens are actually given the choice, they are overwhelmingly against the idea of a few elite judges redefining the fundamental unit of civilization, marriage. Likewise, sensible people have no objection to rough treatment of terrorists if it can save American lives.

In any event, assuming we have the "freedom from," what is freedom for? This question is at the heart of philocooniosophy ("The Mondello Sutras"), which has a very different answer than any illiberal leftist philosophy. For example, the so-called integralists commonly express anger at me because I am not "integral," meaning that I do not integrate left and right.

But here again, this is an incoherent philosophy, because it absolutizes the relative, placing "integralism" above Truth. In other words, I do not consider it a sophisticated philosophy that maintains that integrating truth and falsehood somehow leads to a higher synthesis. This is not integralism, it is merely incoherence.

Here's how one new-ageist describes me, and it is typical of the genre: "Godwin is a neocon of a particular nasty variety, his blog basically a place where he spurts acid at the much-demonized 'Leftists,' who are at the root of all of the world's problems.... Godwin's vitriolic hatred is to the point that he seems a borderline personality."

Since the writer puts "leftists" in scare quotes, one can only assume that he doesn't believe they actually exist. On the other hand, he calls me a "neocon" (without the scare quotes) while never defining the term. I personally don't believe it means much of anything. Rather, it has become a saturated term of abuse for anything leftists don't like -- like the word "fascist."

How could one not see the writer's projection? I precisely define the term "leftist" and describe why I think it is a dangerous and destructive philosophy, while he simply tars me with the meaningless term "neocon" in order to demonize and dismiss the substance of my ideas.

Elsewhere, the writer suggests that my "war against Leftism" is simply a "shadow project" representing an unconscious "hatred of where [I] once came from." Not only that, but my ego is "too densely opaque" to consider other points of view (which contradicts the first charge, since I obviously had to consider other points of view in order to slowly evolve from left to right, or down to up; likewise, if I were to believe the same things I did when I was in my teens and twenties, it would indeed constitute a kind of dense opacity).

The writer then preposterously suggests that Raccoon philosophy is "not that different from radical Islam, actually, where non-believers are infidels." So now I am a genocidal maniac who wants to murder people with whom I disagree. Again, who is doing the demonizing? Who is filled with hatred? Who is "spurting acid?" Indeed, who is taking acid? And Dupree wants to know if he can have some.

Then there is the ultimate non sequitur, the inevitable passive-aggressive namasté that always follows the "fuck you": "Anyways, thanks for the engagement. Even if we disagree on many things, and in spite of some seemingly harsh words, I appreciate many of your views and your overall offering."

The incoherence of this writer's mind is par for the coarse and unrefined. I have never read one integralist who is as angry at any leftist as they are at me. One would think that if they were truly integral, then they would either embrace my philosophy and integrate into theirs, or their anger would be split 50-50 toward leftists and classical liberals, but clearly it isn't. Show me the integralist who rages at the pathological lies of Al Gore or Obama.

So, when I use the words "left" or "leftist," I mean something very precise. If it doesn't apply to you, then you needn't get angry. Rather, just silently say to yourself, "I don't believe them things. The B'ob is not talking about me. Therefore, I'm in the clear. I am not being demonized."

Here is what the Raccoon believes, and it is very different from what the secular leftist believes: knowledge of absolute truth constitutes the mind's freedom. Therefore, if you adhere to any philosophy that maintains at the outset that transcendent truth does not exist or that man cannot approach it in knowledge, then freedom also cannot exist, or it is meaningless.

Thus, it is no coincidence that the same people who have undermined the concept of free will systematically undermine the quintessentially human capacity to know truth. For although truth is defined as that which we are compelled to believe, if we do not arrive at it freely, then it cannot be truth.

If you survey the history of philosophy, it can be seen as a sort of stream that split in half with modernity, each side going its separate way. You can conceptualize the split in many ways, but it ultimately comes down to realism vs. naturalism, or transcendence vs. immanence, or absolute truth vs. absolute relativism.

I came across a very pithy comment by HvB yesterday, to the effect that modernity is under the sign of the Promethean, which inevitably devolves to the Dionysian. That pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? (See paragraph 1 above.)

One cannot integrate absolute truth with absolute relativism, for it is impossible. On the other hand, you can do what intelligent minds have always done, which is to integrate partial, relative truths into the whole, in light of the transcendent absolute. But what you cannot do is throw these relative truths together and imagine that you have integrated anything, or that their sum constitutes the total truth. No one engaged in "deconstruction" more than a Moses Maimonides, or Meister Eckhart, or even Saint Augustine, but they always did so under the presumption that it is simply a tool for arriving at a deeper truth, not a thing in itself -- not the ultimate reality, but a means toward it.

Once it is forgotten that knowledge of truth constitutes the mind's freedom, then we will no longer know what either word means, for freedom in the absence of truth is absurdity, while truth in the absence of freedom is hell.

32 comments:

walt said...

Bob wrote:
"...What you cannot do is throw these relative truths together and imagine that you have integrated anything, or that their sum constitutes the total truth."

This reminds me of the constant positioning and then re-positioning of our politicians, depending on what the most recent focus-group or polling shows. It also reminds me of how I tried to "assemble" a world-view when I was a teenager: a real mish-mash.

Aren't we supposed to grow out of such silliness?

Thanks for the post!

Joan of Argghh! said...

Integralism: like diluting a good single-malt truth with watery cowardice.

julie said...

Walt, yes we are supposed to. It's astounding how often people don't.

seen on twitter said...

Treacher:
KSM was specifically told waterboarding wouldn't kill him. Those who jumped from the WTC on 9/11 had no such assurance.

Mrs. G said...

Bob wrote, "The left wants you to always look first to the government for help, not fellow human beings."

Just listened to the podcast of Prager's interview with Charles Murray discussing the latter's article in a recent issue of the American:

"The problem is this: Every time the government takes some of the trouble out of performing the functions of family, community, vocation, and faith, it also strips those institutions of some of their vitality—it drains some of the life from them. It’s inevitable. Families are not vital because the day-to-day tasks of raising children and being a good spouse are so much fun, but because the family has responsibility for doing important things that won’t get done unless the family does them. Communities are not vital because it’s so much fun to respond to our neighbors’ needs, but because the community has the responsibility for doing important things that won’t get done unless the community does them. Once that imperative has been met—family and community really do have the action—then an elaborate web of social norms, expectations, rewards, and punishments evolves over time that supports families and communities in performing their functions. When the government says it will take some of the trouble out of doing the things that families and communities evolved to do, it inevitably takes some of the action away from families and communities, and the web frays, and eventually disintegrates."

http://american.com/archive/2009/march-2009/the-europe-syndrome-and-the-challenge-to-american-exceptionalism

Northern Bandit said...

Leftist fatigue (from Letters section in Salon):


Now women are being called upon not only to manage the eco-cleanliness of their families domiciles, but also to manage the ethical qualities of their families food choices: a leftist version of "Better Homes and Gardens".

I think we should all just eat canned spam, learn to clean a handgun and live by plunder. I want to live in a robotic future where we survive on calorie pellets dispensed from the government truck that visits our housing complex once per month.

I am just so tired of it all, really.
Potential coon?

Kepler Sings said...

A little off thread but I wanted to post this response to Capt Queeg's comment about the current Swine Flu Virus

Capt Queeq: "We’ve been overdue for a global flu pandemic for years. These viruses have been breeding and mutating and evolving at a rate that’s hard for human beings to comprehend.If anyone reading LGF still doubts evolution, this is your proof that it exists."So if we wait long enough, according to the great scientist Charles Johnson, swine flu viruses will evolve into what? Lizards perhaps?

This is the typical imbecilic level of understanding of evolutionary fanatics. Do they not know that all viruses need living hosts to hijack living cells and then they take over the machinery of the cell to reproduce little copies of themselves, the cell is engorged with these viruses.

Finally the cell bursts and releases thousands of these newly manufactured viruses that repeat the cycle. It sounds exactly like how there are successful societies that get hijacked by Leftist zombies that take over the system to reproduce the undead, whose only goal is to use up every bit of lifeforce of the host to make little identical carbon copies of themselves, eventually killing the host.

Just like liberals destroying America. So all it proves is that the universe seems to follow patterns from the micro all the way up to the incredibly complex construct of human societies.

Once again it seems to point to a Creator and a Devil. One creates living things, the other hijacks those living things to make little carbon copies of itself. The Devil cannot create anything ex nihlo, He must use what God has already created. The Devil is the ultimate parasite.

Just like liberals cannot create a new society, they can only take one that exists and then destroy all individuality by making little unthinking carbon copies of themselves.

Anonymous said...

Iranian born ironic-as-heck, once upon Omar Khayyam wants to way in on 'Isla-mistic Coons'

Allah, perchance, the secret word might spell;
If Allah be, He keeps His secret well;
What He hath hidden, who shall hope to find?
Shall God His secret to a maggot tell?

*

And then there was Kahlil Gibran who said thus:

Truth is like all beautiful things in the world;
it does not disclose its desirability except to those
who first feel the influence of falshood.

(In my blog this day I scriblled on my pre-9/11 'visionary data' which clearly pointed to "something very evil is in the works")

Theofilia

Gagdad Bob said...

"As a result of Christ's victory, the anti-Christian powers have become really alert and ready for combat.... As the history of man's theological liberation marches forward, the pendulum swings more and more freely, both for each individual and for mankind as a whole, between Yes and No.... The more the Holy Spirit becomes present in history, the more prevalent is what Jesus calls the sin against the Holy Spirit." --Balthasar

Anonymous said...

Because I forgot to mention this on my blog, I'll scrible here how one of my not really students (tho she thought she was) said after one hands-on session, months bef. the 9/11 thing. We were alone.

"There is going to be a war" based on what was disclosed to her in-vision . . . I offered, "The war is within you . . ."

She kind of agreed but not really, and kept wide-eyed earnestly repeating, "There's going to be a war."

I don't know how many weeks post-9/11 I heard a very freak-menecing voice plotting terrorist attack on London's "Theater district". Can't say I ever heard about London's theater district, but took that information so seriously, that in the middle of the night (2ish am) I got up and posted a limeric-like warning about it on a politicaly oriented War and Peace Forum, thinking "maybe someone will see it and pass it on."

Again, Futility is not my second name - wrong or not - I had to do something!

Not saying at all my 'warning' for London city was headed and acted upon, but was very plesently relived when couple days later - on the news - I heard about stepped up security messures in London's downtown.

Theofilia

will said...

>>The more the Holy Spirit becomes present in history, the more prevalent is what Jesus calls the sin against the Holy Spirit." <<

Think not that I came to send peace on the earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law: and a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

matt 10:34

julie said...

Via Serr8ed today, the "truth" to be on display in New York.

julie said...

One cannot integrate absolute truth with absolute relativism, for it is impossible.

Doesn't keep 'em from trying, though.

Is Obama the superpresident? So far, so good.

Relative to what, exactly? His overall polling score appears to be squarely average for the recent presidents, and lower compared to ones who were actually considered great. Supposedly, in the area of "personal qualities" he really stands out - but the numbers aren't actually compared to anything. Sans reference, sans a relative absolute ideal, it is meaningless.

He's relatively absolutely personally super!

julie said...

One more link;
Spengler's new digs!

Van Harvey said...

Ohhh... wo... outstanding Post today!

Sorry to have missed out on the action this weekend, but I've been admiring from afar!

(Ricky, anytime you want to come over and meditate with my yardwork... feel free to... in fact, I'll even let you do it on a regular basis)

julie said...

For the leftist, the right to abortion is sacred, while the human being to whom the right is owed is of no more value than a decayed tooth. But stranger beliefs can be found on the left, the reason being that it is fundamentally rooted in the absolutization of the relative, which is the very essence of the absurd.

Okay, I know I've posted a lot of links today, but this one really wins the prize for most astounding example.

"Even if our chances of succeeding were only one in a hundred, we would have to try. Giving up and allowing humanity to take its course is unconscionable. There is far too much at stake."

What are they striving for, you ask? Just this:

"When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth's biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve (if they believe in evolution), and will perhaps pass away, as so many of Nature's "experiments" have done throughout the eons."

"As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us."

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"The antipathy is not accidental, but essential, for the religious person is intrinsically at odds with the goals of the state, which is an autopoeitic system that, left to its own devices, slowly gobbles up more and more liberty; this system "eats" freedom and dissipates wealth, as we see in Obama's unprecedented expansion of government. (Insert countless other historical/contemporary examples here ________.)"

Great post, Bob!
Thanks also to Mrs. G. for the Prager article with Charles Murray.

walt said...

Julie -

Laura Ingraham interviewed Les Knight, the movement's founder, last week. Download here, if you feel the need for more (second from the top, on 4/22).

My standard response to those peeps is, "You first!"

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us."

I wish them luck. It's actually a good idea for them not to breed.
I hope more people on the Left follow suit (or, preferably, wise up.) :^)

sehoy said...

Gaia worshippers always eventually revert to the human sacrifice setting don't they.

I was just reading and copying this post yesterday:

Sense of Events: All Bow to Mother Gaia
http://senseofevents.blogspot.com/2009/04/all-bow-to-mother-gaia.html

sehoy

Mike O'Malley said...

Hi Julie!

Guess who will joining Spengler?


The Anchoress!

julie said...

Hi Mike! That's where I got the link in the first place ;)

julie said...

Mrs. G,
For some reason I missed your link earlier, but it's a great read. Thanks for posting it!

julie said...

Hm. From the Murray article,

Social democrats will simply have to stop making glib claims that the traditional family is just one of many equally valid alternatives. They will have to acknowledge that the traditional family plays a special, indispensable role in human flourishing and that social policy must be based on that truth. The same concrete effects of the new knowledge will make us rethink every domain in which the central government has imposed its judgment on how people ought to live their lives—in schools, workplaces, the courts, social services, as well as the family. And that will make the job of people like me much easier.

I think I might have to respectfully disagree with him on that count. From what we've seen in the past few decades, people who are determined to believe in the "equality premise" and the "new man premise" already do so in the face of a tremendous amount of evidence to the contrary. For them, it truly is a system of belief, impervious to any facts or truth. In fact, I think a lot of them are perfectly aware of the truth, but they don't like it. So instead of adjusting themselves to fit reality, they struggle to reshape reality to suit themselves.

I'd be ecstatic if he's right about that, though.

Morn said...

As far as interrogation goes, I tend to fear the government more than I trust it, and I believe that transparency in government is good for all of us, so we can see what the bastards are up to. I suppose I would support the “liberals” in their investigation of the government’s interrogation tactics and the possible persecution of violators of the Constitutionally protected rights of U.S. citizens, if any U.S. citizens were involved, merely because I am somewhat paranoid, what with the new law-enforcement “fusion” centers and the abrogation of certain provisions of the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act, both of which were put into place for good reason.

As far as intregralism goes, I believe that very roughly and more historically than right now, the “right” was more based on Constitutional sovereignty (Republican), and the “left” was more based on popular sovereignty (Democrat), and in my mind I can conceive that perhaps certain arbitrary Constitutional corollaries might oppress the people just as the people might oppress the Constitutional rights of others, so that there might then be some kind of balance, especially by means of jury nullification and states rights that are not definitely Constitutional.

But nowadays, both the Republicans and the Democrats are split: there’s ‘old-right paleo-cons’ (‘Reagan Republicans’) and ‘new-right neo-cons’ (‘Rockefeller Republicans’), and there’s true-blue ‘populists’ (‘Southern' or 'Texas' Democrats) and the oligarchic populists (‘Snake-oil salesmen’[like Nancy Pelosi] or ‘Used-car dealers’ we used to call them, but I don’t think they have an official name).

Now Mr. Bob, sir, I usually really like what you have say, except for that more than a few times you say things that make you sound more like a Rockefeller than a Reagan. I know that Reagan wouldn’t call my Constitution a “goddam piece of paper”, and that was the term George Bush used for it in a certain heat of passion, is it not? Well, I was just passing on through to see if you’d changed some. I suppose I have far more in common with ‘Southern’ and ‘Blue-dog’ Democrats than with neo-cons because I am a member of the Old Right. I do not have the intellectual capacity to tell you what makes a person a neo-con myself, but all I can say is that war leads to bigger government and that in the absence of a threatening sovereign nation, Letters of Marque and Reprisal are a far more effective means of killing independent pirates than the military, because we here in the great nation of America have plenty of Rambos willing to strap up and kick their terrorist butts to hell if we’d only give our citizens the legal standing to do so.

HELL YES, I want to surrender Iraq, before we destroy our currency and mortgage our country half to death like it already is! All GODDAM Rockefeller Republicans want is for us to stay so impoverished by spending our money on wars that there won't be any extra time left to think about restoring our constitution. 1984 anyone?

Mike O'Malley said...

Joseph Bottum is revamping First Things now that Fr. Neuhaus has been called home. The addition of Goldman and Scalia (Spengler and The Anchoress) are exciting additions given our loss. Richard Newhaus.

Mike O'Malley said...

Morn said...As far as interrogation goes, I tend to fear the government more than I trust it, and I believe that transparency in government is good for all of us, so we can see what the bastards are up to. I suppose I would support the “liberals” in their investigation of the government’s interrogation tactics and the possible persecution of violators of the Constitutionally protected rights of U.S. citizens, if any U.S. citizens were involved, merely because I am somewhat paranoid, what with the new law-enforcement “fusion” centers and the abrogation of certain provisions of the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act, both of which were put into place for good reason.Ghee! Posse Comitatus Act? Wasn't that the compromise law that put an end to the Reconstruction? Pres. Grant had successfully used US Army as a law enforcement weapon against the KKK and to protect the rights of freed black slaves. Posse Comitatus stopped this and removed federal protection for Southern ex-slaves. The Act freed Southern States to rollback the Constitutional rights of African Americans, who in many instances were reduced to de facto slavery to the political and economic order of the postbellum "Jim Crow" South. So how is Posse Comitatus a good thing?


Also Morn, it you fear government more than you trust it, does the obvious contrive political targeting of the investigation trouble you? If indeed such harsh interrogation was illegal doesn't it trouble you that the “preps”, persons who actually conducted the interrogations will be given a pass, while only Bush Administration lawyers will be targeted? Does it trouble you that these show trials would in effect criminalize political differences and criminalize legal research and opinion which is out of political favor? Does it trouble that the leader of the lynch mob, a Constitutional officer of the United States, knew about and approved of these very same harsh interrogation? Does it trouble you that almost all legal scholars believe that actual convictions of the Justice Department officials will be impossible?

If harsh interrogation of three genocidal terrorists is of such a moral and constitutional concern why not start with a thorough investigation of US failure to act in the Rwanda Genocide, for an example?

Mike O'Malley said...

Hello Mrs. G!

Charles Murray coauthored the controversial "Bell Curve" some years ago. One of the major themes of that book, a theme that was buried under the public controversy about IQ of minorities, was that a high IQ political faction could emerge in America. Seeking the protections and stability of a grand gated community for itself, such a faction might in effect put much of the rest of America in a government managed reservation of sorts.

This forgotten major theme of the "Bell Curve" bears consideration as it seems that Pres. Obama was "sent" by the ultra-wealthy Progressives in Chicago and elsewhere in America. Ultra-wealthy Progressives who were so troubled by the re-emergence of older American themes during the Bush Administration.

Anonymous said...
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Van Harvey said...

yawrn/morn said "You're bringing up a whole bunch of facts, and I think that your facts tend to obscure the truth, sir. I'm talkin' ideas here."

Splitting 'Neo-Con' into two variants of republicans (both undefined), and then seeming to tar Gagdad as a 'Rockefeller Rep'... seems to belie that.

“I believe that very roughly and more historically than right now, the “right” was more based on Constitutional sovereignty (Republican)”

In sentiment perhaps, but rarely in fact. Recall that most Republicans hero, Teddy Roosevelt either enacted or legitimized by proposing nearly every progressive government policy which has landed us where we are (Regulatory agencies, trust busting, income tax, etc – Wilson & FDR mostly expanded on his beginnings)

"But there are a few populists who care about the people, are there not?"

George Washington's Dr's cared for him very much, as they continued to bleed him in an effort to save him... but they didn't do anything to save him, and hastened his death. Caring coupled to Action, without understanding, is nothing to take comfort from and is wisely to be feared.

"And in these times we need all the help we can get, do we not?"

Again, better to define what help should be, and whether or not it is, before gratefully accepting it. Again, that goes back to defining and understanding the primary ideas first.

Victor Erimita said...

I have also observed that most (not all, though) "integralists" seem not only to favor exclusively leftist political positions, but also to claim that those positions are themselves "integral" or "Second Tier" to use Don Beck and Ken Wilber terminology. Anything "collective" is advanced as "transcending" the individual and therfore claimed to be at a higher level of "integration."

A classic example of this misleading thinking is the citation of the United Nations as a "Second Tier" or "integral" institution. Why? Well, of course, because it is "planetary" in its focus and transcends lowly ethnocentric or national notions of identity. Except, of course, that the U.N. in reality is merely a vehicle for advancing the most ethnocentric (witness the Durban conferences on "civil rights" that somehow single out Israel for vilification, while ignoring, or even celebrating, the far more racist regimes in places like Iran) and nationalistic, or worse, "red" regimes like all the tyrannies the U.N. allows to punch above their weight on the world stage, all in the guise of, under the rhetoric of, the "international community."

"Integralists" often seem all too easily confused by the U.N. (in my example) as an idealistic notion and what the U.N. actually is in fact. Why is this the case? Because, like most of us, they use new ideas, like "integral thinking" to simply reinforce their already set notions. They hijack Second Tier language to justify their first-tier prejudices, like a "red" jihadist hijacking the "blue" language of religion to justify murder and mayhem. Or like a global warming true believer employing an integral language smokescreen to hide an old fashioned sin-and-apocalyptic-retribution myth.

In short, it's not really integral, just a move to silence one's ideological opponents by trying to one-up them in a higher consciousness disguise.

Gagdad Bob said...

Swish!

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