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Hidden Wonders Politics · Ramble · Society Reject Leftism Published: 2022-12-17 Lastmod: 2023-08-15 NOTE : I wrote the bulk of this a year or two ago. I read over it today and added a few points of skepticism to the ramble here and there (as well as some dividing lines for readability). I don’t agree with everything I’ve written here looking back at it with some clarity, but the bulk of it I do agree with. At the least, I believe it is a good summary of the points laid out in Ted’s manifesto regarding leftism and the many negative effects it can have. Preface: The unabomber manifesto is a very interesting work if you’re not already familiar. It is definitely worth a read. While I don’t agree with everything he says in the book--I believe that there is still a chance for technology to be beneficial for mankind rather than overall harmful as Ted argues--one of the things the work does excellently is outline the evils of leftism. I decided one day to sift through the work and, with my own annotations, better outline exactly what is wrong with leftism. I wrote this to reject my leftist friend, who I love very much yet am simultaneously irritated by beyond imagining. While I believe this to be a beneficial read for someone wishing to better understand and articulate the problem with leftism as a whole, I also encourage you, the reader, to make your own decisions and arguments on why leftism is evil--hell, even say it’s good if you’d like. Draw your own conclusion on the matter, then come back here if you’d like and see if you agree with my--as well as Ted’s--perspective on the matter. On guaranteeing everyone’s security: “liberals and leftists would wish to solve our social problems by having society guarantee everyone’s security: but if that could be done it would only bring back the problem of purposelessness. The real issue is not whether society provides well or poorly for people’s security: the trouble is that people are dependent on the system for their security rather than having it in their own hands.” In other words, a significant portion of the population can only achieve happiness by guaranteeing their own security and well-being and having a direct, discernible impact on their own lives rather than having everything provided for them by the state. Meanwhile, an industrial society causes people to “live more by virtue of what the system does FOR them or TO them than by virtue of what they do for themselves,” which in turn leads to unhappiness since these people have no impact on their own lives. “Opportunities tend to be those that the system provides, the opportunities must be exploited in accord with the rules and regulation and techniques prescribed by experts.” Converse to the previous point, there is the concept of the 3rd human drive: goals that can never be achieved. Without independence from an over-controlling society, there is, for example, no security that can be reasonably obtained without independence; as Ted elaborates, “The individual’s search for security is therefore frustrated, which leads to a sense of powerlessness.” Primitive man is more secure than modern man: “Primitive man, threatened by a fierce animal or by hunger, can fight in self-defense or travel in search of food… He is by no means helpless against the things that threaten him.” There is no way for the modern man alone to fight against “nuclear accidents, carcinogens in food, environmental pollution, war, increasing taxes, invasion of his privacy by large organizations, nationwide social or economic phenomena that may disrupt his way of life,” all of which come as a result of industrial society. As a minor rejection of this point, wars and other threats posed from larger groups of humans have always had the potential to make an individual helpless. However, the point stands that people face more helpless situations than they once did. Before the advent of nuclear bombs and absurdly powerful governments. Additionally, these threats “are IMPOSED on him by other persons whose decisions he, as an individual, is unable to influence. Consequently he feels frustrated, humiliated and angry.” On Guns: “This, by the way, is part of the reason why some people get worked up about the right to bear arms; possession of a gun puts that aspect of their security in their own hands.” Freedom in modern society: “We can do anything we like as long as it is UNIMPORTANT. But in all IMPORTANT matters the system tends increasingly to regulate our behavior.” “We do sneer at people who ARE content with servitude.” (83) “Some people partly satisfy their need for power by identifying themselves with a powerful organization or mass movement… When some of the goals are attained, the individual, even though his personal efforts have played only an insignificant part in the attainment of the goals, feels… As if he had gone through the power process.” Precisely the strategy used by leftist movements. “A surrogate activity is an activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that the individual pursues for the sake of the ‘fulfillment’ that he gets from pursuing the goal, not because he needs to attain the goal itself.” This is a common way people satisfy their need for the power process. “we consider it demeaning to fulfill one’s need for the power process through surrogate activities or through identification with an organization, rather than through pursuit of real goals.” When experts such as chemists or psychologists get emotionally invested in their profession--which they have made into their surrogate activity--they see things through lenses that make it impossible for them to see the other side of their research, such as the risk nuclear energy might have posed to humanity. “By ‘freedom’ we mean the opportunity to go through the power process, with real goals not the artificial goals of surrogate activities, and without interference, manipulation or supervision from anyone, especially from any large organization.” Freedom is not the same as “mere permissiveness,” for even if an individual is allowed to go through the power process as described above, that individual may find that forces in society make his desired action impossible. If someone wanted to move into the wilderness to become like primitive man to better fulfill the power process, there is little land left to go to because industrial society has destroyed much of it. That said, I certainly don’t believe an individual should have the “freedom” to murder others or burn cities to the ground. “The degree of personal freedom that exists in a society is determined more by the economic and technological structure of the society than by its laws or its form of government,” we are less free than we once were because the government has obtained the technology to more effectively enforce its laws. Some social theorists “have made the development and application of social theories their surrogate activity. Consequently the theories are designed to serve the needs of the theorists more than the needs of any people who may be unlucky enough to live in a society on which the theories are imposed,” precisely what has happened with modern “critical race theory” and other “woke” theories. “It should not be assumed that a person has enough freedom just because he SAYS he has enough.” “For example, it’s likely that many leftists of the oversocialized type would say that most people, including themselves, are socialized too little rather than too much, yet the oversocialized leftist pays a heavy psychological price for his high level of socialization.” “Leftism is in the long run inconsistent with wild nature, with human freedom and with the elimination of modern technology. Leftism is collectivist; it seeks to bind together the entire world (both nature and the human race) into a unified whole… You can’t have a united world without rapid long-distance transportation and communication, you can’t make all people love one another without sophisticated psychological techniques, you can’t have a ‘planned society’ without the necessary technological base. Above all, leftism is driven by the need for power, and the leftist seeks power on a collective basis, through identification with a mass movement or an organization.” From this, we can assert that anyone who is both a supporter of equality yet also strongly against modern technology holds an untenable position, for a society for equality cannot exist in the long term without the conveniences of modern society increasing the exposure people of different cultures have to each other. Leftists only oppose tools of oppression as long as they are being used against them, as demonstrated by the Bolsheviks and their stances on censorship. Leftists in the US were once entirely for freedom of speech due to them being a minority in universities; now, freedom of speech is being challenged like never before at universities because “leftists have become dominant, they have shown themselves willing to take away everyone else’s academic freedom. (This is ‘political correctness’).” Leftism as religion: “The leftist NEEDS to believe in leftism; it plays a vital role in his psychological economy. His beliefs are not easily modified by logic or facts. He has a deep conviction that leftism is morally Right with a capital R, and that he has not only a right but a duty to impose leftist morality on everyone.” “Leftism is totalitarian force. Wherever leftism is in a position of power it tends to invade every private corner and force every thought into a leftist mold.” “the leftist’s real motive is not to attain the ostensible goals of leftism; in reality he is motivated by the sense of power he gets from struggling for and then reaching a social goal.” Example: “the leftist wants equal opportunities for minorities. When that is attained he insists on statistical equality of achievement by minorities. And as long as anyone harbors in some corner of his mind a negative attitude toward some minority, the leftist has to re-educate him. And ethnic minorities are not enough; no one can be allowed to have a negative attitude toward homosexuals, disabled people, fat people, old people, ugly people, and on.” Paragraph 220 outlines the final result of the above perfectly; to summarize, there is no end to it, it is fabricated nonsense to fuel one’s surrogate activity in an attempt to satisfy the power process. These remarks are not true of all leftists, but they are true of some, “And the general character of a movement is not necessarily determined by the numerical proportions of the various kinds of people involved in the movement.” Exactly what constitutes leftist is a bit confusing, language confusion makes these things hard to discuss, Paragraph 229 for description of wha...