I Don’t Think Goodwill Is Meant To Smell Like That
More lifting from the comments, where, following this post, we were discussing how to spot good intentions, however dire their actual consequences:
If we set aside the explicitly sadistic and murderous fantasies of Marx and Engels, and Lenin and Trotsky and all the others, I suppose we have to ask whether the claim of benevolence and altruism, or the delusion of such, signifies actual benevolence and altruism, or whether it can be used as camouflage, a fig leaf, for something else entirely.
What if someone – say, a politician and supposed intellectual – wants to confiscate even more of other people’s earnings and wants to do this regardless of whether such confiscation would have the social benefits they claimed it would have, even if it makes their stated objective impossible. Are we to trust in their self-image as a person of unassailable virtue?
And what about these guys here, the ones who want to compel us to live more simply, as they conceive it, and who claim, apparently in all seriousness, that not permitting us to own the “dispensable accoutrements of middle-class life,” including “cars, holidays, electronic equipment and multiple items of clothing,” will make us “better neighbours,” “better parents” and better people? Do you trust their stated motives – of “healing” us, and curing us of our acquisitiveness – and do you trust their self-image as benevolent and just?
And when a Guardian columnist rages against a random family in the neighbourhood, about whom she knows nothing beyond the size and amenities of their home, and then exults, proudly and in print, at the thought of that random family’s downfall and suffering, and at the thought of the “aggressive redistribution” of their belongings, and that Guardian columnist tells us how pleasing this will be and that she just “can’t wait,” are we to believe that her motives are selfless and high-minded?
Readers are invited to fathom the intentions in play behind each of the above examples.
when a Guardian columnist…exults, proudly and in print, at the thought of that random family’s downfall and suffering, and… tells us how pleasing this will be and that she just “can’t wait,” are we to believe that her motives are selfless and high-minded?
Michele Hanson should see a therapist.
Michele Hanson should see a therapist.
I think it’s safe to say that she’s not, by inclination, a happy woman. And as noted in the original thread, most of us manage to walk past homes larger than our own without wishing fear, misery and humiliation on the people who live there.
As we’ve discussed elsewhere, it’s interesting how socialism and its variants can offer a kind of fig leaf for behaving in a way that might otherwise seem obnoxious, indeed pathological. In that, if I started banging on about some random family that lives down the road and happens to be richer than me (but about whom I know nothing else) and about what ought to happen to them because they’re rich, and then went on about how much their house, which is bigger than mine, drives me into a “foaming temper,” you might think me unpleasant, petty, possibly unhinged. But if I were to say the same thing as a socialist in the pages of the Guardian, that same envy and vindictiveness might be viewed sympathetically by quite a few people. I might even be regarded as righteous — despite my still knowing nothing at all about the people on whom I’m wishing fear and misery.
Incidentally, Ms Hanson’s socialist charms were also aired here, where she rails against the proportions of superhero dolls, and reveals a little more than I suspect she intends.
Michele Hanson should see a therapist.
She references Freud. Were she American it wouldn’t surprise me in the least that her rantings were at least partially encouraged by one that she’s already seeing. Or that she at least studied psychology. Doubt things are much different there.
I realize I’ve raised this subject before, but I really do think that in addition to the media and the Clown Quarter of academia, crazy shrinks are a big part of the problems we are seeing in the leftist trend in our culture.
Aside from failing to identify all threats to liberty – many of whom are actually cherished instead – and aside from having no opinion on so many more, thus allowing them to continue for decades, the right’s biggest failing was and is it’s inability to identify force, oppression, and coercion as such.
If the right had been serious about preserving the values of the Enlightenment it would have issued an unrelenting message, rooted in history, that the philosophy of collectivism was inherently also the practice of inevitable force, it being intolerant, oppressive, and morally wrong except as a responsible, accountable defense against physical aggression.
In other words, the right failed and fails to make the notion of negative rights foremost and as etched in stone as any historical edifice. The last paragraph of the excerpt above illustrates the malignancy. Preventing it takes only a tradition of recognizing thoroughly and publicly what underlies it, which is the left’s entire entourage of classic sins and the hostile force involved in them all.
For its part the right has stood by for decades and even centuries while both majorities and minorities, the public and institutional, have intruded into their lives to force upon them almost any trendy policy imaginable, and all it took was a benign sounding appropriation or outright disguise like public interest, safety, or even moral goodness. Who can refuse “welfare” or “healthcare” or “social security” or even “national interest”? Apparently neither side of the political divide, such as it may be.
Goodwill and good intentions are known by their fruits. They’re even known by the terrible trajectory of all of their myriad historical failures, none of which are ever reformed. Apparently a force allowed is a force virtually forever.
It’s worth recalling that Christ told the Rich Young Ruler to himself sell voluntarily all he owned, give it to the poor and follow Him. He didn’t agitate for confiscating all property from all rich, young rulers everywhere. True benevolence comes from one’s own heart, is personal, and accomplished with little fanfare or desire for accolades. Simply put, the test for good intentions is whether the preacher practices what he preaches as an example to others and not a mandate.
It’s worth recalling that Christ told the Rich Young Ruler to himself sell voluntarily all he owned, give it to the poor and follow Him. He didn’t agitate for confiscating all property from all rich, young rulers everywhere.
^this.
“we have to ask whether the claim of benevolence and altruism, or the delusion of such, signifies actual benevolence and altruism, or whether it can be used as camouflage, a fig leaf, for something else entirely.”
Or, in other words, should we beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves?
“True benevolence comes from one’s own heart, is personal, and accomplished with little fanfare or desire for accolades. Simply put, the test for good intentions is whether the preacher practices what he preaches as an example to others and not a mandate.”
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. […] Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil.
(I’m not even a particularly religious guy. But it’s all there, two millennia ago.)
And, it occurs to me, that’s why it had to go. If everybody knows the passages I quoted, if they’re universally understood as part of the bedrock of society – as they once were, little more than a generation ago – the advancement of state socialism is that much harder.
Forget them – or at least put them into a box marked “tradition”, “historic”, or “antiquated” – though, and anything goes.
But it’s all there, two millennia ago.
The “Old Verities,” or “Gods of the Copybook Headings,” etc.
– From your 2013 reference, a comment:
” I never understand the lingering desire in some left wing circles for revolution.”
It’s simple, really: “The Conservative is a person enamoured of existing evils, as opposed to the Liberal, who wants to replace them with others.”
In sum, “Politicians are like diapers – they must be changed often, for the same reason.”
The “Old Verities,” or “Gods of the Copybook Headings,” etc.
That sound you hear is the distant noise of approaching fire and slaughter.
Sharia 2: The Marxist Boogaloo
Note, unbelievers, that your testimony has no place at trial.
What did people do in days before? That is, of yore?
They banded together ad tribes and raided their weaker neighbors and took those they did not kill as slaves.
Sounds like fun. Let’s go there.
. . . crazy shrinks are a big part of the problems we are seeing in the leftist trend in our culture.
Samuel Shem, Mount Misery
Well, how should it smell then?
And what about these guys here, the ones who want to compel us to live more simply, as they conceive it, …
Actually, this sounds quite a lot like recent news reports from Venezuela.