The Final Surrender

In 1941 a Hungarian émigré working in New York wrote an intriguing book entitled Foundations for a Science of Personality.  His name was Andras Angyal. As far as I know his work has been largely ignored by psychologists. This may be due to the highly abstract nature of the theory or its great generality or the difficulty of deriving specific testable hypotheses from it which can be falsified. What he created was a model of personality which offers an understanding of personality in terms of the physical and psychological totality of the person. Not only this but his view of the personality encompasses the biosphere, by which he means all the relations, objects, interests, associations, participations and so forth which are pertinent to an individual. It is not an original idea that we do not exist in isolation but in Angyal's theory personality has no existence without participation. There is a spectrum along which we exist, a spectrum extending from the pole of individuality towards the pole of complete participation or submersion (what Angyal calls homonomy or self-surrender). We are at once individual organisms and part of larger wholes. The dynamic tension between these two polarities is what drives personality, it is what gives us psychological existence.

Generality of the theory lends itself to transcultural perspective. It also ties in with a systems way of thinking about larger wholes.

Autonomy displayed by Islam as a whole is in contrast (or dynamic equilibrium) with lack of individual autonomy for individual Muslims. Islam frustrates self-expression for individuals.

Homonomy displayed by liberal societies in relation to Islam. We seek to accommodate and fit in with what they demand. Individuals within liberal societies have a high degree of autonomy which contrasts with (or is in dynamic equilibrium with) homonomous tendencies of liberal societies at supra-individual level.

It seems that Islam (as autonomous oriented system) is complementary to Liberal society (as homonomous oriented system). It's like yin and yang.

Islam is the expression of Muhammad's autonomous drive. It is Muhammad's will-to-power writ large. It is effectively the extension of Muhammad's character and will through time and space; it has been given permanence and expression through the system code derived from the canonical texts of Islam.

 

Liberal Hans

Nazi-inspired fear and loathing of Jews

You probably don't need me to tell you that the mainstream media and mainstream society are very reluctant to view Muslims critically. There is a general distrust of anyone wanting to look objectively at Islamic doctrine or the roots of Muslim atrocities within the canonical texts of Islam - where, of course, they can be found in abundance. Even reports of Female Genital Mutilation and Child Marriage in the Muslim world, or even in the West, are politely ignored.

This seems to be connected to a general reluctance to view a designated minority in a critical light. The liberal consensus, informed by cultural Marxism, has identified Muslims as members of a designated minority which confers upon them certain rights: protection from criticism; protection of their beliefs (however abhorrent); exemption from critical scrutiny; deference to Muslim views of themselves and their perception of the world; a willingness to excuse any violence or intolerance on the part of Muslims as "understandable" in terms of the oppression they live under (including oppression and "discrimination" from non-Muslims in the West).

Absurd as these are they are well-defended homilies in the mainstream media and among mainstream politicians (e.g. David Cameron and Senator John McCain). Perhaps their very absurdity is the key to what drives them.

They seem to be connected to a fear of unleashing hatred and persecution of outsiders or minorities. They do not want to be part of that in any way…and rightly so. For many, this reaction is informed by the Nazi persecution of the Jews; probably felt particularly strongly in Germany and other countries where Jews were shipped off to death camps. It is the paradigmatic case in recent times of systematic and widespread persecution/genocide. It has become a liberal truism that hatred and discrimination are always wrong and always lead to undesirable consequences. Hatred and prejudice are always seen as things we must guard against in ourselves. However, they are not so often seen as things we must guard ourselves against.

Laudable as this reaction is in some respects it creates a reluctance to acknowledge the malicious behaviour of Muslims or to allow a natural response of revulsion to atrocities committed by them.  It is a well-spring of the many exculpatory pronouncements which aim to distance the majority of Muslims from the acts of “extremists”. Also it feeds a reluctance to examine too closely the vast body of evidence linking Islam and Muslims to violence and oppression towards non-Muslims. Rather it fosters an appetite for the many forms of deceit practised by Muslims and non-Muslim apologists. It may help to explain why liberals are so easily satisfied with illogical moral equivalence and similar fallacies.

This behaviour reminds me of a story from the collection of the Brothers Grimm called Clever Hans. Here is the story:

Hans's mother asks, "Where are you going, Hans?"

Hans answers, "To Gretel's."

"Behave yourself, Hans."

"Behave myself. Good-bye, mother."

"Good-bye, Hans."

Hans comes to Gretel's. "Good day, Gretel."

"Good day, Hans. Are you bringing something good?"

"Bringing nothing. Want something."

Gretel gives Hans a needle.

Hans says, "Good-bye, Gretel."

"Good-bye, Hans."

Hans takes the needle, sticks it into a hay wagon, and walks home behind the wagon.

"Good evening, mother."

"Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?"

"At Gretel's."

"What did you take her?"

"Took nothing. Got something."

"What did Gretel give you?"

"Gave me a needle."

"Where is the needle, Hans?"

"Stuck in the hay wagon."

"That was stupid, Hans. You should have stuck the needle in your sleeve."

"Doesn't matter. Do better."

"Where are you going, Hans?"

"To Gretel's, mother."

"Behave yourself, Hans."

"Behave myself. Good-bye, mother."

"Good-bye, Hans."

Hans comes to Gretel's. "Good day, Gretel."

"Good day, Hans. Are you bringing something good?"

"Bringing nothing. Want something."

Gretel gives Hans a knife.

"Good-bye, Gretel."

"Good-bye Hans."

Hans takes the knife, sticks it in his sleeve, and goes home.

"Good evening, mother."

"Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?"

"At Gretel's."

"What did you take her?"

"Took nothing. Got something."

"What did Gretel give you?"

"Gave me a knife."

"Where is the knife, Hans?"

"Stuck in my sleeve."

"That was stupid, Hans. You should have put the knife in your pocket."

"Doesn't matter. Do better."

"Where are you going, Hans?"

"To Gretel's, mother."

"Behave yourself, Hans."

"Behave myself. Good-bye, mother."

"Good-bye, Hans."

Hans comes to Gretel's. "Good day, Gretel."

"Good day, Hans. Are you bringing something good?"

"Bringing nothing. Want something."

Gretel gives Hans a young goat.

"Good-bye, Gretel."

"Good-bye, Hans."

Hans takes the goat, ties its legs, and puts it in his pocket. When he arrives home it has suffocated.

"Good evening, mother."

"Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?"

"At Gretel's."

"What did you take her?"

"Took nothing. Got something."

"What did Gretel give you?"

She gave me a goat.

"Where is the goat, Hans?"

"Put it in my pocket."

"That was stupid, Hans. You should have tied a rope around the goat's neck."

"Doesn't matter. Do better."

"Where are you going, Hans?"

"To Gretel's, mother."

"Behave yourself, Hans."

"Behave myself. Good-bye, mother."

"Good-bye, Hans."

Hans comes to Gretel's.

"Good day, Gretel."

"Good day, Hans. Are you bringing something good?"

"Bringing nothing. Want something."

Gretel gives Hans a piece of bacon.

"Good-bye, Gretel."

"Good-bye, Hans."

Hans takes the bacon, ties a rope around it, and drags it along behind him. The dogs come and eat the bacon. When he arrives home he has the rope in his hand, but there is no longer anything tied to it.

"Good evening, mother."

"Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?"

"At Gretel's."

"What did you take her?"

"Took nothing. Got something."

"What did Gretel give you?"

"Gave me a piece of bacon."

"Where is the bacon, Hans?"

"Tied it to a rope. Brought it home. Dogs got it."

"That was stupid, Hans. You should have carried the bacon on your head."

"Doesn't matter. Do better."

"Where are you going, Hans?"

"To Gretel's, mother."

"Behave yourself, Hans."

"Behave myself. Good-bye, mother."

"Good-bye, Hans."

Hans comes to Gretel's. "Good day, Gretel."

"Good day, Hans. Are you bringing something good?"

"Bringing nothing. Want something."

Gretel gives Hans a calf.

"Good-bye, Gretel."

"Good-bye, Hans."

Hans takes the calf, puts it on his head, and the calf kicks his face.

"Good evening, mother."

"Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?"

"At Gretel's."

"What did you take her?"

"Took nothing. Got something."

"What did Gretel give you?"

"Gave me a calf."

"Where is the calf, Hans?"

"Put it on my head. Kicked my face."

"That was stupid, Hans. You should have led the calf, and taken it to the hayrack."

"Doesn't matter. Do better."

"Where are you going, Hans?"

"To Gretel's, mother."

"Behave yourself, Hans."

"Behave myself. Good-bye, mother."

"Good-bye, mother."

"Good-bye, Hans."

Hans comes to Gretel's. "Good day, Gretel."

"Good day, Hans. Are you bringing something good?"

"Bringing nothing. Want something."

Gretel says to Hans, "I will go with you."

Hans takes Gretel, ties her to a rope, leads her to the hayrack and binds her fast. Then Hans goes to his mother.

"Good evening, mother."

"Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?"

"At Gretel's."

"What did you take her?"

"Took nothing. Got something."

"What did Gretel give you?"

"Gave me nothing. Came with me."

"Where did you leave Gretel?"

"Led her on a rope. Tied her to the hayrack. Threw her some grass."

"That was stupid, Hans. You should have cast friendly eyes at her."

"Doesn't matter. Do better."

Hans goes into the stable, cuts out the eyes of all the calves and sheep, and throws them in Gretel's face. Then Gretel becomes angry, tears herself loose and runs away. She is no longer Hans's bride.

 The pattern in this story is of Hans doing something wrong and being told what he should have done in the circumstances. But he simply applies the lesson unthinkingly and mechanically to the next situation. He fails to recognise that the lesson from the previous incident does not apply to the new situation.

I think liberals are making a very similar mistake when they apply all their well-meaning attitudes to Islam. They fail to recognise that the position of Muslim minorities in the West today is not comparable to the situation of Jews in Nazi Germany. They fail to see that there is actually a huge campaign, fought on many different fronts, aimed at putting Muslims and Sharia law in control of their countries. A statement like this is proof-positive to the average liberal that minority-hating paranoia is at work.

However, the average liberal will also studiously avoid looking too deeply into the new situation to see what drives Islamic culture; what it did in the past; what it presently does with regard to its own minorities; what senior Muslim spokesmen and strategists say that Muslims should be aiming to do in non-Muslim countries.

Hence instead of real thinking we get this facile nonsense:

I wonder if the Christians of Nigeria, Pakistan or Egypt find this amusing?

Twinning Churches

A good friend of mine has suggested to his church that they twin with a church in a part of the world where churches are suffering persecution (e.g. the Islamic world by and large). By forming this relationship they will be connected with the people likely to suffer persecution and will therefore be made directly aware of it. If the twinned church does come under attack it will not be some distant statistic that the mainstream media doesn't even bother to report but a personally relevant event. This will provide a strong learning experience.

This kind of action will appeal (in fact will be difficult to turn down) to many liberally-minded people who would generally avoid saying "boo" to a goose in case it was a "hate crime".

It sounds as if the church (in this case a very liberal/left group of people) is willing to consider the idea and pursue it. This could be a very good thing for all kinds of churches, meetings and congregations to do. It is low risk, low cost, and builds direct connections between those needing to be better informed and those whose very lives may provide the learning experiences.

For ample evidence of the ongoing persecution of Christians in the Muslim world see Raymond Ibrahim's excellent new book "Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians" or visit his excellent blog: www.RaymondIbrahim.com

 

Thomas Day - Man of Feeling

Thomas Day ((22 June 1748 – 28 September 1789)

I came across this painting by Joseph Wright (1734-1797) on a recent visit to Beningborough Hall in Yorkshire. It was commissioned by Thomas Day's life-long friend, Richard Lovell Edgeworth who called Day 'the most virtuous human being he had ever known'. The composition is intended to portray Day as a man of feeling, with a meditative and melancholy air.

Richard Edgeworth was a progressive educator inspired by the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and through his influence Thomas Day became equally enthralled by his ideas. Rousseau's philosophy of education is not concerned with imparting information and concepts but with bringing about certain qualities in a young person. The aim is to develop character and moral sense so that a person may be his or her own master and uphold virtue even in the unnatural and imperfect society that he or she will have to live in.

After failing to find the perfect wife (several women turned down his proposals of marriage), he decided to adopt two foundlings from orphanages and, using Rousseau's maxims, educate them to be the perfect wife (two would ensure that one of them worked out). This illustrates one of the liberal themes of creating human perfection through education.

He adopted a 12-year-old and an 11-year-old whom he renamed Sabrina and Lucretia and took them to France to educate them in isolation. Unfortunately, the girls became ill and "squabbled" and he decided to give up on Lucretia, whom he did not think could satisfy him intellectually. Sabrina he felt was still a possibility, but her character had to be further strengthened. After dropping hot wax on her arms and hearing her scream, though, he gave up in despair.

Day did finally meet his "paragon" of a woman in Esther Milnes (1753–1792). They were married on 7 August 1778. They lived a very ascetic lifestyle and Esther was never allowed to contact her family.

In 1780, the couple moved to Anningsley in Surrey, when Day bought a new estate there. It was a philanthropic project for both husband and wife and they laboured to improve the conditions of the working classes around them. Here are the liberal themes of philanthropy and Care for the poor and needy.

In 1773, Day published his first work-"The Dying Negro," a poem he had written with John Bicknell that tells the horrifying story of a runaway slave; it was a best seller. Here is the liberal theme of concern for the Oppressed.

When the United States Declaration of Independence was first published, Day pointed out the contradiction between the claim that "all men are created equal" and the existence of American slavery. There were also members of Congress who owned black slaves. In 1776, Thomas Day wrote:

"If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves."

This illustrates another liberal theme of striking blows at inequality and standing up for those Oppressed by the social order. It also shows the role of reason in pointing out inconsistencies between principles and behaviour.

Day argued for the rights of the American colonists in his poem "The Devoted Legions" (1776) and in 1780 he argued in Parliament for an early peace with the revolutionaries as well as parliamentary reform. Here we see liberal support for those Oppressed by the "home team" (in this case the nascent United States of America seeking independence from the British Empire). Also, a familiar liberal position of suing for peace earlier rather than later and, in parliamentary reform, the search for a fairer distribution of power.

It was as a writer for children that Day made his reputation. The History of Little Jack (1787) was extremely popular, but it could not match the sales of The History of Sandford and Merton (1783, 1786, 1789) which was a best seller for over a hundred years. Embracing Rousseau's dictates in many ways, it narrates the story of the rich, noble but spoiled Tommy Merton and his poor but virtuous friend Harry Sandford. Through trials and stories, Harry and the boys' tutor teach Tommy the importance of labour and the evils of the idle rich.

Imagine the thousands of young minds that Day was able to influence through this story! Again, liberal themes emerge: Care for the young; education as the route to a better society; the superior virtue of the Oppressed; the evils of being rich.

Day was thrown from his horse while trying to break it using kindness on 28 September 1789 and died almost instantly.

There were many admirable qualities in Thomas Day, as there are with many liberals, but practicality is not usually one of them (in my experience). Here we see that Day was trying to apply Rousseauian principles to the training of a horse and the result was a collision with reality. I would be the last person to advocate cruelty in dealing with animals but perhaps sensibility has its limits?

This episode with the horse reminds me of how liberals are trying to come to terms with Islam, though the discrepancy between the strength of Thomas Day and his horse, shrinks into insignificance compared to the discrepancy between the power of Islam and the liberals of this world.

Liberals tend to have a strong caring side. Many of the liberals I know or have known certainly share this quality. They do not want to cause harm - to other people, to animals, or to the environment. They usually have a strong empathising tendency and they feel dismay at what they see as other people's disregard for these feelings. They abhor suffering and do not want to be the cause of it. Thomas Day is a good example of these character traits.

Where perhaps they tend to go wrong is in seeing those with less preoccupation with Care than themselves as completely without feeling. It's as if they project the Harm aspect of the Care/Harm dimension onto those they identify as uncaring. This can quickly lead to demonisation of their political opponents. Even though they are engaging in behaviour which from the outside they would condemn (e.g. when Jews were demonised by Nazis) they feel so much self-righteousness with regard to their own causes that they feel justified in behaving this way. They also see their political opponents as being powerful and privileged and deserving targets of any amount of venom.

But what they do is nonetheless dehumanising and infantile.

Thomas Day, and those like him, have done a lot to extend the sphere of compassion in liberal society. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude. Where conservatives are apt to feel rather exasperated with liberals today is really related to what they see as a dereliction of duty. Why are liberals not doing what they usually do and get out and protest about the incursion into liberal society of Islamic mores, Islamisation? This is the phenomenon that I call Malsi-tung: the liberal surrender to Islam. Not only are liberals not protesting the sexism, racism, and oppression that Islam brings to liberal societies, they are demonising anyone who does stand up to it. This is what is so bizarre.

But the reason for it may be found in the sphere of compassion that I've mentioned above. Liberals have extended their sphere of compassion so far out that they now feel only compassion for those who would kill and enslave them.

Liberal Idea #1 - Human Nature is Infinitely Malleable

Liberalism believes human nature to be not fixed but changing, with an unlimited or indefinitely large potential for positive (good, progressive) development. This is contrasted with the traditional theological doctrines of Original Sin in which our nature was seen to have a permanent unchanging essence; that we are partly corrupt and limited in our potential. In the late 17th C. John Locke formulated the idea that we are born as tabula rasa (blank slates) and that we learn everything that constitutes our character. Any flaws in our character are therefore the product of our upbringing and environment and therefore subject to amelioration. In the 18th C., Rousseau, Condorcet, Diderot and other French philosophers promoted this view and taught that human beings are innately good, they have un-limited potential, and are perfectible.

Modern liberalism is more cautious: our nature is neither good nor bad; we are "plastic" in the sense that we can develop in almost any direction; there may be some limit to our potential but there is no limit we can specify in advance. As Burnham says, "Modern liberalism...holds that there is nothing intrinsic to the nature of man that makes it impossible for human society to achieve the goals of peace, freedom, justice and well-being".

This outlook is extremely optimistic and one of the reactions we get from liberals when we question an assumption of theirs like this one is that we're being mean and bigoted and trying to spoil things. It has been a tough job during the last 50 years of social science research to propose theories or produce evidence which throws doubt on the tabula rasa belief. One very notable example was E.O. Wilson, who became a figure of hatred for liberals when he published his ground-breaking book Sociobiology. This book explored how natural selection, which undoubtedly shaped animal bodies, had also shaped animal behaviour. That was not controversial but he then went on to suggest that the same processes had shaped human behaviour. He believed there was such a thing as human nature and that it constrains the range of what we can achieve when raising our children or designing new social institutions.

As Jonathan Haidt explains in The Righteous Mind,

Wilson used ethics to illustrate his point. He was a professor at Harvard, along with Lawrence Kohlberg and the philosopher John Rawls, so he was well acquainted with their brand of rationalist theorizing about rights and justice. It seemed clear to Wilson that what the rationalists were really doing was generating clever justifications for moral intuitions that were best explained by evolution. Do people believe in human rights because such rights actually exist, like mathematical truths, sitting on a cosmic shelf next to the Pythagorean theorem just waiting to be discovered by Platonic reasoners? Or do people feel revulsion and sympathy when they read accounts of torture, and then invent a story about universal rights to help justify their feelings?

Wilson charged that what the moral philosophers were really doing was fabricating justifications after "consulting the emotive centers" of their own brains.

Obviously, liberals were incensed by this idea and immediately pronounced Wilson to be a "fascist" which justified the charge for some that he was a "racist" which  justified that he be stopped from speaking in public. (sound familiar?)

Protesters who tried to disrupt one of his scientific talks rushed the stage and chanted:

"Racist Wilson, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide."

This is depressingly familiar behaviour from the liberal guardians of our morals. First the leap from hurt feelings to damning label (fascist); then, on the basis of the first damning label, a leap to the next (racist); then, on the basis of that damning label, he is accused of "genocide"; and then the boycotts, the sit-ins, the campaigns to isolate the heretic and destroy his career and social standing. Such behaviour is reminiscent of witch trials and the Inquisitions. How demonic the angelic liberals can be! But they are in the matrix and they can't see themselves for what they are.

The research by Tajfel on minimal groups points to something in human nature which is both very deep-seated and unchangeable. We coalesce into groups very readily and on the basis of our group membership we make judgements about the superiority of our own group. We even do this when the group we are assigned to is based on trivial, arbitrary, and random criteria.

Confirmation bias is another universal in psychological research. We are very good at finding and remembering information which confirms our beliefs but absolutely terrible at seeking or remembering information which contradicts them. This behaviour is found across all cultures, it is not limited to the New York Times. We are cognitive misers who find the quickest route to the conclusions we want to reach and we apply different tests to information depending on whether it supports our beliefs or contradicts them: for the former we ask Can I believe it? and for the latter we ask Must I believe it? We are biased by nature. We also continue to cling to beliefs even when presented with strong evidence that those beliefs are false. Liberals will read this and continue to believe that human nature is perfectible - given the right social conditions.

One of the things that has made science so successful is that the scientific method is a procedure which enables us to circumvent the natural human tendency to seek information confirming our beliefs. In science, we can formulate a hypothesis which is a clear statement about the world that can be subjected to a confirming or falsifying test (a falsifiable hypothesis may be preferable). The test can be designed so that it is a fair and objective test of the hypothesis. Arriving at a conclusive true or false test is obviously much easier with respect to physical phenomena than it is with psychological and social questions and there is therefore much less wiggle room when results contradict a pet belief. Many scientific facts are neither pleasant nor unpleasant to know; they are simply useful. When they do have more emotional impact they become controversial and hotly contested - think of evolution for example.

Psychological and social information does generally have an emotional impact; there is a basic like or dislike response to it. This necessarily engages the mechanism of affective priming and the powerful forces of the emotional centers of our brains. Try as you might, you cannot prevent this. (The liberals attacking Wilson certainly didn't even try.)

Moral Foundations Theory indicates that we are born with a number of inherited moral foundations. These moral foundations are the result of evolution. Different cultures (and social environments) develop these structures in different ways and to different degrees. Nevertheless it is these moral foundations which underlie moral responses in all of us, they are part of our nature.

These examples should be sufficient to show that human nature is not infinitely malleable nor inherently good or perfectible. Liberals will look for flaws in the arguments that will enable them to wriggle off the hook of Must I believe it? I can't do anything about that, it's just human nature.

workshop

to be continued...

liberals fought against conservatives as embodiments of entrenched interests and the view that things could not change as they were God-ordained;  aligned with the emerging sciences and seen to be from the same stable; Newton's Principia Mathematica and Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (took him 17 years to write it so very much a product of the 17th C) - Ed mentioned another book? Glorious Revolution 1688;  Christian charity never very far away - social reformers; as Science and Commerce combined to unleash the forces of the Industrial Revolution, the Liberal Care foundation was more and more aroused to action, first through charitable works and increasingly through social reform; helping the poor has a long-standing position within Christian civilisation as the good thing to do; where Care is lacking Harm is perceived; liberalism always retained a pluralistic consensus view of the social world. it was socialism and especially Marxism that introduced the conflict perspective; Marx attempted to show that this conflict was an inescapable feature of capitalist societies and would through the dynamics of dialectical materialism lead to the overthrow of liberal capitalist societies. Thomas Day is an interesting example of an early progressive and one who exemplifies a lot of what is good about progressivism - its clear intolerance of slavery in various forms. What modern progressivism is now guilty of is a failure to face the reality of a vastly greater manifestation of slavery. Islam reduces its followers to slavish automatons willing to kill people for non-obedience; it condones slavery and has never renounced the acceptance of slavery in its doctrines; how could it, for Muhammad himself kept slaves, took slaves in war and used women slaves for sex; if he did it how can any Muslim object to it? This has to be one of the best ways of getting liberals to oppose Islam - its relationship to slavery.If they fail to do this they are Betraying their movement. Thomas Day was an abolitionist. The Left likes to see itself as on the side of the abolitionists in contrast to the conservatives who owned slaves in some cases. Note his intervention on the American Declaration of Independence; the abolitionist theme is founded on Care. Thomas Day is very good example of what's best and most ridiculous in progressives: not afraid to point our hypocrisy; kindness to all sentient beings; kindness especially to children; died after being thrown from a horse which he was trying to train with kindness;

the cult of sensibility in 18th C is an important social current; it pushes the Care foundation into its dominant position that we see in liberals today; feeling above reason; weeping at the sight of a poor beggar became a mark of moral respectability and higher moral development; whereas early liberal society had been acutely aware of the dangers of strong passions, as exemplified in the 16th and 17th century wars of religion and civil disorder and the measures necessary to prevent anarchic passions getting out of hand, the cult of sensibility and the romantics; the romantic view of the poor begins and extends into the romanticism of the proletariat (at least for some); the poor are without sin and if they wrong things it's because of their terrible circumstances; the movement for penal reform to reflect this view; the glorification of revolt against ones origins; also seen in the middle class hippies of the 1960s; the purity of love theme in Jane Austen and other novelists; marrying for love not family requirements; marrying above or below one's social class in accordance with the dictates of the heart; (is this a Sanctity foundation?) ; Romanticism dominated the culture of the 19th C.

Liberalism was given a loose-knit theoretical foundation in the work of John Locke. His approach was pragmatic rather than dogmatic; he did not attempt to provide a coherent rational system but rather a new temper of thought which sought to reform society on the principles of personal liberty, the enjoyment of private property, freedom of conscience, rationality, a system of checks and balances in government to forestall the creation of tyrannies, and an empirical approach to knowledge which would seek progress through science, based on observation, and its application to human affairs. Its recipe for social change was not wholesale revolution but incremental changes that would be broadly agreed upon at each step. Its byword was tolerance and its most powerful weapon was freedom of speech, most famously expressed by Voltaire when he said, “I disapprove of what you say but will fight to the death to defend your right to say it.” In fact, Voltaire was responsible for taking Locke's ideas to France where he championed them.

In the first half of the 18th C. liberal society consolidated the gains of the Glorious Revolution and held back any resurgence of Catholicism in the form of the Jacobites (those still loyal to the catholic James II), culminating in the decisive defeat of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. Notable during this period was a group known as the Kit-Cat Club. This was a group of influential Whigs who were determined to see the fruits of the Glorious Revolution realised. The Hanoverian Protestant kings (George I, II, III, IV) were also key agents in seeing the Protestant hold on power maintained.

Liberals in this early phase were acutely aware of the perils of religious fanaticism and unreason, as played out during the previous century, and therefore strove to build a social order based on rationality and tolerance.

The Industrial Revolution and The Romantic Reaction

The advent of the Industrial Revolution saw a new phase of liberal society. The empirical methods of science were beginning to bear fruit in the form of new techniques of production, the extraction of new materials, the development of new products, and above all the use of mechanical power. Factories, mines, and commercial towns grew and brought both wealth and hardship. People could be subjected to extremely long hours in harsh conditions with absolutely no protection for their immediate or long-term welfare. Those born with wealth to invest or with entrepreneurship and luck could become extremely wealthy and powerful. A new class of wealthy entrepreneurs was born. There were plenty of stories about rags to riches and many of these were certainly true but for the most part, if you were poor you stayed poor and your vulnerability to the vicissitudes of life was very high.

The Romantic movement was a corrective to the rationality and the harshness of liberal industrial society. Certainly society was freer but it was a lot freer for some than for others. Those at the bottom of the social order had little freedom to speak of and were more or less forced to endure whatever conditions the owners of businesses saw fit to offer.

But romanticism went a lot deeper than compassion for the poor and compassion was arguably not its primary motive. Rousseau's famous dictum, "Man is born free but is everywhere in chains." sounds like a cry from the heart for the plight of the oppressed masses and it certainly became a mark of elevated moral sentiment to weep openly at the sight of a vagabond. But romanticism was aiming deeper still. It was not at ease in the rational order of liberal society; it sought to release the "hearts affections". Sensibility became a counterpoint to sense. It was a counter-culture. It wanted feeling to replace reason as the principle of order. Romanticism was also not keen on scientific empiricism. Science not only had a tendency to lead to the development of ugly industries that scarred the landscape and transformed idyllic peasants into oppressed proletarians, it also broke many comforting illusions and myths. It seemed to unveil an increasingly desolate view of reality. One that was entirely indifferent to the fate of the individual. We will see this again in the counter-culture of the 1960s.

Societies built on scientifically rational principles were also portrayed in novels like Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We" and Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World". These were rationally ordered and conflict-free societies in which all were happy with their lot. But, they are morally repulsive because they lack freedom and the ability, or even the desire, to question.

Romanticism in one form or another continued to be a dominant cultural force throughout the 19th C. and into the 20th.

Liberalism and Socialism

During the 19th C. liberalism, true to its word so to speak, continued to offer reform as the best way of mitigating the harshest effects of industrialisation. The Reform Acts of the period are testament to a determination to improve the lives not just of the winners but of those bearing the negative aspects of industrial development. The Abolition of Slavery stands as one of liberalism's great triumphs. In this it signalled a refusal to allow an institution that stood in direct contradiction to the principle of equality of all men - though it hadn't got as far as extending this women. What liberals stand guilty of today is a refusal to confront a vastly more complex system of slavery in the religio-political totalitarian system of Islam. Islam reduces its followers to slavish automatons willing to kill people for non-belief; it condones slavery and has never renounced the acceptance of slavery in its doctrines. How could it? Muhammad himself kept slaves, took slaves in war and used captive women as sex slaves; if he did it how can any Muslim object to it? This could be one of the best avenues for getting liberals to realise the real nature of Islam and how it stands in opposition to all that they claim to espouse. If they fail to stand up to the slavery inherent in Islam they are Betraying their principles.

Still, the procedure was clear enough: we'll continue to improve the lives of everyone by gradually reforming the system whilst not trampling on the rights of those already enjoying the fruits of the system to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

"Not good enough" replied the socialists. Whereas liberalism maintained a pluralistic model of society that could be gradually improved for the benefit of everyone, socialism introduced the idea that the system would never work to the benefit of everyone because it was inherently conflictual. As long as there were owners of businesses who could hire and fire as they pleased and those who had only their labour to sell would have to accept on the terms offered, the system was rigged heavily in the interests of one side. The liberal capitalist order was therefore seen as inherently exploitative, as being predicated on exploitation. How was such a system ever going to produce a just society? It wasn't, concluded the socialists.

In one form or another, liberal capitalist society now had to contend with an increasingly organised force of opposition within it. Trade unions, Chartists, agitators, political parties, as well as artists, writers, and philosophers were all working to radically alter or overthrow the liberal order. Marx tried to show that liberal capitalist societies were destined to be torn apart through increasing polarisation. Liberal society generally remained tolerant of these developments, seeing them as aspects of the broad movement for reform, as voices that could be accommodated to varying degrees within the great liberal tent, which was after all in favour of free speech and differences of opinion. Liberal reforms continue to provide hope that lives will improve bit by bit and if not for me then for my children.

An aspect of liberal reform is the tendency of the state to take on greater responsibility for the care and protection of those rendered more vulnerable: the sick, the young, the elderly, the poor. The provision of universal education begins at the end of the 19th C. and at the beginning of the 20th C. the Liberal government of Lloyd George institutes the first national pension scheme for men over 70 years of age. (This was not a huge financial commitment at the time)

The threat of revolutionary forces gaining ground becomes an important spur for further reforms.

The World Wars and The Welfare State

World War I did a great deal to undermine confidence in the inevitability of scientific and social progress. Mechanised warfare showed the horrific scale of destruction that was possible on the battlefield. The war provided the perfect model of senseless destruction as millions of men fought and died in the mud in order to gain a few yards of mud from the enemy. The whole tragedy sent the message that we are irrational rather than rational and that the fruits of reason, in the form of advanced weapons, can turn against us in the most barbaric manner.

It seemed as if the prophets of sensibility had been right. This whole enterprise of scientific progress was an illusion. We would have been better off creating an idyllic pastoral society rather than an industrial nightmare.

The carnage of the First World War lingers in our memories to this day, as it should. But hot on the heels of the First World War came the Second. Throughout the 1930s pacifists and appeasers were keen to refer to the horrors of the earlier war and the wisdom of avoiding any involvement in another. We had plenty of scars, both physical and psychological, to back this assertion. Liberals were at the forefront of the campaign to deny the threat existed. Churchill was vilified as a war-monger. This label was designed to trigger the Harm aspect of Care/Harm and thus to bring about his condemnation. We have seen liberals engaging  in this tactic with respect to George W. Bush (successfully as it turned out). It was hoped that Hitler would turn his attention on the Russians and thereby deal with another threat that we would rather not have to deal with ourselves.

Nevertheless, wars are not chosen by us, they are often foisted on us. It was fight Nazism or live under its jackboot and wave goodbye to liberal society. Fortunately for the generations since, Churchill rallied the country to mount a defence and with America joining the effort in 1941 liberal society with its plucky ability to create surprises eventually prevailed.

After the war, the nation's masses were full of expectation for a greater role of government in ameliorating their lives and thus was born the Welfare State. The National Health Service, the National Insurance Scheme, and various changes to education were principal among these changes. The idea sprung up of a "cradle to grave society" in which the protective role of the state would ensure all were fairly treated and none would suffer too greatly. The five evils of Squalor, Ignorance,Want, Disease, and Idleness would be fought on our behalf.

Once the austere post-war era was over in 1950, we began to see a general uplift in the living conditions of the masses. We approached full employment, so much so that business leaders started to look abroad for immigrant labour. The conservative government of Harold Macmillan was the first to propose and execute this strategy.

The Cold War

There was of course a shadow cast across this welfare paradise by the threat of nuclear war. This concern would grow during the 1960s and continue until the 1980s.

Again, the threat of advanced weapons undermines faith in liberal society and scientific progress. What could be done to realise the benefits of science whilst removing the threat of war?

Unlocking the Liberal Mind - Part 5 - Entering The Liberal Matrix

It was good advice to a young person, "Always do what you are afraid to do." from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay on Self-Reliance

I think Emerson might well have added, "And always think what you are afraid to think, and say what you are afraid to say."

Thinking what they are afraid to think is something that liberals desperately need to do. They huff and puff self-righteously about respecting "otherness" and celebrating diversity but in their hearts they are so awfully scared of being themselves and thinking their own thoughts.

At the beginning of the last section I talked about The Matrix and how what we're dealing with here is like a consensual hallucination. This hallucination is maintained by the shared assumptions and perceptions of the people in the matrix. For those in the liberal matrix these are liberal perceptions and assumptions.

Take this example:

 "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."  [The United States Declaration of Independence - 1776]

This is a perfect expression of liberal thought and the United States has been the clearest example of liberal principles in action. I thoroughly approve of this declaration but, note the word "self-evident". What does that mean? Surely it means that we take it to be obvious, incontrovertible, an unquestionable assumption? With a moral and political doctrine you have to begin somewhere and the concept of fundamental "God-given" rights is a fine place to start. However, the idea that these are self-evident can easily lead us to assume that they are universally obvious, which they are not. Nor are they universally held or even admired.

For example, the Muslim nations were not at all happy with the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights which was set out (along liberal principles) in 1948. In particular, the Muslims were unhappy about anything which contradicted Sharia, which was just about all of it. So, they made an alternative declaration, The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights, in which they make various noises about the superiority of Islam, thus undermining the whole point of universality.

Contrast these two excerpts, one from the Universal Declaration, the other from the Cairo Declaration:

"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world..."

"Reaffirming the civilising and historical role of the Islamic Ummah which God made the best nation that has given mankind a universal and well-balanced civilisation in which harmony is established between this life and the hereafter and knowledge is combined with faith; and the role that this Ummah should play to guide a humanity confused by competing trends and ideologies and to provide solutions to the chronic problems of this materialistic civilisation..." (my italics)

You can see immediately the different worldviews at work here: the liberal worldview is very like the Declaration of Independence above with equality, inalienable rights, and freedom. The Islamic statement is immediately divisive, talking of the best nation, "should guide humanity confused by competing trends" (i.e. eradicate every idea that contradicts Islam). The Cairo Declaration proceeds in a similar vein all the way through and in Article 24 states:

"All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari'a."

So after going round the houses it concludes by saying that Shariah is the ultimate arbiter and anything which contradicts it is not permitted. That's more or less what they said at the outset too.

When reading Mark Durie's book The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude, and Freedom I was struck by how different the worldview of Islam is to that of Liberalism. I came to see how a very different worldview is constructed on a different set of foundations - in this case, the example and teaching of Muhammad. I came to see how a different moral matrix was formed in which things that I find abhorrent are treated as the expression of divine sanctities. The appalling judgements and punishments of Sharia may seem barbaric to us but to Muslims they are self-evidently true and just since they were made by Muhammad, the perfect example of conduct and the only source of truth.

Liberals find it extremely hard to face these differences because they are caught between their dominant Care foundation and their commitment to being non-Oppressive, and an awareness of facts that would make them feel much more hostile to Muslims if they were to allow them to enter their minds. Liberals protect themselves by projecting their own liberal assumptions onto alien people who hold very different views to their own.

I now want to look at how the liberal matrix came into being. I'm not claiming to be an expert on the history and development of liberalism (it's too vast a subject); what I will do is to give an overview of liberalism as I see it. I'm particularly interested in the psychological dimension of this development so that will be my focus. I will also be concentrating on the British experience as Britain was very influential throughout most of this period through the British Empire.

I'll be using the concepts outlined in the previous sections to help illuminate aspects of liberal thought. I will be making particular use of the concepts in Moral Foundations Theory, so to help make things a little less cumbersome let me make something clear: when I use the words Care, Harm, Fairness, Cheating, Loyalty, Betrayal, Authority, Subversion, Sanctity, Degradation with a capital letter I am referring to that moral foundation. It will save me from repeatedly writing Care/Harm Foundation etc.

The liberal worldview has not always existed. It is a relative newcomer to the world and, though highly successful for many societies, it has not become universal. How did it come into being?

Early Liberalism

There were various social currents which led to the break-up of medieval Christendom. The Renaissance brought a resurgence of classical civilisational cultural forms and the reassertion of classical philosophy and literature. It became possible to see medieval Christendom in some sort of historical context; a fact which made it less absolute. The Reformation brought Protestant subjectivisation to religion, by which I mean a person's relationship with God was ultimately their private affair and not something requiring an intermediary such as a priest. Conscience was the ultimate arbiter, the ultimate confessor. Freedom of conscience took root here and continued to proliferate in non-conformist religious movements. The development of democratic movements in the 17^th century, often inspired by non-conformist elements paved the way towards the recognition of individual rights and universal suffrage, both cornerstones of the liberal edifice. The scientific approach to knowledge in the 17^th century began to erode religious certainties and religious authority. This trend was reinforced by the growing freedom of conscience which laid the foundations for freedom of enquiry, both in science and other disciplines.

Where the medieval social order had been fixed, stratified according to a blend of religious and secular authorities, the early liberal era became much more fluid, particularly with the growing middle classes who took the opportunities provided by the loosening of social structures.

John Locke (1632-1704)

Liberalism was given a loose-knit theoretical foundation in the work of John Locke. His approach was pragmatic rather than dogmatic; he did not attempt to provide a coherent rational system but rather a new temper of thought which sought to reform society on the principles of personal liberty, the enjoyment of private property, freedom of conscience, rationality, a system of checks and balances in government to forestall the creation of tyrannies, and an empirical approach to knowledge which would seek progress through science, based on observation, and its application to human affairs. Its recipe for social change was not wholesale revolution but incremental changes that would be broadly agreed upon at each step. Its byword was tolerance and its most powerful weapon was freedom of speech, most famously expressed by Voltaire when he said, “I disapprove of what you say but will fight to the death to defend your right to say it.” In fact, Voltaire was responsible for taking Locke's ideas to France where he championed them.

In the first half of the 18th C. liberal society consolidated the gains of the Glorious Revolution and held back any resurgence of Catholicism in the form of the Jacobites (those still loyal to the catholic James II), culminating in the decisive defeat of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. Notable during this period was a group known as the Kit-Cat Club. This was a group of influential Whigs who were determined to see the fruits of the Glorious Revolution realised. The Hanoverian Protestant kings (George I, II, III, IV) were also key agents in seeing the Protestant hold on power maintained.

Liberals during this period were acutely aware of the perils of religious fanaticism and unreason, as played out during the previous century, and therefore strove to develop a social order based on rationality and tolerance, and that included tolerance of free speech. Today's progressive liberals might find this rather difficult to understand since it was a form of free speech in which differences of opinion could be hotly contested without the risk of being made into a moral pariah for expressing a viewpoint deemed off limits.

I recently bought James Burnham's book "Suicide of the West". This book, written in 1964, is a brilliant analysis of liberal ideology. I can do no better than base my exposition of the liberal matrix on his analysis.

Burnham had also arrived at the idea that liberalism constituted a sort of disorder, "the liberal syndrome" in his words. He saw this syndrome at work in relation to the threat from communism whereas I see it at work in relation to Islam. The parallels are spooky, to say the least.

Like myself, he saw various social and philosophical currents feeding into the development of liberal thought. He also saw liberalism as a rather nebulous, unsystematised philosophical tendency rather than a highly logical system. He identified 19 key liberal ideas which I shall work through in the same order as he does. As Burnham said, these ideas are often not precisely defined, they express tendencies or presumptions rather than laws or precise hypotheses. These core ideas illuminate a lot of liberal priorities and also why certain thoughts are now considered taboo in liberal circles. He also analysed the way liberal priorities have changed during the past 300 years, which is very important.

The liberal ideas:

Although we call these things ideas, they are not generally clearly defined or articulated. They are more akin to articles of faith. They have more emotional power than pure intellectual strength. James Burnham puts this point extremely well,

Modern liberalism, for most liberals, is not a consciously understood set of rational beliefs, but a bundle of unexamined prejudices and conjoined sentiments. The basic ideas and beliefs seem more satisfactory when they are not made fully explicit, when they merely lurk rather obscurely in the background, coloring the rhetoric and adding a certain emotive glow. "Democracy", "equality", "popular government", "free speech", "peace", "universal welfare", "progress", are symbols that warm the heart; but the mind has a hard time getting through the smoke that surrounds them. (Suicide of the West p.145)

For example, the great slogan of the French Republic "Equality, Liberty, Brotherhood" begs the question of how one actually reconciles equality with liberty since they pull in opposite directions.

#1. Human Nature is Infinitely Malleable
#2. We are Rational Beings

#3. Education is the Key to Progress

To be continued...