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My 750th post: The GUTOL (Grand Unified Theory Of Leftism)
There has been an interesting exchange of ideas recently on Ricochet, in this order:
- I recently wrote a post in which I wondered how my leftist friends, who are intelligent and nice people, could vote for leftism, given its horrifying record of humanitarian catastrophes around the globe.
- Henry responded with a brilliant post in which he suggested that leftism resonates with unhappy people: “My theory is that miserable people often can’t accept that they are miserable for internal reasons, so they externalize.” He suggested that if the left was motivated by compassion for the poor, they would promote capitalism, so the poor could become rich. But instead, they lash out at those they think are making them miserable – the wealthy, the producers, and even society itself. Thus, he says, “Among the hard leftists is a hatred of what is good and beautiful is more of a motivation than compassion.”
- In the comments of Henry’s post, Bryan tossed in this nugget of wisdom: “I think you touch on something very true here, in that miserable people cannot appreciate beauty or joy. I see this more on an individual level in my practice. People do not want to focus on the things they can control and instead spend their energy and attention on things they cannot control. As an example, being a victim absolves one of responsibility, but also agency. It is a miserable way to live.”
- Then iWe suggested in a post (which I don’t think was intended to be part of this discussion) that he didn’t believe that people wanted to really live. He wrote that most people simply want to get through life with a minimum of difficulty, and are reluctant to live life with vigor and passion.
All of this got my propeller spinning a bit. Let’s see if I can make sense of all this.
First, in defense of my simplistic question, I think this is a very important point. In national elections, Democrats consistently win around half the popular vote. That’s incredible. The party of slavery, the party that promotes the same leftism that led to the deaths of 100 million people in the 1900s, the party that is led by inspiring, youthful, charismatic figures like Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer – that party wins about half the popular vote. Regardless of who their candidate is at the time.
And most of the people that vote for Democrats are nice, caring, intelligent, pleasant people. I find that astounding.
Henry’s response was brilliant, I thought. Leftists claim to want a Utopia. And maybe they do, on a certain level. But their primary motivation is punishing whoever they blame for their problems.
Now, we all have problems. But not all of us blame others for our problems. P.J. O’Rourke wrote something like, “One problem with becoming a conservative was that I had more difficulty finding someone to blame for my problems.”
Taking responsibility for our problems is unpleasant. The painful soul-searching needed to find and correct our own flaws is even more unpleasant. It’s easier to just blame rich people. Or Jews. Or Christians. Or heterosexual white males. Or whoever. Anybody but you. You’re a helpless victim of forces beyond your control. That makes you virtuous and that makes government your only hope. Which gives you, and your government, more power than you deserve. And more power than is safe.
Then, to Bryan’s point, I’ve also noticed over the course of my career that people much prefer to have problems that they can’t do anything about.
If someone develops diabetes, I’ll say, “You know, it might help if you don’t live on donuts, sweet tea, Little Debbies, and Fritos.”
The patient will immediately become defensive: “It’s genetic! My brother has diabetes too!”
Me: “He’s my patient, too. And you’re right, he also has diabetes. Because he lives on donuts, sweet tea, Little Debbies, and Fritos.”
I’ve had patients transfer to another doctor after conversations like that. But if I tell them that they have pancreatic cancer and they’re going to be dead in three months, they’re strangely reassured by the fact that it was just bad luck. Not their fault. Which makes it more tolerable, somehow.
Which brings up iWe’s (possibly unintentional) contribution to this discussion. If people wanted to live their best life, they would want to take control of their lives. But taking control would mean also taking responsibility for their lives. Which is difficult. So they voluntarily give up control over their lives, to be absolved of responsibility over their lives.
Either way, things will go wrong. There will be disappointments in your life, no matter who’s responsible.
But if they are responsible for their own disappointments, that leads to unpleasant periods of self-doubt and agonizing efforts at self-improvement. Very difficult stuff. No fun whatsoever.
But if government is responsible for their disappointments, then it’s not their fault. Less pressure on them, I suppose.
What they don’t understand is that lack of control over one’s life also leads to bitter resentments. For example, I prescribe a medicine to a patient. It’s expensive. He asks if there are cheaper options. I say yes, but they’re not quite as effective. He says fine, give me the cheaper one, I’ll call you if it doesn’t work, and he’s pleased to have saved some money. But if he were on a government health care plan that refused to pay for the good stuff and instead gave him the second-rate drug, he’d be furious.
Either way, he gets the second-rate drug. But in one case he’s happy, and in the other case he’s furious.
Allowing others to control your life leads to anger and resentment. But still, to iWe’s point, many still prefer to avoid taking responsibility for themselves. So they become the miserable recruits for the Democrat party that Henry described in his post.
We tell children, from the age of 3 to their early 20s: Ok, you’re a good person. You don’t have to change – you’re as good as it gets, right now. What a horrifying concept. You’ve just extinguished any hope they have for the future.
By telling them that they are winners – and they can’t fail – you’re also telling them that they can’t succeed. It’s hopeless. No wonder they’re miserable. No wonder they look for someone to blame for their misery.
Ok, so let me try to tie all this together:
Society is fairly prosperous and stable, so many people lead happy, wealthy lives.
But some do not. And those people don’t wonder why they have failed while others have succeeded. Instead, those people look for others to blame. They blame family, religion, societal norms, and other restrictive systems which limit their behavior.
The successful people feel bad for the less successful, so they also criticize and attack the family, religion, and societal norms that led to their own success, out of sympathy for the less fortunate.
Once enough people turn against family, religion, and societal norms, then those things start to lose influence. We start to raise children without those things. After all, we don’t want to oppress them.
Those children, lacking the wisdom of the ages and lacking structure, understandably become miserable adults.
If you’re raised on nihilism, and you believe that your life has no greater purpose than the pursuit of immediate pleasures, and you believe it’s up to someone else to provide them for you, then nothing is ever good enough. And you’re bound to be miserable. Happiness becomes impossible.
Those miserable adults are naturally hesitant to believe that their misery is their own fault (and you could argue that it’s not). So they blame those who are more fortunate. Miserable people hate happy people.
The miserable people feel vindicated and virtuous. They literally can do no wrong – crimes are not criminal if they’re done for the greater good. So their attacks on family, religion, and societal norms become progressively more vicious.
The successful become evil, the less successful become good. Kids start smoking pot and playing video games. Why would they work their tails off simply to become successful, and thus, evil? So we get progressively more unsuccessful, miserable people who want government control, and progressively less successful, happy people who want personal independence.
And eventually we reach a critical mass of miserable people. So government power becomes overwhelming. For everyone.
Now family, religion, and societal norms go from supporting a stable society to having no supporters whatsoever. They shrivel and die, and nobody cares. Government will take care of us. That’s more fair.
The culture that supported that previously stable & prosperous society collapses completely, and everyone wonders why. It must be the Republicans’ fault…
Hmmm…
I don’t know. This made more sense in my head than it does now, after I tried to write it out. I still find it astounding that Democrats win half the national vote every time. And I’m amazed that my nice, intelligent, compassionate friends vote for them.
I just don’t get it. I guess because my brain just doesn’t work like that.
But maybe this is at least a partial explanation. Fear of failure leads to willing forfeiture of one’s autonomy, which leads to resentment and misery, which leads to the hatred of happiness and beauty and opportunity, which leads to attacks on the independence of others, which leads to more government power, which leads to misery, and around and around we go.
I guess.
I don’t know.
What do you think?
NOTE: I very much appreciate the contributions of @henrycastaigne, @bryangstephens, and @iwe to this essay. If I misrepresented your views in any way, please let me know and I’ll make corrections. Thanks.
Published in General
Just saying that people may know better about their own lives than you do. It’s possible.
People who are born without arms/legs/etc, or who lose them later in life, can adapt to various degrees too. Does that mean that they wouldn’t be objectively better off having all the proper arms/legs/etc, even if they’ve “adjusted” and perhaps now cannot imagine life any other way?
Who are these people? Do they exist?
That’s why I said homosexuality was not a severe handicap. I don’t know where it would fall on the range of handicaps, I just think it’s reasonable to conclude it is one.
Hah! Once, my late husband—the trooper—was escorting an elderly, famous lady poet and playwright into the premier of one of her more obscure plays. (Long story). Among the other things she said as he helped her into the elevator, was “You know, young man, I’ve been a lesbian for seventy years, and it’s been nothing but trouble to me!”
It was funny, and I think she meant it to be so.
I am not sure that these things are really separable from one’s sense of self—not just one’s sexual orientation, I mean, but a whole raft of experiences, even some that are very negative, but that make up who one is. I can easily say that I wish my first husband hadn’t died (for his sake, especially) but by now it is hard to imagine myself Not Widowed. And that was definitely a handicap, and a misery.
Like everything important in human life, it’s paradoxical isn’t it?
This is why I hesitated to comment.
I can imagine my mentally-ill loved one without her mental illness in part because she lived without one for her first two decades of life. But I can’t really imagine my gay loved ones being heterosexual, even if I know that there were times when being gay felt like “nothing but trouble.”.
I have reason to discuss, with loved ones, the difference between an eccentricity and a mental illness or disorder. The latter causes pain, and makes it difficult or impossible to live a whole human life without significant intervention. A relative with Bipolar 1 has a mental illness. A relative who is gay does not.
I could be wrong, but when anyone talks about “curing” homosexuality, I think of the way Iceland and Scandinavia have “cured” Down Syndrome by eliminating the people who have it—and think “No. Absolutely not.” As I said, I don’t think human beings have a good track record of figuring out which human differences ought to be “fixed” and which do not. If the “cure” is killing people (and aborting babies counts) one tips from error into evil.
Not really. I know quite a few conservatives with gay kids or loved ones. It isn’t that big a deal.
I think gay men derive joy from their lives as gay men. And lesbians actually like being lesbians (that elderly playwright notwithstanding). I don’t think people without limbs do, though of course, they derive joy from life in general.
Zafar, I’m not saying that a gay man is a cripple. Only that there are aspects of human life which, as a gay man or lesbian, are comparatively difficult. It’s a little hard to pin down, of course, because human life is always hard, and its not as though being heterosexual is just one long experience of bliss.
I’m interested, intellectually, in what “causes” homosexuality because, as a problem in natural history, it begs for explanation in a way that heterosexuality does not. If it shows up recognizably in other animals, why? What is the mechanism, and how does it escape what would appear to be the obvious targeting by natural selection?
But given the option, I would much, much rather cure schizophrenia, bipolar, major depression… these cause so much suffering that they don’t really qualify for mere “handicap” status, or “difference” or “variation.” They are mean diseases that cause agony: Homosexuality isn’t even in the same ballpark.
Transgenderism on the other hand…
Meaning, what, that you think it’s no worse than needing glasses?
It’s okay that they’re handicapped, because they’re not SEVERELY handicapped?
Feh.
I agree with the whole of your comment.
It’s interesting that out of “fairness” and “mercy” we on the Right are now following the Left and discussing whose sexual disability is higher on the misery scale and and how to lower it, and at the same time discussing which disabilities should be foreseen and eradicated — by never letting people with certain characteristics even be conceived or born, as an act of mercy, you see.
Life is hard for pretty much everyone, disability or no. Suffering is a human condition. And disabilities or abnormalities or emotional temperaments can be nothing compared to other devastating, seemingly random, life circumstances.
But to say that discomfort is misery, and misery is suffering, and suffering must be eliminated, with money or surgery or drugs, or else those who are suffering should be eliminated is monstrous.
So, people born blind or deaf etc, just have to live with it.
Check.
Yes. Given that they aren’t, themselves, unhappy why would I bother trying to fix what ain’t (from their point of view) broke? I like eccentrics.
And if blind/deaf/etc people seem “satisfied” with their lives, why cure blindness/deafness/etc?
Got it.
Never mentioned abortion. Mentioned CURE.
No. I addressed this fatalism before. The example I used was a child’s ventricular defect who would likely die within minutes or months of birth, or for another example child with with hydrocephalus, should have surgery to correct their life altering or deadly conditions. Children with malformed legs should be given braces, and so forth. The Good Samaritan was used as an example of voluntary emotional, physical, and financial caring. This is mercy, and a higher human characteristic.
What I said was that everybody suffers. And by this I mean that expecting everyone to never suffer, or for that matter to be perpetually happy, is not possible, and not reasonable (and from a spiritual perspective not even necessarily good) and discomfort, misery, and suffering should not be seen as an unacceptable condition of living.
And I extended this to mean that a child born to a wheelchair for life, or born to the discomfort and perhaps even the sense of injustice that homosexuals experience, should not be used as an excuse for eradicating them.
And for that matter shouldn’t be used as qualifier for exalting them. To suffer is endemic to the human experience.
Not eradicating in terms of abortion etc. Curing polio didn’t mean killing everyone who had it, either.
A cure implies a disease or disability to be cured. I understand that many (?) Conservatives see being gay that way, but most gay people don’t (at least in the West). Maybe most pregnant women in the West would, but honestly I’m doubtful. And if one had the time and money wouldn’t one rather find a cure for stupidity, or mean spiritedness? Might be more helpful.
That seems to be a rather recent development, and I would say, artificial.
The argument has been made I believe in this thread that when it can be known that you will be born to an unhappy life, life itself is for that person unbearable and that life should never be allowed to be conceived, or if it is, it should be ended in utero.
I’m not talking about eyeglasses, or polio. I’m not advocating murder or a fatalistic “let them die” approach. I’m talking against the whole idea of others eradicating an entire category of people from existence because others don’t respect or honor their fitness to live, and who take the position that they should not live, and who advocate plans to eradicate them.
I don’t know, or particularly care, how homosexuals become homosexuals. But I find the sentiment, “I look forward to the day when we will make sure people like you don’t exist” to be repulsive.
In the early 1990s, a play was written by a San Francisco homosexual. An appropriate response to that statement would be, “So what? Was it a good play?”, but there is a point here. The playwright wanted to address the possibility that a “gay gene” might be discovered, and whether women would have prenatal tests and decide to abort the child. People were talking about aborting because the child was the wrong sex, aborting because the child might have a birth defect, aborting because the birth would interfere with college, or even a planned European vacation. I suppose those were acceptable to a lot of S. F. liberals, but aborting because the child might be gay? That was somehow a major moral issue. If the other reasons were OK, why not that reason?
Why should that be different from “I hope someday nobody is blind, or deaf…”?
And if you have an objection because of that reason, why not the others?
Yes, there’s a certain hypocrisy there. Maybe that’s why I don’t care to pursue why they are homosexuals.
A funny thing is that it makes a difference to homosexuals why they’re homosexuals. There are contradictory strains of thought put forth by the homosexual community about why, and this made the news just recently. Amy Coney-Barrett was asked about homosexuality, I think, and she gave what she thought was the current and most benign answer describing it as a sexual preference (like preferring vanilla ice cream to chocolate) and she was immediately slapped down and a prominent dictionary overnight added to their definition that “preference” was “offensive” when used to describe homosexual orientation.
In order to avoid the legal implications of homosexual activities being merely a choice to engage in or not, they say they can’t help it, they were born this way, like skin color, sex, place of origin, or even disability.
But to avoid the perceived stigma of homosexuality being called a birth defect or a congenital condition that would connote something not right or unhealthy, and might be rightly subject to treatment, they have been saying it’s just a choice, a preference.
Coney-Barrett wasn’t watching the pendulum closely enough and implied that homosexuality was merely a preference rather than a condition.
And then there’s:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/can-your-genes-predict-whether-youll-be-a-conservative-or-a-liberal/280677/
So we could notionally start correcting for liberals or conservatives in the womb?
You could abort them both and just allow the undecided middle to be born.
Next, we will have to start exploring whether there is a genetic predisposition toward believing those sorts of “studies”. Who knows? Maybe there’s even a genetic predisposition to believing Liz Cheney!
Don’t lose hope. I’ve seen instances of liberalism/progressivism being cured in adults.
Another funny thing is that if they hadn’t ever been homosexual, they wouldn’t miss it.
OOOh. I see where you’re coming from. Because your eyeballs or your ears are not your identity. You can lose either and still be you. You can lose both legs and still be wholly you. And you can often repair defects like eyes and ears, but you can’t “repair” how a person thinks. Otherwise you’d be a product. And besides, once you start attempting that, who’s going to decide the mental and emotional structure of all the people made people after that? You’d be playing god.
You’d be tinkering with what it is to be human.
And if they’d never been born, who’s to complain?
And that’s different from avoiding “random” spina bifida, for example, exactly how?