-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/3/27/35343.shtml
}}>Begin
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
The Revelation of Nihilism
Lawrence Auster
Tuesday, March 27, 2001
We should be grateful to a sullen-faced Colorado high school girl for demonstrating
� with absolute and final clarity � what America has become in the age of Clinton.
Her story, broadcast on a recent edition of ABC's 20/20, concerned yet another
threatened school slaughter in Middle America. When a male friend confided to her
that he was thinking of shooting some of their classmates, she told no one about it.
It was only after he began to talk about killing her along with others that she
informed on him, which led to his arrest and judicial confinement at his parents'
home. Asked by 20/20's Connie Chung why she had initially remained silent about a
possible massacre of her fellow students, she replied: "I didn't like them. I
didn't care if he killed them."
Her matter-of-fact tone and expressionless eyes, as much as her chilling words, said
it all: It wasn't that she hated her friend's prospective victims or had some special
urge to see them killed; it was that she didn't ca
re if they were killed, and she wasn't embarrassed to let the world know it.
This came as something of a shock. Even as we have witnessed the overturning of so
many ethical norms that once constituted our society, most of us probably still
assumed that there was at least one rock-bottom value that no one in America would
deny, at least in public: that murder � especially the wanton murder of one's
neighbors � is wrong. When an ordinary young American flatly rejects that belief,
we are forced to acknowledge that we really are no longer living in the world we
once knew.
The casual denial of what used to be an unquestioned moral conviction shared by
everyone may also lead us to examine the grounds for that conviction in ourselves.
Looking within, we see that our belief in the inviolability of each human life is
not imparted to us automatically; nor does it come through our senses or our
feelings or our self-interested reason. It is a transcendent truth, a revelation in
consciousness that is not derived directly from the facts of experience. While
grasped inwardly, it is also reinforced, as all morality must be for flawed
humanity, by society's uncompromising insistence that certain things are absolutely
forbidden.
When a society loses its adherence to transcendent truth and the will to enforce
truth-based standards, a radically different kind of "truth" appears on the scene to
take the place of the old, along with a radically different type of human being to
represent it. That is the revelation in reverse that the dead-eyed girl from
Colorado has given us. It is the revelation of nihilism, the denial of any inherent
morality in existence.
What we need to understand, however, is that the nihilism manifested in the
acceptance of mass murder is only a more advanced stage of the nihilism that is an
established part of our mainstream culture and politics.
Two days after the Colorado story aired on 20/20, Democratic Senator John Edwards of
North Carolina appeared on Meet the Press, where Tim Russert asked him what he
thought about President Clinton's astounding abuses of his presidential pardon
power. Edwards replied: "I've been travelling around my state talking to literally
hundreds of people, Tim, and not one of them raised the issue of these pardons.
They're concerned about health care, social security, jobs," etc., etc.
This sort of remark became so familiar during the Clinton years that we might fail
to grasp its true significance. What Edwards was indicating, as a routine fact of
political life, was that the American people have no civic virtues anymore, and,
moreover, that they should not be expected to have any. As far as our public life
is concerned, all that people care about � and all they should care about, according
to Edwards � are the material goods and services that government provides them.
Going beyond the Lewinsky-era excuse that we should ignore President Clinton's
depraved behavior in office because it was "only private," Edwards was now claiming
that we should even ignore Clinton's massive defilement of the most sacred official
power of the presidency. Without fanfare, Edwards thus affirmed a new norm � a
nihilistic norm � of American politics.
Ironically, Edwards embraced this nihilistic view in the immediate aftermath of the
Santee, California, school attack, when the whole liberal establishment was asking
for the umpteenth time why middle-class teens were killing each other. It did not
seem to occur to Edwards or any of his fellow Democrats that there might be some
connection between a political morality that says, "We will permit our leaders to do
anything they want so long as they attend to our material needs," and a personal
morality that says, "I don't have to prevent a person from committing mass murder so
long as he's not hurting me." Thus, the liberal politicians and the media kept
grasping for an explanation, while the empty-eyed high school student from Colorado
had already given them one.
As for President Bush, his consistent refusal to expose the transgressions in high
places that have ruined our nation's character makes him a party to that ruin.
While infinitely preferable to Clintonite sleaze, of course, mere "W"-style decency
cannot restore our moral health as a society. Following years of massive lies and
the massive toleration of those lies, what is needed above all is that we speak the
truth. And speaking the truth requires us to be dividers as well as uniters.
Before the Clinton era (how long ago that now seems), most Americans seemed to take
it for granted that there were more important things in life than material goods and
conveniences. As the sardonic liberal joke used to put it, in Mussolini's fascist
Italy "the trains ran on time." But now, in one of the saddest reversals in
history, liberals have adopted the very rationale for fascism that they used to
mock. By their own admission, all they care about is whether the trains run on
time, even as they claim to be perplexed by the increasingly routinized scourge of
youth violence.
When our political leaders see morality and honesty in government as a matter of
indifference, is it really so surprising that young people see the murder of their
schoolmates as a matter of indifference?
Lawrence Auster lives in New York City. He can be reached through e-mail at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Clinton Scandals
Pardongate
Related Products:
Get NewsMax.com's new book "Bitter Legacy" FREE.
End<{{
T' A<>E<>R
Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material
is distributed without charge or profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information
for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Integrity has no need of rules. -Albert Camus (1913-1960)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The libertarian therefore considers one of his prime educational
tasks is to spread the demystification and desanctification of the
State among its hapless subjects. His task is to demonstrate
repeatedly and in depth that not only the emperor but even the
"democratic" State has no clothes; that all governments subsist
by exploitive rule over the public; and that such rule is the reverse
of objective necessity. He strives to show that the existence of
taxation and the State necessarily sets up a class division between
the exploiting rulers and the exploited ruled. He seeks to show that
the task of the court intellectuals who have always supported the State
has ever been to weave mystification in order to induce the public to
accept State rule and that these intellectuals obtain, in return, a
share in the power and pelf extracted by the rulers from their deluded
subjects.
[[For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, Murray N. Rothbard,
Fox & Wilkes, 1973, 1978, p. 25]]
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
