I promised a word or two on the nature of right-wing collectivists. Understand it is incomplete; then again, Im a land surveyor, not an anthropologist nor a political scientist. Im also biased; and while I admit my bias, and try to be as intellectually rigorous as I can, Im not immune to blind spots, so any omissions are unintentional. Disclaimers out of the way, perhaps we ought to define just what we mean by a right-wing collectivist. Its somewhat hard, largely owing to the way the words tend to have strayed from their original meaning. They have baggage. If we define a collectivist as one who believes that, to quote Spock from the Star Trek movie (who probably got it from elsewhere), The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few - or the one, a right-wing collectivist must therefore be one who believes that his worldview is the proper one for most of humanity. What is that worldview? For the purposes of discussion and brevity a simplified version might be a worldview founded on traditional values and institutions, with an emphasis on religion and stability. A Masonic writer once put forth the notion that the chief enemies to individual liberty and human welfare are, as he put it, Kingcraft, Priestcraft, and the Ignorant Mob-mind. The metaphor can be interpreted many ways (much like all of Masonry but this isnt a Masonic work), but in the present context can be thought of thus: Kingcraft in the hands of the right-wing collectivist brings out belligerence in foreign affairs, the intrusive police-state at home. Priestcraft in the hands of the right-wing collectivist forces his view of our Creator on everyone, forsaking the personal search for Divine Light with the mindless acceptance of dogma. The Ignorant Mob-mind in the hands of the right-wing collectivist tie the first two together. In it, we find the jingoistic attitude of My Country Right or Wrong, the false choice of If youre not with us, youre against us, and the meek acceptance of the security camera state. In it, we find the intrusion of religious doctrine in place of scientific discovery, as with the insistence in some jurisdictions that the Creation story of the Bible be given equal scholarly dignity as Natural Selection, if the latter is taught at all - a position which even the Catholic church refutes. Also, we find hostility toward those who believe differently, and paranoia where there need be none. Anyone who has ever read a Chick Tract understands this, as has anyone whos ever listened to a sermon on the persecution of the church in the deep south, as commodious a setting for Christianity as ever there was. Right-wing collectivism in the Priestcraft domain is not merely limited to Christianity, as other religions have attempted to insert their worldviews where they have no business. It is one thing, for example, for a Muslim mosque to be allowed to conduct its own internal affairs according to Sharia law, and for a judge to rule favorably on such a claim - it is the same thing as Canon Law in a Catholic church or the by-laws of any other denomination which are likewise guided by their faiths, and is equally innocent. It is quite another, however, for a Muslim mosque to presume to judge on matters which are properly the province of the civil and criminal courts, or for its adherents to enact penalties which are rightly the purview of legal authority. I personally do not include racism as a right-wing collectivist doctrine, because the most casual student of history must come to the conclusion that racism knows no ideology; rather, racists will use any ideology to justify their own beliefs. Like left-wing collectivists, those of the right-wing seek to use the power of the state to impose their worldview on others. The diference tends to be the spheres which the various wings tend to wish to intrude upon others liberty. Because of the diverse nature of American society - the variety of races in any one community, the mobility of the population, the breadth and depth of its beliefs and its binding principles - I hold that a theocratic tyranny is as unlikely in America as a Stalinist dictatorship. This is not to say, however, that its outward effects are benign. Like left-wing collectivism, that of the right wing does not have the power to take over the Nation; but like left-wing collectivism, it does have the power to wreck it.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 07:47:07 +0000
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