Progressive Regressivism

The psychological condition of a person making a claim or advancing an argument is not thereby a solid basis for rejecting or accepting said claim or argument. 

Moreover, imputing a psychological condition as a basis for a political outlook is a rather tenuous business to begin with - notwithstanding the condition not being a logical basis for accepting or rejecting the political position.

But - it is enticing and does provide insight into the fibrous connections that tie together an overall political philosophy or view. Granting, then, that such imputation is not in itself a basis for refutation, I find the following a teasing insight as to what strings together the political views of the progressive multiculturalists. Consider the following two paragraphs from recent articles by Bruce Bawer and David Solway, respectively.

(Bruce Bawer, Boston and the Infantilism of Jihad Denial).

Yet what made multiculturalism attractive to these people in the first place is that it's tailor-made for spoiled, narcissistic grown children who don't want to have adult enemies - that is, the kind of enemies who represent a real danger to them or that they might ever really have to fight. It's tailor-made for people who cherish the notion of themselves as sensitive and understanding toward "The Other," and whose enemies of choice are, basically, parental substitutes - people who draw clear moral distinctions, who talk about the need for security, and who make unequivocal assertions about the superiority of American freedom to Islamic tyranny.

(David Solway, On the Arrested Development of the Left).

Several years ago, I wrote of leftism with a focus on its arrested development, noting that the predisposition of the left "derives from a tropism of the mind rooted in what we might call the 'utopian temperament' -- which is to say, in a condition of prolonged infantilism. The belief that human nature can be either transformed or superseded by social and political legerdemain is a function of arrested development, of the child's conviction that make-believe can somehow alter the structure of the world he or she inhabits. Adults who feel and act the same way would appear to be differentially retarded, despite their ability to spin ideas, practice oratory and compose intricate texts and ringing manifestos." At bottom, the left's hypothetically noble vision of human redemption "is founded in the child's need for reinforcement and protection, propelling the fledgling spirit into the orbit of the magistral savage or mentoring autocrat and their faux-therapeutic nightmares."

Infantilism. Arrested development. Spoiled, narcissistic grown children who don't want to have adult enemies. It's our parent's (USA) fault we have enemies. The shoe fits.

 


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