Culture of Deception - Part II

But back to the point in question: the culture of deception.

Looking at what passes for the left nowadays, there is one red thread which is visible throughout left politics, polemics and punditing: deception. Not only do the left view politics from the center and the right as being deceptive ( i.e. policies are not designed to achieve goals, but rather are the tools of capitalism, etc.), but the fundamental thrust of left-wing politics is that centrist and rightist politicians are being deceptive. The entire "Bush lied, Blair lied" meme is based on the idea that politicians are actively misleading, actively lying and being deceptive to the voters in order to reach some nefarious goals, be it Halliburton's profits or some sort of political glory.

It's now reached the point where it's no longer simply a political tool to attack opponents: the very core of the leftist critique of modern civilization is based on the premise that the elected politicians are lying to us, can only lie to us, and must lie to us in order to achieve their goals. Deception for leftist critics is the core of conservative thought, conservatives cannot "be" any other way than deceptive.

Of course, this is projection. Dr. Sanity has a great blogspot: here is where she clearly makes a convincing case that the behavior of the left is tantamount to a pathological defense mechanism. Let's not get into the details, since that's now what I want to handle here, but suffice to say that pathological defense mechanisms are motivated by past needs, include a severe distortion of reality, and impedes and distorts emotions, rather than channelling them constructively.

Like Dr. Sanity, I want to try to understand what is motivating the visceral hatred that the left displays, since I cannot for the life of me understand their version of reality, so far removed from my perception of the world. Not that I am necessarily the benchmark for understanding the world - far from it - but I cannot see their "reality". Again, Dr. Sanity points out the fundamental problem here : while she and I see President Bush as a perfectly normal guy, almost the epitome of normality, the left goes berserk just by mentioning his name. I've seen this in colleagues at work; I've seen this on innumerable blogs; I've seen this with acquaintances and friends (and have had friendships end because of it), and it's a huge problem with relatives here in Germany, in Austria and in the US. There's even a term for it: Bush Derangement Syndrome or BDS.

But that's peripheral to the Culture of Deception. What do I mean by the Culture of Deception?

Simple: the left is a Culture of Deception. Marxist ideology is a culture of deception; left-wing environmentalism is a culture of deception; the Democratic Party today, with Dr. Dean in the DNC, is a culture of deception. And this culture of deception cuts two ways: not only are these poeple decieving about what their political goals are, but more fundamentally they are deceiving themselves, not only politically, but morally and ethically as well.

I don't want to say that people on the left are doing this deliberately: many are, but I postulate here that we are facing as well a fascinating and also disturbing development of what can only be viewed as a massive manifestation of pathological behavior.

Now, just like Dr. Sanity, I am not saying that anyone who disagrees with me must show pathological behavior: the more opinions in politics, the better it is for a country. But where the pathology develops is when opinions and speculation - for the politically active, after all, political opinions must manifest themselves in speculation as to the nature of things, much as metaphysics enthralled the educated in the medieval period, with long and heated discussions on philosophical positions about the nature of things - are mistaken for truth and facts.

And not merely mistaken, but pathological when the opinions and the beliefs that underlie them replace the empirical reality.

And the core of the problem is not merely that the left are deliberately deceiving the public: they are, more fundamentally, and this makes it pathological, deceiving themselves.

Like I said, projection: the fact that the left is based on deception has led, logically, to the left believing its own deceptions.

But more in Part III