-Caveat Lector-
Excerpt:
"The notion that virtue resides primarily in being a "victim" is dangerous
on several counts. First, it is dangerous to the people who receive
"victim" status, because it relieves them of personal responsibility. If
their behavior is the fault of white males who have "oppressed" them, then
they have neither the duty nor the power to amend it. They have no
responsibility to get off drugs, stop committing crimes, stop drinking, or
get a bath, a haircut and a job. All those things become someone else's
responsibility, which the Politically Correct translate into government's
responsibility. If government doesn't do it, then it is perfectly fine for
the "victim" to continue to wallow in his vices; after all, it isn't his
fault."
[Note: This was originally sent to the list back in 1996, and is as
relevant today as then. - Tony]
"Direct Line" Commentary
by Bill Lind in for Paul M. Weyrich
Wednesday, July 17, 1996
If you visit a modern American city, you are likely to find the streets
crawling with beggars and bums. Of course, if you call them that, you will
quickly be denounced as "insensitive" by the Politically Correct. The term
they will command you to use is "the homeless." The lie they are telling is
that these people are bums becausethey have no homes. The reality, in most
cases, is that they have no homes because they are bums.
In the ideology of Political Correctness, which is cultural Marxism, the
most exalted rank is that of "victim." This is - not accidentally -
parallel to classical, economic Marxism, which saw workers and peasants as
victims of the capitalist system and the bourgeoisie.
In American cultural Marxism, the sainted "victim" groups include blacks,
Hispanics, Indians, Feminist women, homosexuals, and, as we noted , bums.
If you are officially a "victim," you can do no wrong. If you are, say, a
Hispanic murderer, it was really the fault of white males, whose "racist"
society made you do it. However, should you be, for example, a black who is
also conservative, you cease being a "victim" because you cease being
"really black." This is obviously absurd, but that's how ideologies work.
The notion that virtue resides primarily in being a "victim" is dangerous
on several counts. First, it is dangerous to the people who receive
"victim" status, because it relieves them of personal responsibility. If
their behavior is the fault of white males who have "oppressed" them, then
they have neither the duty nor the power to amend it. They have no
responsibility to get off drugs, stop committing crimes, stop drinking, or
get a bath, a haircut and a job. All those things become someone else's
responsibility, which the Politically Correct translate into government's
responsibility. If government doesn't do it, then it is perfectly fine for
the "victim" to continue to wallow in his vices; after all, it isn't his
fault.
As anyone who has worked with drug addicts or drunks will tell you, unless
the person himself wants to change, he can't be changed. Unless he takes
responsibility for his own behavior, he will stay what he is. So Political
Correctness effectively condemns its "victims" to remain what they are,
which turns them from phony "victims" into real victims - of Political
Correctness itself.
Defining virtue as "victimization" has consequences for society as well.
Any society that finds its heroes among its failures will produce more
failures. And Political Correctness goes on to say that most successful
people are "oppressors." That neatly completes the circle of discouraging
achievement and ennobling failure.
When America was a successful nation, we found our heroes among our
successes. Remember Horatio Alger? Tom Swift? They were not singled out for
emulation because they were "victims," but because they produced and
achieved. Rightly, Victorian America looked to achievers for its models -
and by doing so it generated more achievement.
The worship of weakness and incapacity and the derogation of strength and
ability, which is so central to cultural Marxism, carries in it another
danger: fascism. Fascism arose between the wars as a response to an earlier
worship of weakness, that contained in classical Marxism. Classical Marxism
held up for admiration the poor, the downtrodden, the wage-slave: the
economic failure. Fascism responded by saying that the highest virtue is
power or will, and built its base among the achievers of the middle class.
Could the same thing happen here? Americans are getting more than slightly
tired of hearing that they must worship our society's cultural failures,
bums, unhappy women and the like. At some point, an ideology that dismissed
the scum and exalted people who have their acts together might sound pretty
good. The problem is, that would still be an ideology, and it would lead us
down another blind alley, as fascism did.
What America needs is a politics that acknowledges certain duties to the
blind, the botched and the bewildered, without making their conditions into
virtues. Virtues are what our Western culture has always said they were:
strength, ability and achievement, directed toward a good cause. We need a
new political party that will recognize real virtue, reward it, and make it
again our model - and get the bums off the streets.
[Forwarded For Information Purposes Only - Not
Necessarily Endorsed By The Sender - A.K. Pritchard]
------------------------------
A.K. Pritchard
http://www.ideasign.com/chiliast/
http://rosie.acmecity.com/songfest/189/
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"There was a time in America, a better time, when: We openly and
proudly expressed our love of God and country; we did not lock our
doors; our streets were safe to walk and drive; we honored our heroes;
we cherished our founders, their gifts, their sacrifices, their
courage, and their love of America; we sang 'The Star-Spangled
Banner'; we pledged allegiance to our beloved country; we respected
our system of laws and the Constitution; and we worked, raised
families and prayed together as one people under one flag. Is that
America gone forever?"
--Linda Bowles
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