The Walrus cover story, “Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons”, is the latest in a rash of articles and books, both here and in the US, warning that The Handmaid’s Tale is about to become “real life” any second now — warnings that started around 1980, and I’m still waiting for my headscarf or whatever it was.
This column attempts to explain what “theocon” fearmongers are so afraid of. Made sense to me, but then, it would.
Nazi? Oh, you mean your fellow travellers, the National Socialist Party?
Posted by: Irwin Daisy at October 4, 2006
Nice try. You know very well that the Nazis were a right wing party, their name notwithstanding. And they did use the phrase “human filth” in their propaganda, so you might want to avoid doing that yourself.
Minor points: Niezsche first published “God is Dead” in 1882 (see Joyful Science, section 125). He died in 1900.
Robert in Calgary,
That lengthy off topic post was by an internet robot. More commonly known as a ‘bot’.
mazz2 dumps anti-Liberal cut and pastes without any concern for Kate’s bandwidth. Since it’s anti-Liberal there’s a small audience for this paranoid nonsense and it’s just best to ignore like you would any common troll.
Right Douggie, why aren’t there riots in the streets and calls for beheadings?
Truthfully, we know why, we are living in the civilized world of the 21st century and we have evolved.
This stupid little Liberal game is nothing compared to that Republican pervert Foley and his cover-up boss the Speaker of the House Hastert.
The 2 of them get together in religious ceremonies and wash each others balls.
It’s one thing to lie about money but quite another to steal a child’s innocence.
Irwin,
Where is your source for this:
“Nietzsche is dead.
– God 1901”
Or was it just pretend?
Budd campbell – I think you have to define your terms. What do you understand by left and right wing political parties? These terms can become incomprehensible because everyone attaches different meanings to them.
The Nazis were fascist and that’s a ‘leftist ideology’, in that their intended social system was based on the homogeneity of the collective; it rejected any and all individualism. That group based ideology is socialist.
Its definition of the inhabitants of this collectivist social system was based on the notion of purity. The purity of type was focused in ethnicity. That’s utopianism, also a characteristic of a left ideology.
As collectivist, the fascist ideology rejected democracy, which is based on the individual rather than the group. Socialism is focused on the group.
Fascism rejected Marxism, even though both are socialist in structure, only because it rejected the idea of economic causality. Fascist causality, both Nazi and Islamic, is based in the essentialist identity of a Pure Form, found in an ethnicity and/or a religion. But this non-empirical causality, this focus on emotion rather than reason, is definitive of socialism and the left.
So- Nazism was a ‘left’ ideology. I suggest your clarify your terms.
A little darker makeup on Robert Duvall and a some more head coverings on the women and the Handmaids Tale could be what Ontario would look like with Sharia Law.
“You know very well that the Nazi’s were a right wing party…”
Oddly, that’s what socialists like to claim in an attempt to distance themselves from their sordid relatives. Yet the Nazi’s didn’t think so. They officially called themselves socialists and they were also collectivists.
Just like you Budd.
David Brown: “Since it’s anti-Liberal there’s a small audience…” Who do you think the audience is on this site? I’ll give you a hint, it’s anti-Liberal. Strange.
Murray: I stand corrected.
Johan | Kanada:
That question should be taken outside and shot.
We do not need to know anyone’s religion or sexuality, it’s too much information unless a person steps over the line with unwanted interference. It’s a case of tending one’s own business.
We see an example of what happens when religion goes amok with Muslim extremists terrorizing the world .
I’m an atheist but I don’t believe I would like a society where everyone was likewise.
I have no problem with kids singing Christmas carols that mention Jesus and so on. I would support most stores being closed (gasp) seven or eight days a year.
I recall when Chinook Centre first opened on Jan. 1, a tv report included an interview with a mom, apparently shopping on New Years was the best family activity she could come up with.
Loooking around at our “progressive” society, I would support more of God in the public square.
Are “progressives” that ignorant on the true meaning of the concept of “separation of church and state” or is twisting its meaning just another waypoint on their campaign to re-engineer our society into their hellish idea of utopia?
(a bit like claiming fascism is right wing)
Awhile ago, Jim said, “As far as I know the religious right are a small minority in Canada but get far too much publicity given the poverty of their views.”
You’re right, Jim, the so-called religious far right is a small minority in Canada, so who do you think is giving this minority “far too much publicity”?
The Left, of course. They always need a bogeyman, someone or group they can point to and say, “Aren’t they scary? Don’t vote for the person they support,” etc.
The true bigots are the Left. With no proof, whatsoever, of any “right wing religious fundamentalist conspiracy” they fan the flames of such a spectre to scare the H*ll out of easily duped, brainswahsed, and led Canadians.
The MSM are masters at this game.
It’s time that Canadians rejected this kind of bigotry and began to recognize the true nature of these scare tactics and where they’re coming from.
The Lefties are the bigots.
Oddly, that’s what socialists like to claim in an attempt to distance themselves from their sordid relatives. Yet the Nazi’s didn’t think so. They officially called themselves socialists and they were also collectivists.
Just like you Budd.
Posted by: Irwin Daisy at October 4, 2006 04:50 PM
My Oxford Illustrated Dictionary defines Fascism as “principles and organization of Italian nationalist anti-communist dictatorship (1922-43)” and “system of extreme right-wing or authoritarian views”.
ET – Re, your 11:08: Thou art playing god, creating something out of nothing….Well, at least wishfully thinking.
What you have said is reasonally tight, from a logical perspective (although I’d argue that over a beer).
In order to have a self-consistent view, you must believe as you do: “that our universe is organized rather than random; …that this is an evolving complexity of organization…”
The first statement is observationally apparent, but you have no (zip, zero, zilch, nada) grounds but philosophy to posit the second.
Your philosophy is predicated upon the assumption that God does not exist or engage His creation.
Like BATB, I noted what Jim said too: “As far as I know the religious right are [is] a small minority in Canada but get[s] far too much publicity given the poverty of their views.”
Well, Jim, as a Christian, I disagree.
Re views: Yours about the religious right seem pretty bigoted to me–based on no evidence at all.
Which views were you thinking of, Jim? I can think of lots of rich–not poverty stricken–views held by orthodox Canadian Christians (aka, the “religious right”). I’ve made a list.
To support your bias, why don’t you make a list of the poverty stricken views of the “religious right” to which you object and send them in? Then I’ll send in my list.
Then we’ll see just which set of views actually supports accountability and choice in this country and which one imposes a rigid ideology and lock-step adherence.
Jim, I’m looking forward to what you have to say.
Henry – are you questioning the reality of an increasing complexity of organization? That’s nothing to do with philosophy. That’s an established physical, chemical and biological fact. The wealth of research data on this is overwhelming. Check out any issue of Science, or BioSystems, or Complexity, or…etc etc.
For a basic example, a prokaryote is organizationally older and less complex than a eukaryote. There are many theories about the movement from a single cell to a complex organism, but, it did happen.
Yes, I think that the basic laws of organization also evolve, from the simple to the more complex, as morphologies develop into intricate networks of collaboration.
Since I’m an atheist, then, I don’t believe in god. Or any metaphysical agency.
“The Italian Fascists badly needed an economic program of their own… They were in search of a social philosophy, purely and exclusively Italian. Whether or not they knew that their gospel was merely a replica of British guild socialism is immaterial. At any rate, the stato corporativo was nothing but a rebaptized edition of guild socialism.”
— Ludwig von Mises in Human Action, a Treatise on Economics, chapter 33, section 4, “Guild Socialism and Corporativism”
Guild socialism, simply put, was a system where the guild or union could set the prices for their product. Obviously, guild socialism was doomed to fail in anybody’s system. You can imagine what would happen, if, say, a union of lawnmower producers said that all lawnmowers sold were to be priced at $7000 each. (Canada, think snowblowers.) And the lawnmower producers had to sell at this price. Insanity.
I think people are confusing the subject of “Christianity” with the public spokesmen for a few denominations. It might be of interest to know that there are theologians studying and publishing in universities who have no use for any denomination and are advised by their scholastic mentors to assiduously stay away from denominationalism.
These folks study Christianity as a geographer would study geology. They are Christians, but they have no interest in Christianity as it is popularly presented in the various churches.
Which brings me to the next point, which is that this indictment of Christianity strikes me as absurd.
Christianity is an enormously wide-ranging field. To say that one has dismissed Christianity is a bit like saying one has dismissed physics. The field of Judeo-Christianity is so enormous and contains thinkers of so many different persuasions, with so many arguments between various exponents ranging over so many centuries, that it is almost an error in logic to assume that one can act as if Christianity is some particular point of view that can be completely disregarded because of its presence in the public square.
Futhermore, I will go so far as to say that those of us raised for so many generations in the West have a tendency to almost be part of the Judeo-Christian cultural tradition even if we never give 2 seconds of thought to religion. Just as we are part of the Western tradition of literature, if we don’t know who Walt Whitman or T S Elliot are.
After all, I don’t believe that most of our conceptual paradimgs ultimately have been influenced by the Ramayana and the Bahavahad Gita. We cannot escape the psychological ramifications of being enculturated into the stream of Western thought and knowledge.
Try reading C.G. Jung’s book Aion, Researhes into the Pheonomenology of the Self. (I appreciate not everyone digs Jung, but these great thinkers, pioneers and researchers always contain elements of the truth somewhere.) He makes a very good case for the idea that we are Judeo-Christian in our psyches by virtue of being part of the Western mind.
In my personal view, divine nature is the intelligence transcendental to creation and also immanent within creation. Which could make me a bit of Plato and Aristotle. This is natural enough when one considers that Plato was a mathematician and Aristotle a botanist. (Speaking in terms of millennia ago.)
Whether that makes me a Christian or not depends on the perception of the person asking the question. I had one theologian friend who would always reply when asked if he were a Christian, “I don’t try to answer that question. I let other people answer it. What do you think I am?” I always thought it was a pretty good answer.
Thank you for this intelligent and thoughtful post, Greg in Dallas.
ET – we have no observational (definition: reproduce in lab, or ab inito calculate quantum mechanically) mechanism to demonstrate evolving complexity of organization. The presumption of mechanism is posited by the existence of complexity (definition: a system whose information content increases over time). The literature which suggest otherwise are (a) produced by naive and fuzzy-thinking individuals contextualizing their work within the current consensus paradigm, or (b) produced by “evangelists” of the current paradigm (eg. Dawkins).
My earlier point, which I shall condense, was that rational atheists are forced to take the position you do because nothing else is left to them. It is not taken on the basis of evidence, but on the lack of alternatives. That is, positing the non-existence of a creative transcendent deity (with possibly continued interest in the created order), the self-consistent atheist eventually descends into pantheism.
If you wish to degenerate into origins discussions, you may presume I am a logically-consistent classically-rational empiricist of the Calvinist sort, and I hold no theory well-tested without both replication and prediction. You may also presume I am annoyed with members of both ID/CS and Ev camps for the obvious reasons.
You have my email…
Its not faith that the light comes on when you turn on a switch its an understanding of physics. To think otherwise puts you in the same league as someone uneducated.If you live in Sask.as I do then I hope that Sask power will continue to provide same notwithstanding outages which do occure but we know that its not faith that restores the power but linemen.Now,if you dont think that atheism is a religion then thats your problem not mine.
“Harper is a fake Christian. Seriously, he is a Star Trek geek”
Hey Boob-er- bob, what the hell does liking star trek have to do with ANYTHING, other than liking star trek. He also likes NHL hockey, does that make he violence prone.
HGet real.
Horny Toad
“Are there any televangelists currently running for public office in North America? Wasn’t aware of it.”
and the reason for that ms shaidle is they learned their lesson when pat robertson tried it and we must be vigilant in reminding them of that factoid.
for me, a pivotal moment in my understanding of physics in particular and my surroundings in general, was when I realized heavier objects do not fall faster.
I began to review a number of beliefs for their accuracy, and discovering flaws and gaps in the logic, it led me to question a great number of common popular misconceptions.
clearly right wingers have not undergone this catharsis.
Kathy, you’re darned-totin’ I remember that.
Anita Bryant was the “wicked-witch-of-the-west” to gaydom’s poor little Dorothy.
Anita Bryant is High-Camp. A wonderful, vibrant women. In fact, I’m quite sure that she’s one of the kindest and most generous gals gay men would ever want to meet.
It’d be great to do her in drag during the next Gay “Pride” parade
I could buy one of those huge water-pistols, load it up with orange juice, and then spray it on the sagging buttocks of the passing party-goers.
If they balk, I’ll just tell ’em I’m …..uh……..”Little Miss Fresh-Squeezed”!
And “Cruising”?
Remember it, but never saw it.
Had no time for “art” back then; was too busy cruising….
Quick! Quick! Pass the poppers!
Budd,
Regardless of dictionary definitions, which are known to be redefined from time to time (ie. marriage, etc) – the facts remain the same:
Nazi’s officially called themselves Socialists and you call yourself a Socialist. Nazi’s were collectivists and you too are a collectivist.
What’s more, it could reasonably be stated, based on observation, that your party is anti-semitic as well.
Nonetheless, you and your type have much more in common with Nazi’s.
Nazi.
Greg in Dallas said:
“Furthermore, I will go so far as to say that those of us raised for so many generations in the West have a tendency to almost be part of the Judeo-Christian cultural tradition even if we never give 2 seconds of thought to religion.”
It is more than a tendency Greg; in my view, one does not select his cultural makeup, and one cannot change the gut-level values associated with culture that one inevitably absorbs, commencing in the cradle. People that grew up in “the West” who call themselves Christians, those who don’t call themselves Christians, those who call themselves atheists, agnostics, and, probably, even those who have converted to Islam, are all culturally Judeo-Christian. They simply have no choice in the matter. Esoteric values, espoused by denominational Christians, as well as values encompassed by terms such as right or left wing, are not the driving force that made “the West” what it is.
Greg, I think your 7:37 posting was excellent, and I would like to suggest, for those of us who aren’t up to engaging Jung, Aristotle, and Plato, that much enlightenment about the underpinnings of our “culture” can be gained from Thomas Cahill’s “Hinges of History” series. Cahill certainly gives me the knowledge and confidence to answer the question of whether I’m a Christian even though I have no interest whatsoever in any church.
Henry, you use too many big words for many of us Saskatchewaners.
“ET – we have no observational (definition: reproduce in lab, or ab inito calculate quantum mechanically) mechanism to demonstrate evolving complexity of organization.”
This is patently false. I attended the complex systems summer school at Santa Fe and there were scores of research programs that demonstrated evolving complexity of organization. Indeed, John Koza has made millions using these principles to develop so-called genetic programming that enables computers to evolve more efficient software solutions than top-down programming has achieved. Dismiss these researchers as fuzzy, but their results are being applied with success by engineers now, particularly in the medical fields.
The topic of this thread is why the left is so hostile to the Christian right. Plainly much of the hostility to the Christian right from the scientific community is the Christian right’s demonstrated hostility to the principles and products of scientific inquiry. In science, the null hypothesis is not to posit a behind-the-scenes agency. In science, Lee Smolin posits evolving (complexifying) laws of nature because positing immutable laws is a metaphysical presupposition that results in conundrums regading time in physics that are more easily resolved if it is possible that the laws of nature evolve. In other words, Smolin’s hypothesis is driven by the experimental/theoretical concerns of physics, not any so-called retreat from god hypotheses or theistic obsession. For an atheist, gods have as little relevance to science as does Santa Claus. the question is just not interesting within science.
Did anyone here ever read Robert Heinlein’s SF novels as a kid? Writing in the 60’s, he posited a ‘future history’ where most of the earth was nuked, and a theocratic, anti-technology government was formed in the US. Small pockets of technology users held out, and eventually a second American Revolution threw out the theocrats. Took ’em 60 years, though.
What I remember was his description of the period in the late 60’s – early 70’s (in books written in the 1950’s) as “the Crazy Years”. I believe that’s as apt a term as you can get to describe our current situation. Muslims can wear burkhas and demand not to be searched at airports, while Sikhs can wear turbans and daggers, but Christians – oh no! they want to recite a prayer!
oh no! for two weeks a year they want a nativity scene in the park! The horror!
I’m afraid that we will have a nuclear confrontation in the next 20 years, and that will usher in theo-totalitarian governments in North America. These groups will pay lip service to religion while imposing a decidely non-Christ-like set of morals – persecuting gays, stifling sexuality, etc. The war on terror has already eroded our civil liberties to a significant degree; these guys will finish the job.
Technology will help them. Full time electronic surveillance, no privacy in mail, email, or telephone, movement tracking via RFIDs – a cowed and frightened public won’t resist in the least.
I’m not frightened by real Christians. I am frightened by the type of clown that seems to rise to the leadership of ostensibly Christian organizations. Falwell, Bakker, Robertson – these guys are greedy thugs, not Christians.
murray- that must have been a great summer, attending the Sante Fe Institute! I envy you.
And of course, I agree with your outline of increasing self-developed complexity of organization.
However, I don’t think that the ‘left’, which I understand as postmodernism, is supportive of science. They reject it – just as the far, far right fundamentalists might reject it as well. I’m sure you recall the famous spoof on postmodernism by the physicist Alan Sokal, who submitted a bogus article to a humanities journal and they swallowed it, even though it was scientific nonsense.
ET,
I think that many might consider science as a work in progress. With that understanding, there’s interest, respect, hope and wonder.
ET: The course at Santa Fe was inspiring. So was the food at Santa Fe restaurants.
I would not reduce the left to the likes of literary, anti-scientific postmodernism. To be sure, those types show up on the left side of the spectrum. But there are a lot I now on the left (Marxists, Democrats, Liberals) who are pro-science and hostile to postmodernism. The common ground among the postmoderns and the left generally, I suppose, is victim politics, where the sympathetic left have allowed the discourse to be co-opted by postmodern-speak.
Again, Bud, re: the NAZIs being right-wing and not socialist:
-Centrally-planned economy
-strict state control of most or all means of production
-total control over the lives of its citizens
-authoritarian leadership
What part of this is NOT socialist?
“Oddly, that’s what socialists like to claim in an attempt to distance themselves from their sordid relatives. Yet the Nazi’s didn’t think so. They officially called themselves socialists and they were also collectivists.”
Some people on the extreme right have apparently redefined socialism in a way that allows them (by their own not very exacting standards) to characterize Naziism as a socialist phenomenon. This is a transparent defense mechanism that flies in the face of the historical facts. Oh, what’s the use ….
“However, I don’t think that the ‘left’, which I understand as postmodernism, is supportive of science. They reject it – just as the far, far right fundamentalists might reject it as well. I’m sure you recall the famous spoof on postmodernism by the physicist Alan Sokal, who submitted a bogus article to a humanities journal and they swallowed it, even though it was scientific nonsense.”
1) The left is not post-modernism. There is a kind of on-going quarrel between marxists and post-modernists.
2) Alan Sokal identifies himself as being on the left.