Left-wing Religion and its Discontents This following article, in effect, expresses something I have been saying more generally for several years: The political Left in America has become a religion. Simultaneously it is a disease. The symptoms are extreme narrow-mindedness in the name open-mindedness, its claim to such open-mindedness refuted by its relentless attacks on free speech, its constant smears of anyone it disagrees with, and its massive hypocrisy.
However, before saying one additional word it is necessary to make it clear to those readers who are unfamiliar with Radical Centrism that this is decidedly not some sort of defense of the political Right. Especially not this year. I have no respect for the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, who is as spectacularly unprepared for the presidency as Barack Obama was in 2008, and we have all seen what a mediocrity Obama has turned out to be, not to mention the un-American values he promotes as a matter of routine. Trump is a very different kind of person but from every indication he is just as bad. Leaving aside Trump's candidacy, there is the gross stupidity of the GOP, not on the part of every Republican, of course, but as a general rule. Which is to say that I have no use for laissez faire economics, no use for values that privilege the wealthy, and no use for the libertarian undercurrent that can be found beneath the surface wherever you look on the Right. But this said, it can no longer be doubted that the Democratic Party of 2016 is worse than the GOP in a fundamental way. This is because the Democratic Party has, for many Democrats, become their religion. It has become a cult, it is a population of believers who don't believe in God but who do believe in a set of dogmas that, upon analysis, believe in the exact opposite of every religion with any claim to morality and goodness on the face of the Earth. Indeed, the very fact that millions of Democrats have no actual religion and are Atheists -either outwardly or de facto- is what expedites their willingness to believe in a set of dogmas that cannot possibly be questioned and their willingness to throw out all traditional liberal pro-free speech values. Now here is an article that cites Jonathan Haidt, the best-selling author, to exactly the same effect as my own views. To be sure, Haidt self-identifies as a "libertarian," but the point has also been made that he clearly has no knowledge of Radical Centrism, for if he did my guess is that he would immediately see that he really is far closer to our views than any libertarian you can name. In any case, the following article is worth your time; and Haidt's conclusions are as true as anything gets. I have been the target of protests organized by the political Left, and obviously those people are religious fanatics, not merely political dissenters. Its just that the object of their worship isn't the Torah, or Jesus, but the dogmas of the Left -and any Leftist leader who inspires fervent devotion. Of course, a second qualification is necessary here. People on the Left usually not only do not have a religion, when it comes to religion they don't know what in the hell they are talking about. About which they sometimes share the same assumptions as Rightists, namely, that the only kind of religion that matters is some version of "fundamentalism," either Christian or Jewish -or maybe ultra-traditional Catholic. They simply cannot conceive of anything else. Even if they may have vague knowledge of Buddhism or Hinduism, say, they don't see how these faiths apply to themselves; such religions are foreign even if they have small numbers in the United States. It does not occur to such people that there can be such a thing as a "secular religion, " a religion without God but in which some set of political ideals is elevated to the equivalent of sacred status. Hence Leftists never think of themselves as religious -even when they become fanatics, narrow-minded, and intolerant. This is doubly weird in the case of Jews who are Left-wingers since, needless to say, these days most anti-Semites are on the Left, not the Right even though, yes, maybe a third of 'Judaeophobes' are Rightists. But this is a characteristic of many religions, contradictions within them simply do not register because they are not running on logic, they are running on emotion. Leftists share the kind of zealotry that you find on the far Right -it is the exact same phenomenon, it is an example of a problem studied by social psychology, and historians of ideas, and it is just as sick. But, hey, why study social science or psychology or anything of the kind? What good is anything but business, or engineering, or computer science? No need for the behavioral sciences, indulge your narrow-mindedness and prejudices and claim that they are examples of enlightened thinking. I agree with Jonathan Haidt: We have a terrible problem that is getting worse. This disease derives from the Left but the stupidity of the Right guarantees that it will be with us as long as the Republican Party remains as out-to-lunch intellectually as it is. My opinion, take it or leave it. Billy R. ============================================== This New Religion Is Causing an Existential Crisis at American Colleges and Universities, NYU Prof Says By _Leonardo Blair_ (http://www.christianpost.com/author/leonardo-blair/) , Christian Post Reporter May 25, 2016|12:02 pm (Photo: Reuters/Adrees Latif) Student activists during a nationwide "Hands up, walk out" protest at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. NEW YORK — There's a new religion exploding on the campuses of American universities and colleges, says _Thomas Cooley professor of ethical leadership at New York University_ (http://www.stern.nyu.edu/faculty/bio/jonathan-haidt) , Jonathan Haidt. And if it isn't stopped, it might just be better to shut them all down in the next 10 or 20 years. The religion of fundamental social justice sweeping across college campuses is so alarming, intense, and dripping with such extreme liberal fundamentalism, says Haidt, it has created an existential crisis for American academia while punishing heretics with public shame. "There is an extremely intense, fundamental social justice religion that's taking over, not all students, but a very strong [space] of it, at all our colleges and universities. They are prosecuting blasphemy and this is where we are," Haidt warned an audience about the religion at a lecture billed "The American University's New Assault on Free Speech," organized by the Manhattan Institute in New York City this week. In his most recent book, The New York Times best-seller, _The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion_ (http://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Religion/dp/0307455777) , Haidt, a social psychologist whose research examines the intuitive foundations of morality, gives an account of the origins of the human moral sense. He shows how variations in moral intuitions can help explain the American culture war between left and right. On Monday, he described how fundamental social justice is rapidly limiting free speech by cultivating "sacred spaces" for issues supported by increasingly fragile students attending colleges and universities today. "So my research is on moral judgement, moral psychology, in my book the Righteous Mind, I give three principles of moral psychology. And the third principle is 'morality binds and blinds.' It's just a fact that as humans, we are really good at making something sacred. Maybe it's a rock, tree … book, a person," he said. "We make something sacred, we worship it, circle around it, often literally circling. … When you do that, you bind yourself together, you trust each other, you have a shared sacred object and you go forth into battle," Haidt said. When social issues like racism or sexism are treated as sacred, he says, it becomes difficult to have honest conversations about them. "So if that's the basic psychology and as religion itself has been retreating and kids are raised in a more secular environment, then what takes the place of that? There are lots of sacred spaces. Fighting racism, a very, very good thing to do, but when you come to sacred principles, sacred, this means no tradeoffs," Haidt said. "There is no nuance, you cannot trade off any other goods with it. So if you organize around fighting racism, fighting homophobia, fighting sexism, again all good things, but when they become sacred, when they become essentially objects of worship, fundamentalist religion, then when someone comes to class, someone comes to your campus, and they say the rape culture is exaggerated, they have committed blasphemy," he said. (Photo: The Christian Post/Leonardo Blair) Jonathan Haidt, Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, based in the Business and Society Program of New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business discusses "The American University's New Assault on Free Speech" in a lecture organized by the Manhattan Institute in New York City on Monday May 23, 2016. This religion of fundamental social justice is so frightening, even liberals are worried about it. But they aren't speaking up, says Haidt, who describes himself as a libertarian. "The great majority of people are really alarmed by what's happening. There is a small group on campus of illiberal people. The illiberal left against the liberal left. The liberal left is uncomfortable but has so far been silent," Haidt said It is this illiberalism on campus that has given rise to groups such as Black Lives Matter where "nobody can say no to them." "No president in the first few months stood up to the protesters, the president of the United States, finally a few weeks ago stood up to them," Haidt said. "This, I believe, is an existential crisis for our universities. Our universities simply cannot function if this keeps going, and the reason why is pretty obvious," Haidt explained. "Human beings are incredibly irrational, biased, imperfect creatures. We are really, really bad at following the truth wherever it leads. The brilliance of some of our classical liberal institutions, especially science at the university, is that it institutionalized disconfirmation. "We in science, we don't really see the truth unbiasedly. We each put out our models, our theories, we try our hardest to prove we are right. And other scientists say 'no, you didn't see, this is wrong' and then we have to defend it. That's the way it works, institutionalized disconfirmation. It has made us as a species as a culture vastly smarter than we could be if we were just individuals deciding things for ourselves," he continued. "So science, this is very precious, universities are very precious. They only work if you have enormous protections for institutionalized disconfirmation. If I say something, if I publish something, I have to know I'm accountable for it because somebody, if I say something stupid or wrong, someone will challenge me and that is gone," he said. In the current political and social climate said Haidt, disconfirmation has suffered. "If you say something stupid or unsupported by the evidence, on one side politically, you can rest assured that no one will dare challenge you because they will be attacked. Conversely, if you say something which is true, backed by evidence and it points toward a conservative or libertarian conclusion, you can rest assured, you'll be challenged very harshly," Haidt explained. "Now it doesn't mean you can't publish. Some of us who are writing unorthodox things we are getting published, it's just we have to try a lot harder. And so the net output of universities is warped, it's unbalanced, it's unrepresentative as a whole. It's untrue," he said. "So this is why I believe we have an existential crisis. If it keeps going the way it's going we might as well just shut them all down in 10 or 20 years because they will be worthless." Haidt, however, doesn't think life will continue down this road for American academia pointing to a growing counterculture movement involving projects such as the _Heterodox Academy_ (http://heterodoxacademy.org/) . Heterodox academy, where Haidt is a member, is a politically diverse group of social scientists and other scholars who want to improve their academic disciplines. "We have all written about a particular problem: the loss or lack of 'viewpoint diversity.' It's what happens when everyone in a field shares the same political orientation and certain ideas become orthodoxy. We have come together to advocate for a more intellectually diverse and heterodox academy," the group explains. Just this month, Haidt wrote an _op-ed for The Wall Street Journal on affirmative action_ (http://www.wsj.com/articles/hard-truths-about-race-on-campus-1462544543) arguing that there are better paths to racial justice in higher education. He is banking on some top schools joining the counterculture movement which he believes will usher in a healthier kind of diversity that protects disconfirmation instead of silencing it. "Our idea is, what if Buddha, Jesus and Martin Luther King were asked to come up with a diversity reading list. What would they pick? What would they want students to read before they engage with people who are different?" he asked. "Why do you complain about the speck in your neighbor's eye when you do not see the plank in your own? Wouldn't that be a great thing for people to read before they arrive in college? How about Dale Carnegie? _How to Win Friends and Influence People_ (http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671027034) ?" he continued. "Given that diversity training does not work or backfires, American companies and universities spend billions of dollars a year, on something that doesn't work or makes things worse. We think there is a market for a radically different kind of diversity training," Haidt said. "And we can begin to disrupt this whole industry. So we are doing all these projects to use market forces to swamp the illiberals and basically take advantage of people's disgust with the current situation." -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
