The Empire of Sentiments: Responding to Dr. Bastiat

The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful. --G.K. Chesterton

The actions of the leftist protesters in Minneapolis are initially quite hard for me to understand. Why would gay-friendly people who love big government want Somalis in Minneapolis? Gay rights and big government aren’t helped by Somalis. The latter take out more in government benefits than they contribute, and gay rights are pretty much nonexistent in Muslim cultures. To top it off, there is every indication that their culture won’t change. The same problems occur in every Somali community outside of the U.S.

It reminds me of something that I have been contemplating for eight years with regard to leftists and their stance on immigration. I was perplexed that leftists could not distinguish between legal and illegal immigration. It was all the same to them. I watch Kirsche, who covers the left, and, save for Shoe-on-head, who criticizes the left as being unable to summon the willingness to kick out illegal immigrants who continue to do crime, leftists cannot distinguish between an illegal vs a legal immigrant. (In her [Shoe-on-Head's] humorous style, she says it like she just noticed it. She has a talent in her comedic timing.)

Why such an illogical take? The Emmys recently advocated for open borders, but the Emmys themselves are invitation only, and they have lots of security. It’s easily explainable as to why illegal immigration is morally different from legal immigration, and it probably has different practical effects.

But this easily observable reality does not seem to worry those on the Woke left. I have concluded that the Woke are ruled by an Empire of Sentiment that disrupts the building of a coherent world view. Leftism isn’t alone in this. Russel Kirk observed that, “Conservatism is sustained by a body of sentiments, rather than by a system of ideological dogmata.” That’s probably better for humanity. The time and energy it takes to make a weltanschauung should probably be directed towards work, family and video games to maximize human happiness.

I am also not immune to sentiments. Though I wish I were.* I have more libertarian sentiments than conservative or leftist sentiments, but I thought through libertarianism after reading Russian literature. As it is impossible to remove all sentiments from an individual human or political discourse the best we can do is restrain and stigmatize the most destructive sentiments.

When the Woke left sees illegal immigrants or Somalis, their sentimental brains light up and override the logical and critical parts of their brain. They know that legal Hispanic immigrants tend to be very hard working and poor, and they have sentiments of affection for their maids.* The important difference between legal and illegal immigrants is not emotionally resonant to the left. And because it is not emotionally resonant, it doesn’t exist to them.

For decades, right-wing people and moderates have said, “I’m not against legal immigration or Hispanic people. I’m against illegal immigration.” This is a consistent logical argument with moral standards. However, it doesn’t have any emotional appeal to the Woke, so it doesn’t count as real to them or to the people who they hang out that make their reality internal universe.

This is how Greta Thunberg went from Global Warming to Palestine. The feelings for Global Warming dried up and the feelings for Palestinians started rising, so it was time to adopt the new thing. This was startling with trans ideology. I’ve only met one trans person in my life and then suddenly trans people were the most oppressed people to have ever existed, and pronouns were the most important issue ever.

Trans ideology is theoretically quite different from many pro-gay ideologies. The most common pro-gay ideology is that a small number of people are born with unorthodox desires, but those desires are fine and natural. People should be left alone to their nature. Trans ideology means that people can be born wrong and they should change themselves.

It would be an utter taboo among the the traditional pro-gay left to say that homosexual desires should be resisted and that homosexual people should try to be straight. But when Woke came along the idea that man should try to be women became accepted immediately. It is not the purpose of this essay to discuss the philosophy of sexuality or gender identity. My point is to observe that when the sentiment changed, the philosophy was irrelevant.

As Dr. Bastiat has recently written, "In my opinion, leftism has no ideology other than the pursuit of power and control."

He was definitely onto something. (Heck he inspired me to write an essay.) But the word leftism doesn’t quite mean what he wants it to mean. We can all see what he means by it. Insulting ICE, being against any manner of border control and being pro-Muslim/pro-gay are all lefty things. But they aren’t solidified in any philosophical basis. Ism means a theory. A systematized explanation of something. We don’t have left-ism now, we have Woke left sentiment. (I don’t know enough ancient Greek to come up with the right word to describe beliefs based on sentiments. Please try to come up with a paleo neologism in the comments.)

Doctor Bastiat told an incredibly interesting and illuminating story about David Mamet.

He grew up in New York City, in a Jewish neighborhood. He said that he was a junior at NYU before he ever met an out of the closet conservative. He met him at a dinner party, and they talked about this and that and this man said things that David had never heard before about politics, public policy, and different ways of solving social problems. David was outraged by what he heard. He was so angry that he went to his rabbi, and complained “You can’t believe what this guy said…”

His rabbi said, well you know, you really can’t even talk to me about this. First you must speak with this gentleman, and ask to discuss these issues. You should then tell this gentleman what his thoughts are. He can then correct you, and make sure that you are representing his opinions fairly. Once you have done that, then he will tell you what your opinions are, giving you the opportunity to correct him. Once the two of you have told each other’s perspectives to each other, to the satisfaction of the other, and if you mutually agree that you disagree on that topic, only then are you allowed to speak to anyone else of this matter. We do not publicly criticize others in the Jewish community, without going through this process.

Dr. Bastiat observed that if he had been invited to explain what leftism means to a leftist, he would not be able to. As such, he has been trying to understand modern leftists. I have as well. I will tender the the observation that lefties of earlier years argued things through. Rightists made fun of their base assumptions, but leftists had a basis for their beliefs. Now it’s all sentiment and social conformity.

That is why the Protestors in Minnesota are violent towards ICE agents in defense of a group of people who manifestly cannot do Minnesotan Social Democracy. Their sentiments side with immigrants, so the reality of Somali immigration isn’t a factor.

The right isn’t arguing with a semi-cohesive ideology. It’s arguing against feelings. A hurricane of windy words rather than something something built one premises of well-crafted epidemiological stone.

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*If we can make androids that are like us but more logical, I would not be adverse to putting them in positions of power.

**In my experience in Idaho, the most polite people besides devout Christians are hard-working Hispanic people with an accent. I too have affection for the Hispanic population, but hopefully it informs my decision-making rather than controls it. For example, I think Idaho has a good policy of making sure that Hispanic workers are legal and harshly going after criminal gangs.