They are men and women who tend to believe that the human being is perfectible and social progress predictable, and that the instrument for effecting the two is reason; that truths are transitory and empirically determined; that equality is desirable and attainable through the action of state power; that social and individual differences, if they are not rational, are objectionable, and should be scientifically eliminated; that all peoples and societies should strive to organize themselves upon a rationalist and scientific paradigm.
I think this is exactly right, if better thought out than "liberals" actually do any more. Except for being based on a mountain of fallacies, it even sounds reasonable.
I wonder if there's a mirror-image on the left, where "liberals" describes "conservatives" as accurately? Oh, wait, that's right there is!
Racists!
Touché, statists.
Thoughtful liberals can accurately be described by the quote you gave, but in my experience, most are far from thoughtful. They believe what the MSM feeds them and if they go on the web, it is only to sites which reinforce what they already think.
ReplyDeleteThere are knee-jerk conservatives too, but fewer since we are bombarded by the liberal viewpoint. To be a conservative is to see the fallacies of the other side. To be a liberal is to (mostly) just accept what you are told.
Heh.
ReplyDelete"Jib." Cut of his jib.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of it is "The New Socialist Man." Che Guevara:
In his famous article, 'Notes on Man and Socialism', he argued that "to build communism, you must build new men as well as the new economic base." The basis of revolutionary struggle is "the happiness of people," the the goal of socialism is the creation of more complete and more devoped human beings.
The human beings we are now are insufficiently complete and underdeveloped.
Brecht:
The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
Good catch, Hector!
ReplyDeleteI plead sleeplessness. And, uh, maybe too many first-person shooters. (Gibbing, anyone?)