The Ugly Leftist

How Happy is That Man . . . 

Chris Trotter, arguably New Zealand's most prominent left wing columnist/theoretician, has recently written the following:

I once concluded an editorial in the NZ Political Review with the following observation:

“There is a paradox here. Conservative political culture, whose raison d’etre is the preservation of social inequality and economic exploitation (not to mention the institutional violence these things create and upon which ruling class power rests) tends to produce individuals of considerable personal charm and genuine liberality. While radical culture, which sets its face against the violence and injustice of entrenched privilege, all too often produces individuals who are aggressive, intolerant and utterly indifferent to the suffering which their relentless quest for justice causes.
“In short, the Right treats humanity like cattle and individual human-beings like princes, while the Left loves humanity with a passion but treats individuals like shit.”

Somewhere there must be an algorithm that delivers the best of both worlds.

I’m still looking.  (H/T Kiwiblog)

Apart from Chris's continuing quest for  the Holy Grail--for which we wish him bon chance--what are we to make of his observations?
  Firstly, the habitual character of left-wingers.  Are we really to believe that they have imbibed more longer and deeply from the glass of human depravity?  Yes and no.  The Left are idealists; they are ideologically imprisoned in a peculiar, false world view.  Their ideology is that evil is extrinsic and structural, arising out of the economic and social systems in which we live and move.  Change the system and the structures, and all will be put to right. Utopia will be realised.  Exploitation will cease.  Justice will roll down like a river.  Equality will break out.  The lion will lie down with the lamb--or more accurately, the lion will become the lamb.  We will all be lambs. 

So the Leftist has no responsibility to treat people well in a day-to-day, neighbourly sense.  He cannot, while the present system of unjust exploitation remains intact.  No-one can.  But change the economic system and it's a completely different ball game.  Economic determinism means that the individual will be transformed into a new creature by the new economic system.  Thus, the ideology trumps all individuals.  The Leftist loves mankind in the abstract, but obviates him as concrete particular.  The individual is a mere cipher.  The one who really loves mankind will focus like a laser upon throwing off the present economic exploitative system: then the newborn lion-lambs will emerge.  We will all be changed.  The needs of the many outweigh the need of the one. 

The Leftist is thus free to trample upon any individual who crosses him, who gets in the way of his version of the freight train of dialectical materialism.  Any individual who stands in the way of this version of progress, who dares to demur--be warned.  The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.  The Leftist is one of the last teleologists standing: the means are truly justified by the glory of the end.

The liberal/conservative has a different view.  The individual is more important than the system.  This leads to an ethical frame where individuals tend to be more respected, appreciated, and liked.  Human beings are respected right down to the level of their own individual choices.  Sometimes people make stupid choices and face bad consequences.  Sometimes people make sound choices and face bad consequences.  Either way, no-one is really morally and ethically enslaved to an economic system.  If someone is making an effort to do the right thing, he or she warrants help and encouragement.  If someone is not making an effort, they can be challenged and encouraged to do so.  The underlying presumption is the greater worth and dignity of a human soul, regardless of the socio-economic system.   The worth of the one is greater than the (abstract) worth of the many.

But are liberal/conservatives better people than leftists?  Trotter recounts from  his experience that tends to be the case.

In short, the Right treats humanity like cattle and individual human-beings like princes, while the Left loves humanity with a passion but treats individuals like shit.  

But on another level we demur.   It is true that liberals (in the Lockean sense) and conservatives (in the Burkean sense) place a far greater primacy upon the importance of individual human beings.  They remain deeply suspicious of a centralisation of rule in any hands.  Power and authority, therefore, must remain decentralised.  Government, therefore, must be limited.  Freedom of both individuals and civil corporations and associations must be preserved and defended--otherwise Leviathan will re-emerge.  Such a world-view tends to cherish the idiosyncrasies of human beings and their societies and corporations.  It is a world-view with a sense of humour.  Tolerance is its hand-maiden.

But without the meta-narrative of the Holy Scriptures and widespread devotion to the Living God and His Christ, Lockean liberals eventually devolve into secular liberalism which deifies the state and worships a re-emerging Leviathan.  And Burkean conservatives devolve into an idolatrous worship of what has been and is, rather than a reverence for the Lord of the Covenant and the providential Ruler of the past, present, and future. And so it has come to pass.

Leftists are just further down the road to perdition.  Without Christ, liberal/conservatives are fast followers.  They will get there soon enough. 

On the contrary, how happy is the man who makes the Lord his trust.  His love and devotion to mankind will abide--within the enabling restraints and constraints of the law of his Lord.  Leviathan consequently remains chained.  It's the only way he can be kept at bay.