... Violence, vulgarity, and educational failure: three aspects of modern English life that are so obvious and evident that it requires little observational power to discern them. Indeed, it requires far more mental effort and agility not to discern them, to screen them out of one's consciousness ...A little long but well worth the read.
It is worth examining the mental mechanisms that liberal intellectuals use to disguise the truth from themselves and others, and to ask why they do so.
First, there is outright denial. ...
Second, there is the tendentious historical comparison or precedent. ...
Third, once the facts are finally admitted under the duress of accumulated evidence, their moral significance is denied or perverted....
Every liberal prescription worsened the problem that it was ostensibly designed to solve. But every liberal intellectual had to deny that obvious consequence or lose his [deeply ingrained world view] ...
Sunday, December 21, 2014
The roots of cultural decline - liberal intellectualism
Theodore Dalrymple, in his essay "Seeing is Not Believing", traces the roots of cultural decline in British society:
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6 comments:
I don't think liberal intellectualism has led to a decline at all. Yes sometimes they are a bit snobbish and maybe don't listen enough to the concerns of your average person or are perhaps a little too idealistic. But I think the idealism of a tolerant, peaceful, and compassionate society are worthy goals. They just maybe are a little naïve on how to best get there or perhaps realize we are moving in that direction but it will take time, it won't happen overnight.
This is the fruit of cultural marxism from the Frankfurt school of marxism. Even in countries with a communist government such as China and the old Soviet Union, they at least understood the importance of real eduction. Yes, there was the standard government indoctrination but mathematics and science remained the real thing. We see daily the results of this on-going dumbing down pretending to be education with graduates ignorant of math, history, science and unable to read or write property, much less with any critical thinking ability.
"the idealism of a tolerant, peaceful, and compassionate society are worthy goals"
I doubt you'd find anyone - liberal, conservative or commie - disagreeing with that. Dalrymple certainly doesn't suggest liberals don't hold those ideals. But he presents good evidence that liberal prescriptions for realizing good intentions often have disastrous results - which they then have a habit of either not noticing or denying outright.
In the USA the serious problems faced by black society (family breakdown, failed education, unemployment, violent crime) can be traced to the Dems' very liberal "Great Society" policies; and liberals are largely in denial.
Canada seems to be faring better on many fronts but there's no shortage of liberal idiocy of the type Dalrymple identifies. Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell's stance on Islamism is a good example.
Alain, I agree. The education system is certainly a big factor, especially in the humanities and education faculties that perpetuate and spread counter-productive liberal "thinking".
I think the breakdown within Black society if anything has more to do with past racism than failures of liberalism. It's no different than the problems of First Nations. If you grow up in poverty, its very tough to move out of it so if you are racist against a group for many years, it will take many years after racism ends for the scars to disappear.
Some places like Germany or the Nordic Countries which are in many ways left leaning have been doing quite well so its rather complex and cannot be pinned to anyone ideology.
Liberals in general are in denial about the reasons for on-going and deepening failure in certain minority societies.
I know of no one who does not acknowledge that past racism has made things much more difficult for American Blacks and Canadian aboriginals, but that does not explain why failure persists and deepens. Any immigrant from almost any other racial or cultural group can arrive here, start with nothing and build a successful prosperous life in one or two generations.
The Black and aboriginal societies both suffer similar systemic problems: family breakdown, lack of good role models, welfare dependance, poor education system, drugs and violent crime. Dalrymple's discussion of what is ailing British society also applies to Canada, the USA and elsewhere in the West. Liberal intellectualism translated into public policy has been a disaster for some groups.
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