Coming Out of the Closet

It Ain't Pretty

Fairfacts Media has pointed us to a remarkable article in Spiegel. The whole piece is worth reading, but the introduction gives us the gist of the whole.

In an excerpt from his new book, SPIEGEL editor Jan Fleischhauer describes his childhood in a typical West German liberal family, with parents who wouldn't let him eat oranges because they were grown in countries ruled by dictators, and his coming out as a late conservative.

I can say with confidence that I know my way around liberals. I've spent half of my life in their company. My parents were on the left, as were my schoolmates and the majority of my teachers, my fellow students at university and, of course, all of my professors. Most of my colleagues are still liberals today.

It isn't as if I have suffered because of it. I had a very sheltered childhood; it's just that I was sheltered by liberals. I saw my first Disney film together with my own children. When McDonald's opened a restaurant in our neighborhood, my father gave me a serious talk about the corruptive influence of American fast-food culture. The enjoyment of my first burger was an act of adolescent rebellion, and to this day, I still feel slightly guilty on my occasional visits to McDonald's.

I am part of a generation in Germany that knows no other reality than the dominance of the left. Everyone was a liberal where I grew up. This isn't entirely self-evident, because the neighborhood in which I grew up would generally be described as an exclusive residential area. My parents' friends -- and their friends, of course -- all voted for the left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD), and later for the Green Party.

There are a few things that immediately stand out here. Firstly, let's bear in mind that Helen Clark and the Sisterhood have long set their caps towards Europe as their preferred model for New Zealand. They have had an objective to turn New Zealand into a South Pacific version of European social democracy. They have played a strategic and patient hand to bring this about. Clarke has gone on to continue the fight on a bigger stage. But let's be in no doubt that she and her coterie will not have given up their ambitions for this country. They play a long game, and they will be back. As we read Fleischhauer's description of the Germany he grew up in and in which he lives we also see the picture and model of what has been the Clarkist vision for this country.

Now, consider the following paragraph from Fleischhauer, describing the mindset of his mother:

My mother joined the Social Democrats in 1969, because of her enthusiasm for (former SPD Chairman and Chancellor) Willy Brandt. She always took her obligations as a party member very seriously. She could become extremely passionate when the conversation turned to politics, which meant that discussions with her sometimes lasted so long that you would simply give up, out of sheer exhaustion. In all those years, I never heard her say that the party had erred on an important issue. There were certainly tactical weaknesses, she said, but nothing fundamental. The other side, in her view, was constantly in the wrong, making one faulty decision after the next, or it was so deeply corrupt that it was deliberately leading the country astray. It was astonishing, under these circumstances, that the Social Democrats had such a difficult time staying in power. But, in my mother's opinion, this simply proved that the other side was using dirty tricks.

Change times and places. Is this not a profoundly accurate description of Clarkist rule in New Zealand. The other side constantly in the wrong, deeply corrupt, making one bad decision after another, leading the country astray. Her political opponents were dirty tricksters. This one eyed extremism Fleischhauer describes in his mother is almost a word-for-word parallel with how Clark and the sisterhood see the world.

Germany is a predominantly leftist country--as indeed all the continent of Europe is. One of the cultural characteristics of that culture as described by Fleischhauer is its abstemiousness and extreme political correctness. Even food becomes morally reviewed and tested. Food is political. One is reminded of the extreme otherworldliness (and ugliness) of the Stylites--those semi-pagan christian extremists who desperately wanted to escape from contact with anything evil.

There is nothing wrong with growing up in a household in which the national origins of fast food are turned into a political issue, one that sheds light on correct awareness. From an early age, one is trained to be on the lookout for moral snares. In our family, as in all good leftist families, seemingly ordinary, everyday decisions were imbued with a momentousness difficult to comprehend for anyone but the politically initiated. Every item purchased at the supermarket was subjected to an assessment of not only its freshness and flavor, but also its moral quality. Organic oatmeal was clearly superior to industrial muesli, even if it tasted like bran, because we were always suspicious of major brands and supported small cooperatives.

Naturally, my mother was fundamentally opposed to buying Pepsi (because of its associations with the United States, big industry and Republicans) or Coca-Cola (USA, big industry, Democrats), except for children's birthday parties or when we were sick and nauseous. Then we were given small amounts of the ice-cold beverage, which is why I still associate Coca-Cola with sickness today. When the papers reported that children in Africa had died after consuming Nestlé powdered milk, Nesquik immediately disappeared from the breakfast table. When a friend told me that Smarties candies were also made by Nestlé, I prayed ardently that my mother would never find out.

Does this not remind us of the Clarkist foodista police?

Now, we may be tempted to think that Fleischhauer's childhood was extreme. However, he argues that it is typical of growing up in today's Germany. Even "conservatives" are so far left that they are over the next hill and out of sight.

After seven years under an SPD/Green Party coalition government, the country is now being run by the CDU and its chancellor once again, and most states have a conservative governor at their helms. But that doesn't change the fact that conservatives are practically nonexistent wherever decisions are made on how we look at and evaluate things.

Go to any theater, museum or open-air concert, and you'll quickly realize that ideas beyond the mindscape of the left are unwelcome there. A contemporary play that doesn't critically settle scores with the market economy? Unthinkable. An artist who, until George W. Bush left the White House, could associate anything with America other than Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and the Washington's refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol? Out of the question. Rock concerts against the left? A joke.

The left has won, across the board, and has become the happy medium. When we search for a definition of what left means, we can draw on an impressive array of theories. Leftism is a worldview, as well as a way of explaining the world and how everything is interconnected. Most of all, however, it is a feeling. A person who lives a leftist life is living with the appealing awareness of being in the right, in fact, being right all the time. In Germany, leftists are never truly called upon to justify their views. In fact, their views have become the dominant views, not within the population, which stubbornly adheres to its prejudices, but among those who set the tone and in circles where they prefer to congregate.

Somehow, somewhere along the way Fleischhauer became a conservative. He is not sure how or when it happened.

I missed the connection at some point. I don't know when it happened. There wasn't a specific day or incident that turned me off to the left. I cannot even claim that I consciously distanced myself. It just happened. Suddenly I no longer found it amusing to listen to constant jokes about the physiognomy of (former Chancellor Helmut) Kohl. I realized that I was relieved when my sons converted the puppet theater my father-in-law and I had built for them into a parking garage. When the discussion turned to the uselessness of marriage and family, I was the one who was secretly rooting for every married couple, hoping it would last as long as possible. Once, at a party, I even dared to put in a good word for nuclear energy during a conversation about climate change. It immediately put a damper on the evening.

I tried to suppress my conservative tendencies at first. I convinced myself that they would eventually pass, like adolescent hot flashes. The next time I heard a joke about Kohl, I laughed more loudly than usual, hoping not to be noticed. In other words, I behaved like a 40-year-old married father who suddenly realizes that he's gay, and doesn't know what to do.

Priceless! But now that he is out of the closet, he has decided it is better to go on the offensive.

I have since learned to go on the offensive with my conservatism. In fact, sometimes I even have the courage to address prejudices head-on. We recently invited a couple we have known for a long time, but with whom we had fallen somewhat out of touch, over to our house. He became a law professor at a university in eastern Germany not too long ago, and she promotes golf courses. The conversation quickly turned to the last Michael Moore film, and our friend suddenly claimed that the film could not be shown throughout the entire Midwest of the United States. He made it sound as if Moore were some French auteur filmmaker who was finally holding up a mirror to the Americans, which they couldn't abide.

I had a pretty clear idea of how the conversation would continue, and I knew that I would be upset with myself afterwards, once again, because I hadn't challenged him decisively enough. "To make it brief, because we'll get to this point anyway," I heard myself saying: "No, I don't believe that the CIA was behind the Sept.11 attacks, and yes, we liked living in America." He was quiet, we drank our tea, and the two said their goodbyes before long. I was shocked by what I had said, but also a little proud of myself.

This is the post-Christian west. This is where we are all headed so long as we idolise Man and his inerrant reason. It is a world full of moral abstemiousness, self-righteousness, and priggishness. It is a world which presumes a divine right to wealth and prosperity, while finding the whole business of commerce distasteful. It is a world of mindless and hateful elitism. It is a world where, in the end, human beings are the enemy.

It is the world of Shelob, bloated, and feeding in the dark.

Hat Tip: Fairfacts Media