Posted by
JDComments on Sunday, December 17, 2006 12:58:25 PM
In considering the crusades waged by Liberalism today, a complex of policies and beliefs can really be reduced to simple animosity towards the successful who have accumulated wealth and the religious. Everything else ,as the the saying goes, is commentary. The Left wages a constant battle against these groups as it seeks to create a better world, and oddly enough, for a party of progress, this is the same war they have been engaged in since their founding.
To understand this, you must realize the Enlightenment was a reaction to the corruption and overwhelming power of the most influential institution in Western Europe, the Catholic Church. As such it was the intellectual offspring of the Reformation which also attempted to cleanse policies it found offensive, such as the granting of indulgences.
Many believe the rediscovery of the works of the Greek philosophers set off the Renaissance which led to the Enlightenment, but St. Aquinas was mulling Aristotle in the 13th century, much before Italy flowered with the "Rebirth". No, those works were around a long time before they were used to justify a secular approach to the world which sought to negate Papal influence. That time came with the Enlightenment.
Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot , Montaigne and others came to see the Catholic Church as a problem which had to be removed before man's lot could be improved. Their work continued on that of Erasmus and others who ,while not quite so blatant, also began to do what was unthinkable: question ecclesiastical teachings.
Using the only force powerful enough to confont faith, Reason, they began to build the intellectual construct which came to secularize life, in the process establishing liberties and freedoms where none had ever been contemplated. As they continued, they ran up against the other foundation of the medieval caste society which constrained men, the Aristocracy, and so it, too, became a target in their crosshairs against which they used the concept of equality as ammunition.
With the success of the French Revolution the Church and Aristocracy were basically outlawed as a Utopia was sought through raw mob Democracy tempered by the Reason of the Intelligentsia. Sound familiar?
Over the decades many specifics have changed, but this obsession with religion and wealth, which today includes Big Business, still hold center stage for the modern descendants of the Revolution, our Liberals. Religion which once had been opposed for its corruption has become the embodiment of absolute values and ethics which is anathema to the social engineering so near and dear to a Leftist's heart.
Business as representative of success and wealth accumulation is the obstacle to the Liberal quest for the elimination of all inequities, something they never seem to realize is as natural to man as his instinct for survival. It is always so curious to me that a group that will forgo energy independence to preserve the natural habitat of a caribou seems to think man's nature is made of silly putty, able to be stretched into any shape they want. The party that trumpets the omniscence of Darwinian evolution nevertheless believes it can ignore it in constructing society. Someone will have to explain that to me someday.
And so, as I said at the beginning of this piece, the party that prides itself on it's progressive beliefs and ever onward spirit of accomplishment actually is stuck in the mindset of 250 years ago as it continues to wage a war against ancient enemies. If they believe Iraq is a mistake because it has taken over 3 years, perhaps it is time they realized their campaign against faith and accomplishment is a study in futility.