Someone named "Hanging Chad" recently wrote in, saying:"I know you want people to take up your cause but your problem, as I see it, is that you don't distinguish between different groups, different curatives, different causes. I'm not saying it's hard for people to sympathise with your plight,...but you need to narrow your focus and show that you can separate the wheat from the chaff.
NewAge isn't the driving force of liberalism any more than fundamentalism is the driving force for a conservative value system. They cosy up together on the same side but you, as a conservative atheist, do no good service to left-thinking people who are as hardbitten and rationalist as the best of them."
Which got me to wondering where, exactly, Chad thinks Liberalism and NewAge split? I'll admit I can't see it. Environmentalism? Check. Feminism? Check. Alternative Medicine? Check. U.F.O.s even? Check. And on and on and on. That's what being on the loony "open-minded" side gets you.
On the other side, you've got me - black conservative atheist - or Charles Johnson (of Little Green Footballs) and a whole bevy of others (Hot Air comes to mind) who don't fit the assumed Conservative/Republican = religious mold to point to. But where's the Liberal critics of NewAge?
I contend there are none. If I even hear a peep like that, it's from someone trying to prove his/her conservative bona fides - not their liberalism. There can't be any real Leftist NewAge critics with so many cultists involved, and so much open cult involvement. When Arianna Huffington's people are openly admitting they're being indoctrinated - and actually killing people - and the leaders on the Left aren't like "Whoa, what-the-fuck is going on over there?!?" then you're certainly not going to find much opposition further down, or out, in the ranks. They're all too busy slurping Kool-Aid and eating up bags and bags of spiritually full-flavored, good, nutritious, all natural Mumbo to the Jumbo.
So, that's the question for y'all, today:
Where on the Left does the hidden "spirituality" of Liberalism end? Let's hear it. I really want/need to know.
At least, Chad thinks so,...
Where on the Left does the hidden "spirituality" of Liberalism end? Let's hear it. I really want/need to know.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the quote. As no one else has stepped forward, I thought I might venture to answer my own challenge:
Spirituality gets stopped at the door in some of the main bastions of leftist thought:
Communists
Socialist alliance
anarchists
trade unions
There have been accusations that many protest groups organise themselves in an unquestioning enclave, similar to a cult or religion, but this is more valid than talking up a men's club as a goat's buttock-kissing recruiting house for Satan. Chaining yourself to a fence doesn't require any particular faith or denomination, only a passion for the cause concerned.
There does seem to a common checking point for the beliefs you list but isn't this a definitional problem: is an 'environmentalist' someone concerned about protecting wildlife corridors or is it a guy in rainbow tie-dye, dancing in a forest? The latter are New Age-y (apart from green Christian groups who do something similar) while the former could be your park ranger and may be otherwise conservative.
Is a 'feminist' someone who believes in power dressing and equal pay, or is the full overalls-wearing separatist lesbian talking about 'her-story'? Condoleeza Rice doesn't exist in the unreconstructed world of keeping 'em barefoot and pregnant. There's a lot of latitude there.
Being 'open minded' as a famed leftist trait is not the viewpoint of various leftist groups who are ruthlessly doctrinaire and have a charter they can point to. In this way, they are no different than the church; they give their power and control to their leader just the same. And are deliberately different from those 'free thinkers' who maintain the right to independent thought.
Anarchists (left) and libertarians (right) only disagree on the manner in which they believe society can be framed with less government oppression. This requires checking none of the boxes associated with liberalism, which definition is also complex
Trade unions for the industrial sector have, at best, an ambivalent attitude to the more extreme environmental statements as they threaten their jobs so it is quite common for different unions to line up on different sides.