You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Home Front: Culture Wars
Some thoughts about the Left
2006-06-03
by blogger Ace of Spades; EFL'd from a longer post

. . . The left, to a man, considers itself to be educated and enlightened. It matters not how little actual schooling a particlular leftist may have had, nor how unintelligent the person might be. They all consider themselves intellectuals of sorts. If they dropped out of college after one semester, they just think of themselves as autodidacts whose genius could not be stimulated by the ossified and bourgeois teaching of the academy. If they're just plain stupid or crazy -- like, say, Charlie Sheen -- they indulge in farcial conspiracy-theorizing, reassuring themselves that they are intellectual because they know things others do not. They are one of the chosen few brave enough to see past the web of lies and glimpse the arcane truth behind, say, the implosion of the World Trade Center (a SEAL team planted those charges, you know?).

This conceit, usually wholly undeserved, of practically every leftist in the world is what makes leftism so intoxicating for the intellectually insecure, and what makes leftists so easily led and manipulated. It's an attractive doctrine for those who wish to conceive of themselves as intellectual and brilliant, for it provides an instant short-cut to the equivalent of an MIT education. If you simply believe these things we tell you to believe, you are one of Us, one of the Intellectually Elite, one of the Cultural Vanguard. Just as giving oneself to Christ, and believing in His power, and accepting the need for and gift of His redemption, instantly makes one "saved" and enters one's name in the Book of the Heaven, so too does accepting leftist tropes and core beliefs make one one of the Secular Elect.
Posted by:Mike

#7  And its a religion that rewards them (by telling them they're intellectually superior) in this world.
Posted by: gromgoru   2006-06-03 20:14  

#6  It's their religion. As unquestioned in it's truth as the Koran. Hence the sympathy and affiliation.
Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412   2006-06-03 12:19  

#5  excellent analysis - not new, but concise
Posted by: Frank G   2006-06-03 10:50  

#4  ...and not getting the hot chicks.

Just ask any fat drunken Senator from Massachusetts.
Posted by: Thulet Omeger8604   2006-06-03 09:29  

#3  "True, a leftist can reject any progressive leader's opinion. But when he does so he imperils his sense of self-worth. If progressivism can be challenged on this point, why not that one? And if it can be fairly challenged on many points, then how can it be those who believe in progressivism are enlightened for doing so? If major tenets of orthodox progressivism are open to debate and challenge, doesn't that mean that one's status of intellectual, based almost entirely on one's belief in progressivism, is similarly open to challenge?

That way madness lies, of course. . . ."

What could drive one mad...


...more than not being one of the "cool kids"?
Posted by: no mo uro   2006-06-03 09:18  

#2  Good analysis, but not news to Burg regulars.
Posted by: phil_b   2006-06-03 08:18  

#1  "and I also can't believe what Chomsky tells me"

Yes it's always been a bit tricky trying to believe the words of millionaire communists who travel half-way around the world to be photographed with the leaders of Islamic terror groups.
Posted by: Concerned Citizen   2006-06-03 05:15  

00:00