Jim Ryan posts infrequently but thoughtfully. His latest entry is a list of truths he considers self-evident. I don't consider them all self-evident, but I do consider them all true.
Month: September 2013
Reading About Commies
In partial answer to a reader's query, here are some good books about Communism. These are 'second-tier' books. First read Whittaker Chambers, Witness; Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism (three vols.); Cszelaw Milosz, The Captive Mind. What follows is a 1 August 2004 post updated and expanded from my first weblog.
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I like reading books by and about Communists and former Communists. One reason is that I think it will give me some insight into the related phenomenon of Islamism, which would not be badly described as the Communism of the 21st century. Here are some out-of-the-way titles I have dug up recently. I have found them both enlightening and entertaining. Being ‘fair and balanced,’ as everyone knows, I read materials both sympathetic and hostile to Communism.
Vivian Gornick, The Romance of American Communism (New York: Basic Books, 1977). Consists of sympathetic biographical sketches of numerous American communists. A very enjoyable read for those who enjoy psychology and biography.
Aileen Kraditor, “Jimmy Higgins”: The Mental World of the American Rank-and-File Communist, 1930-1958 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988). An academic sociological study by a former commie, and Boston University professor “written from a conservative standpoint.” (Preface) Strongly recommended, and of course ignored by leftists. Note that I didn’t say,‘suppressed by leftists,’ because that is the silly way they talk. To ignore something is not to suppress it, any more than to refuse to sponsor or subsidize something is to censor it. Especially egregious is the use of 'voter suppression' by leftists to refer to common sense polling place requirements such as government-issued photo ID.
Bella V. Dodd, School of Darkness (New York: P. J. Kennedy, 1954) Bella Dodd’s idealism swept her up into the Communist Party, as did Whittaker Chambers' and and the idealism of so many of the best and brightest of their generation. But after wasting years of her life in the CPUSA, it spit her out. Disillusioned, she turned to Catholicism, taking instruction from none other than Bishop Fulton J. Sheen in New York City. She had come to the conclusion that the brotherhood of man is possible only under the fatherhood of God. Her book is available on-line here.
Ron Radosh, Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left, and the Leftover Left, Encounter, 2001. There are some juicy revelations about Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary, on pp. 39-40. But I am too lazy to type them up. But I'm not too lazy to link to this great PP & M tune.
The Essential Sermon
"The essential sermon is one's own existence." Søren Kierkegaard, Journals, #1056
Obama Indicts Obama
Another brilliant analysis by VDH. Ends thusly:
So why is there such a disconnect between what Obama once declared and what he subsequently professed? There are four explanations, none of them mutually exclusive:
A. Candidate Obama had no experience in foreign policy and has always winged it, now and then recklessly sounding off when he thought he could score cheap points against George Bush. As president, he still has no idea of how foreign policy is conducted, and thus continues to make things up as he goes along, often boxing himself into a corner with serial contradictions. Trying to discern any consistency or pattern in such an undisciplined mind is a futile exercise: what Obama says or does at any given moment usually is antithetical to what he said or did on a prior occasion. He is simply lost and out of his league [12].
B. Candidate Obama has always been an adroit demagogue. He knew how to score political points against George Bush, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain, without any intention of abiding by his own sweeping declarations. The consistency in Obama’s foreign policy is his own carefully calibrated self-interest. Bombing or not bombing, shutting down or keeping open Guantanamo Bay, going or not going to the UN or the U.S. Congress — these choices are all predicated not on principle, but only on what a canny and unprincipled Obama feels best suits his own political interests and self-image at any given moment. In a self-created jam, he flipped and now goes to Congress in hopes of pinning responsibility on them [13], whether we go or not, whether successful or unsuccessful if we do. He is a quite clever demagogue.
C. Obama is a well-meaning and sincere naïf, but a naïf nonetheless. He really believed the world prior to 2009 worked on the premises of the Harvard Law School lounge, Chicago organizing, and Rev. Wright’s Church — or least should have worked on such assumptions. Then when Obama took office, saw intelligence reports, and assumed the responsibilities of our highest office, he was shocked at the dangerous nature of the world! There was no more opportunity for demagoguery or buck-passing, and he had to become serious. In short, it is easy to criticize without power, hard with it to make tough decisions and bad/worse choices. He is slowly learning.
D. Obama is the first president who genuinely feels U.S. exceptionalism and power were not ethically earned and should be in an ethical sense ended. As a candidate, he consistently undermined current U.S. foreign policy at a time of two critical wars; as president, he has systematically forfeited U.S. authority and prestige. There is no inconsistency: whatever makes the traditional idea of the U.S as a superpower weaker, Obama promotes; whatever enhances our profile, he opposes. He is often quite angry at what could be called traditional America — seen often as a downright mean country [14] here and abroad.
All of the above, say I. But especially (A), (B), and (D).
Michael Valle on Marxism-Leninism and Islamism
There are four new philosophical-political posts at Mike Valle's infrequently updated weblog that I recommend. Start with Marxism-Leninism and Islamism and scroll up. Excerpts with some comments of mine:
One thing that people got wrong with the communists, and they get wrong with the Islamists, is that they think that people can’t really believe this stuff. They think these people think that they are acting from these ideas, but they are really reacting to oppressive conditions, and these crazy ideological ideas are only an indirect way of expressing their frustration with their conditions.
[Scott Atran, anthropologist, seems to maintain this absurd view as I report in Does Anyone Really Believe in the Muslim Paradise?]
What Bochenski argues for communism, I also argue for Islamism: Yes, they really do believe this stuff, and we insult not only reality but those very people themselves by suggesting that we know more than they do about their own motivations. Yes, an Islamist does, in fact, believe that Allah will reward him for his violent martyrdom. He believes it in the marrow of his bones. Not only that—he will believe it even if he is no longer oppressed, lives in a big house, has a great job, has a university education, and the rest of it. Throwing money at Islamists does not kill ideology. Ideology is more powerful than wealth. Just as with communist terrorists, the Islamist terrorists are quite frequently well-educated and, by the standards of history, not particularly oppressed. They are ideologues.
Mike is on the money. What's the best test for belief? Action! By their fruits shall ye know them. What people believe is manifested by their actions in the context of their verbal avowals. People who think that Communists and Islamists don't really believe what they say they believe are probably just engaging in psychological projection: "I can't believe this stuff, so you can't either."
But the fact that I can't bring myself to believe in, or even entertain with hospitality, any such nonsense as a classless society or the dictatorship of the proletariat or post-mortem dalliance with 72 black-eyed virgins as recompense for piloting jumbo jets into trade towers, or that the USA is permeated with 'institutionalized racism' – cuts no ice. People believe the damndest things and they prove it by their behavior, and the fact that other people can't 'process' this at face value means nothing. People really do believe this crap.
We all seek a transcendental meaning to our lives, except for those few of us who live as animals. National Socialism, Communism, and Islamism give people that meaning, and having such a meaning is, for many people, far more important than material comforts and wealth. I think this is fine, as long as one’s transcendental purpose isn’t murderously evil, of course.
Mike here touches upon the problem of misplaced idealism.
It is not enough to have ideals, one must have the right ideals. This is why being idealistic, contrary to common opinion, is not always good. Idealism ran high among the members of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the Schuetzstaffel (SS). The same is true of countless millions who became Communists in the 20th century: they sacrificed their 'bourgeois' careers and selfish interests to serve the Party. (See Whittaker Chambers, Witness, required reading for anyone who would understand Communism.) But it would have been better had the members of these organizations been cynics and slackers. It is arguably better to have no ideals than to have the wrong ones. Nazism and Communism brought unprecedented amounts of evil into the world on the backs of idealistic motives and good intentions. Connected with this is the point that wanting to do good is not good enough: one must know what the good is and what one morally may and may not do to attain it.
It is therefore a grotesque error, one that libs and lefties have a soft spot for, to suppose that being idealistic is good in and of itself. The question must follow: idealistic in respect of which ideals? No doubt John Lennon in his silly ditty "Imagine" expressed lofty ideals; but his ideals are the utopian ideals of the Left, and we know where they lead. It is not good to be idealistic sans phrase; one must be idealistic in respect of the right ideals. Only then can we say that being idealistic is better than being a common schlep who serves only his own interests.
Bochenski was right about communism. Too many are still in denial or ignorance of the destructive and evil nature of communism (as were so many of my professors), just as too many are hopelessly naïve about the power of Islamist ideology (as are so many “intellectuals”).
I would add the following. Communism is not dead. it lives on in those leftist seminaries called colleges and universities. To understand the Left and its political correctness, you must study the history of Communism. As I have said more than once: PC comes from the CP!
A related point is that Islamism is shaping up to be the Communism of the 21st century. Which is another reason to study Communism.