Honesty, Clarity, And Other Virtues The Left Strives To Suppress

     To one whose highest priority is power, anything that might obstruct or impede his pursuit of power is a fault to be avoided. That includes any of the conventionally recognized virtues.

     Today the great Chris Muir has something to say about that:

     Note the unabashed use of a word tabooed by our sociocultural shamans. I have no problem with it. American Negroes use it freely, and I refuse to allow anyone to tell me that what they can say to and about one another, I cannot. But then, colored people have a lot of strange ideas, don’t they?

     Chris expressed an important observation in a striking fashion: clarity. Moreover, he bull’s-eyed it in the process: honesty. Clearly, he’d never fit in on the Left. Somehow I doubt that it troubles him overmuch.

     Now let’s look at how Left-wing activists would view Chris’s “American white men are the nigger of the whole world” statement. Would they salute its unflinching honesty about the bigotry being exercised against the nation and the race that built the modern world and three times saved it from irrevocable tyranny? Clearly not, as it runs counter to one of their major weapons for advancement: the inculcation and exploitation of undeserved guilt among American whites.

     Well, what about its clarity? Would that draw the approbation of Leftist activists? Again, clearly not (note the irony). To be clear about an injustice being perpetrated by the Left is to paste a target onto one’s chest. (If you’re a white male you’ve already got one on your back, as the Left prefers to strike its targets unaware. Cowards are like that.)

     Virtues we were once taught to pursue in our spoken and written communications are anathema to the Left. Whenever a Leftist expresses himself on any subject, you may rest assured that both honesty and clarity will be absent from his emission. Nor would it advance either cause to ask him “what do you mean by that?” He’ll simply call you a racist and walk away.

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     The Western nations are rooted in Christian ethics. I’ve referred on several occasions to the First World as the nations of the Christian Enlightenment. The Enlightenment thinkers may have been indifferent to Christianity as a faith, but they absorbed its ethos whole, and never departed from it. The core of that ethos consists of seven virtues:

• The three theological virtues:
  1. Faith,
  2. Hope,
  3. Charity;
• And the four cardinal virtues:
  1. Prudence,
  2. Justice,
  3. Temperance,
  4. Fortitude.

     For political purposes, faith should be regarded as a secular attribute: i.e., faith in the rightness of the ethos for public action. I’m sure my Gentle Readers need no help in discerning why those seven virtues are anathema to the power-seeker. All seven are clearly – a little more irony there – essential to the maintenance of a free and harmonious society.

     So the Leftist, the ultimate power-seeker, must act to suppress and extirpate the seven virtues wherever they are found. Certainly he must avoid practicing them himself. And he must struggle to suppress the comprehension of why he does so…among others, of course.

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     “Mr. Rearden,” he had said once, “if you feel you’d like to hand out more of the Metal to friends of yours—I mean, in bigger hauls—it could be arranged, you know. Why don’t we apply for a special permission on the ground of essential need? I’ve got a few friends in Washington. Your friends are pretty important people, big businessmen, so it wouldn’t be difficult to get away with the essential need dodge. Of course, there would be a few expenses. For things in Washington. You know how it is, things always occasion expenses.”
     “What things?”
     “You understand what I mean.”
     “No,” Rearden had said, “I don’t. Why don’t you explain it to me?”
     The boy had looked at him uncertainly, weighed it in his mind, then come out with: “It’s bad psychology.”
     “What is?”
     “You know, Mr. Rearden, it’s not necessary to use such words as that.”
     “As what?”
     “Words are relative. They’re only symbols. If we don’t use ugly symbols, we won’t have any ugliness. Why do you want me to say things one way, when I’ve already said them another?”
     “Which way do I want you to say them?”
     “Why do you want me to?”
     “For the same reason that you don’t.”
     The boy had remained silent for a moment, then had said, “You know, Mr. Rearden, there are no absolute standards. We can’t go by rigid principles, we’ve got to be flexible, we’ve got to adjust to the reality of the day and act on the expediency of the moment.”
     “Run along, punk. Go and try to pour a ton of steel without rigid principles, on the expediency of the moment.”

     [Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged]

     Rand’s prescient vision was largely focused on the economic sphere. Yet it applies without distortion to every realm in human intercourse. The Left is savagely determined to suppress all the virtues of the Christian Enlightenment, and to do so without ever admitting its mission. Therefore it must treat honesty and clarity as mortal enemies to be destroyed. Should those virtues in communication make a true comeback – should we all return to speaking plainly, using words according to their common meanings and eschewing all dissimulation – the Left will go down to a most ignominious defeat.

     So by all means ask the Leftist haranguing you “What do you mean by that?” Smile when he calls you a racist, sexist, xenophobe, homophobe, transphobe, Islamophobe, or whatever. Then tell him, “Your response has been video-recorded. Have a nice day.” Tot it up as your good deed for the day.

     Food for thought.