Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

Jonah Goldberg’s recent book, Liberal Fascism, has gotten a lot of bad press from certain members of the conservative intelligentsia. It is held by many critics to be sloppily argued, incendiary, and overly journalistic. Given the culture war that we are still fighting, these last two characteristics are not necessarily bad things. Be that as it may, the basic premise of the book is sound: that socialism, in all its forms, is tantamount to fascism. I would only point out as clarification that what Goldberg refers to in the title as “liberalism” really just means “socialism.” Technically, this is an inappropriate conflation of terms. But given the current state of public discourse regarding politics the title serves its purpose well.

Recently, I have been reading a book co-written by Canadian neuroscientist Maurio Beauregard and Canadian journalist Denyse O’Leary entitled The Spiritual Brain. It is a well-argued refutation, from the standpoint of modern neuroscience, of mind-brain reductionism. The theme of the book is pertinent to political discussion because there is a close connection between socialism and philosophical materialism, and the authors have some interesting, if brief, things to say regarding this connection. Denyse O’Leary is a contributor on several fine weblogs. One of these is the Post-Darwinist blogpot. I was perusing this weblog earlier today when I stumbled upon her review of Goldberg’s book, which she highly recommends. Here is how she describes Goldberg’s basic argument:

In reality, most of the modern Western states that are hurtling toward fascism are nanny states.

Instead of ordering you into a concentration camp, the government orders you into poverty, lifetime speech bans, and sensitivity training. For “your own good”, of course.

All a bit more comfortable than a concentration camp. But - either way - there is no mistaking the relationship between you and government. The government is there to Fix Your Thoughts. Change Your Speech. Make You Either Virtuous or Extinct.

The basic idea: Fascist states are states where the government assumes roles that people used to attribute to God.

It doesn’t matter whether you believe in God. If you make the government God, well you’ve got a God. And your new God is in your face, at every opportunity. Not like the Old One.

Goldberg offers a number of characteristics of the fascist state that well describe Canada today under the rule of our “human rights” commissions - which make themselves judges both of a clergyman’s sermons and a comic’s jokes. Here are the five I think most relevant:

1. Identity politics: Fascist politics revolves around “identities”: “transgendered person”, “generously proportioned person”, “first X-type person to … “, “an X-type victim of … ” et cetera.

Hordes of taxpayer-funded advocates promote tax-funded rewards for a given identity - or compensation for an injured identity, extracted from some hapless victim who has already been ruined by legal fees.

Identified traditionalists are key targets. For example, it is not accident that, as Ezra Levant has pointed out, white Christian males are disproportionately targets. They thrived in the days of liberal democracy. The extent of their persecution is the extent of its decline.

2. Culture of grievance All fascist cultures, whether the nanny state or Islamic fascism (obligatory beards and burqas) or whatever, are cultures of grievance. The basic message is: We are not happy and it is someone else’s fault! That guilty person must be made to admit it and be punished! And pay us money, … lots of money!

3. Enemies The fascist always has “enemies.” You or I, by contrast, mainly have rivals and competitors. Conveniently for the fascist, her enemies are the enemies of “the state” or “the people.” Those enemies justify the immense amount of power she wants over our lives. She needs that power to fight the enemies - who are everyone’s enemies, or so she claims.

And if the enemies that justify her power don’t exist, she must invent them! That explains

4. Constant crises Fascist states, nanny or otherwise, thrive on crises because crises enable them to acquire power that no sane person would give them in the absence of a crisis.

Have you noticed the sheer number of “crises” that afflict fat, rich societies today?

How about this one: The “crisis” of obesity. Lots of people are fat. So? Calling fat a crisis justifies the nanny state telling you what you can and can’t eat, banning stuff, and policing the popular fast food industry in the same way that some “human rights” commissars now hope to police late nite comedy.

The reality: There is no crisis.

Millions of people say yes to a second helping and no to a long walk.

That is not a crisis. It is a personal choice that can affect health and appearance. It may raise health care costs - but if most adult taxpayers are slightly overweight, the increased costs are costs we have volunteered for.

The reality, by the way, is that underweight people are far more at risk of early death than overweight ones. And a true crisis would be if millions of Canadians were starving and there was no way to get food to them.

5. Government is religion This last point is, in my view, the greatest concern. All fascist states, including the communist* variant, become a religion to their supporters. Pay attention when someone insists that the government should “inspire” people or “increase self-esteem.” People should go to church or an ashram or a Humanist counsellor or something if they want that kind of thing.

The government of a free society is a limited government - limited in its objectives and strictly defined in its powers. It is not there to solve existential problems or make us all love and respect each other. In other words, it is the exact opposite of Canada’s “human rights” commissions - which are unlimited and undefined, and increasingly out of control.

Obviously, it is going to be very difficult and take a long time to solve the problems we have created for ourselves by allowing government to become a schlock religion that loves us and creates self-esteem.

*Note: Communism is a form of fascism. Its “identity politics” is the industrial working class, thus it is internationalist rather than nationalist. So the Soviet Union invaded Hungary, Czechosolovakia, and Poland to enforce the “workers’ state.”

This is all quite true, and the fascism described here is in perfect alignment with the direction that the Democrat Party wants to take the United States. This is why the upcoming election is so important, and why I cannot for the life of me figure out why so many Catholics seem to be enduring a stuggle of conscience regarding whom to vote for: Obama or McCain.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Democrat Party has a pressing goal on its short-term agenda: the destruction of intermediate, pre-political institutions that impede the State’s direct control over the individual. The Democrats see the family and the Church as the great enemies of governmental power and think that they must be destroyed. This is why promotion of abortion-rights policy comes so naturally to the Democrat Party. Abortion is not only the murder of innocent children, it is also a symbol of society’s indifference toward, if not hatred of, the intrinsic, biological, familial bond.

Contrary to much of what comes from the USCCB, the Democrat Party’s promotion of the welfare state is not inherently in accord with Christian social justice. The welfare state does not uplift the poor. Rather, it serves as the instrument by which the government takes control over individual lives, by which it tells people what to do with their lives, and even what to think.

Of course, many point to the Iraq War as the great counterbalance to this line of argumentation. This is fallacious, in my opinion. One can argue whether it is a just war or not. But one thing that it is not is a directly intended instrument for the expansion of the power of the federal government. It is comical to hear socialists scream about George Bush as if he were a tyrant. Meanwhile, they point to their Great White Hope in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, as an exemplary political leader. Given their hysteria, it is hardly worthwhile pointing out to them that Chavez, unlike Bush, brooks no public dissent to his commands.

And even though the war has had unintended consequences in regard to expanding the power of the state in some ways, the many vehement critics of the war in the Republican Party show that the Party as such is not inherently directed to the expansion of governmental power. In fact, it is often rightly remarked that Bush’s Wilsonian foreign policy is contrary to the ethos of the conservative movement that built up the modern Republican Party. In other words, the Party is redeemable.

The same does not appear to be true at present on the Democrat side, where there is no effective voice or resistance to the eugenicist ethos that fits so naturally into their socialism. Indeed, they are the party at present of unmitigated philosophical materialism. I am not even sure that one could make a coherent defense of the substantiality of human personhood from within the wider context of their socialist and materialist ethos.

Certainly, the Republican Party is much more amenable than the socialist Democrats to leaving the Church alone to fulfill its mission, and it is not hell-bent on deforming our social concept of the family.

Quite simply put, the Democrat Party is the party of socialism, and socialism just is fascism. Do Catholics really have that tough of a choice this election season?