Disruption: The Attack of the Remnant Left

Through Little Green Footballs, we get interesting observations from Gates of Vienna:

[Front Page Magazine]: ...political correctness engenders evil because of “the violence that it does to people’s souls by forcing them to say or imply what they do not believe, but must not question.” Can you talk about this a bit?

Theodore Dalrymple: Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.

That's a perspective which is very interesting, and puts into perspective the concept of arguendo ad misericordiam referenced by Tom McMahon. If you're not allowed to object to untruth (or incomplete truth,) you become a 'co-operator,' which is to say "co-opted."

The author bemoans the lack of a thorough "de-Marxification" of the West post the fall of the Soviet Union, and then:

We are now paying the price for this. Not only has Marxism survived, it is thriving and has in some ways grown stronger. Leftist ideas about Multiculturalism and de-facto open borders have achieved a virtual hegemony in public discourse, their critics vilified and demonized. By hiding their intentions under labels such as “anti-racism” and “tolerance,” Leftists have achieved a degree of censorship of public discourse they could never have dreamt of had they openly stated that their intention was to radically transform Western civilization and destroy its foundations.

This is the concept Limbaugh discussed yesterday: the "pre-emptive censorship" operative in the borders (or Homosex-marriage) discussions--which applies to e.g., Ann Coulter, albeit Ann tends to feed the beast with red meat...

Eric Hoffer has noted that “It is obvious that a proselytizing mass movement must break down all existing group ties if it is to win a considerable following. The ideal potential convert is the individual who stands alone, who has no collective body he can blend with and lose himself in and so mask the pettiness, meaninglessness and shabbiness of his individual existence. Where a mass movement finds the corporate pattern of family, tribe, country, etcetera, in a state of disruption and decay, it moves in and gathers the harvest. Where it finds the corporate pattern in good repair, it must attack and disrupt.” This corresponds exactly to the behavior of much of the Western Left in our age.

Michael Savage briefly discussed "peace" the other night, and was joined by a caller who cited Thomas Aquinas to the effect that "Peace is the tranquility of order." Thus, those who would make war must first attack Order.

It's not too surprising, by the way, that the Roman Catholic Church, which remains quite cohesive worldwide, is most often the object of disruptive tactics...

Much of the political Left is simply engaged in outing their opponents as evil, instead of rationally arguing against their ideas. Attaching labels such as “racist” or even “Fascist” to anyone criticizing massive immigration or Multiculturalism has become so common that Norwegian anti-Islamists have coined a new word for it: “Hitling,” which could be roughly translated to English as “to make like Hitler.” The logic behind “hitling” is a bit like this: “You have a beard. Adolf Hitler had facial hair, too, so you must be like Hitler. Adolf Hitler liked dogs. You have pets, too, you must be like Hitler. Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian. You like carrots, you are just like Hitler.”

...that passage must sound familiar to commentators like Sykes...

There's a lot more at the "Vienna" link...