Some leftist self-examination

While googling for information on the Keighley video (see preceding post), I came across the site of leftie Londoner "Holly Finch", a passenger on the Piccadilly subway line on the day it was bombed in 2005. (From the single post I read it looks as though she was probably seriously injured, but this is unclear.) She and one of her readers have some observations comparing their reactions to Islamic and BNP extremism which may be enlightening. . . . CONTINUE

On a rational level, Ms. Finch finds that that the Islamist bombers and BNP leader Nick Griffin are fundamentally the same kind of extremist, "locked head to to head, differentiated only by their chosen enemy." She neglects to point out that the BNP, unlike the Islamists, have not actually killed anyone—let alone launched an indiscriminate terror attack—and she seems to blame Islamic extremism on BNP-style racism, which is largely incorrect in my view. But let us accept for the sake of argument that the extremism of the BNP and of the Islamists are morally equivalent. (This is not too far-fetched, as the BNP leadership apparently has at least associated with Italian terrorist train-bombers, for example.) How, then, does she react on a gut level to these two extremisms?

I have engaged in various debates with people since 7th July, many of whom have found it hard to understand my lack of anger towards the bombers. I don't hate them, I don't know how to . . . . I have tried to understand Mohammed Sidique Khan and his compatriots [sic]. In my most 'leftie liberal' moments I have even tried to blame our society for allowing them to grow up in an environment which enabled such hatred to germinate and bloom.

By contrast,

The seedy secret videos of BNP leader Nick Griffin froze my heart and sickened my soul . . . . I do not feel the same way about Nick Griffin [as about the tube bombers], but should I? I do not have any urge to understand him. When I heard his words I felt the first early rumblings of hatred.

Commenter "Yorkshire Lass" says she has similar reactions, and doesn't know why this should be. Holly Finch can suggest only that it has something to do with sympathy for the underdog.

I think this illustrates rather well a basic difference between leftists and rightists. Other things being equal, leftists will hate "their own people", that is, those of their own culture or nationality or race; rightists will prefer to hate foreigners.

As Ms. Finch's post suggests, the leftist reaction comes from a deep emotional level. The rightist, xenophobic reaction is also deeply rooted. But it is the natural one. People are at first, as children or in primitive societies, naturally loyal to what they perceive as their own group, and have to be taught to take the interests of outsiders into account. In a properly ordered society, this education is at a conscious, rational level: one remains emotionally tied to one's own primary group in preference to others, and only intellectually admits the rights of outsiders to fair treatment. When one gets carried away there is then always the danger that one will forget about the outsiders' point of view. (One's view of who is defined as belonging to one's primary group may also become more elevated, even on a "gut" level.)

On the other hand, it seems to me that the leftist gut reaction, in favour of outsiders as such, represents the triumph of a kind of brainwashing, an inversion of natural feeling. It can be maintained only by rigorous ideological control of education and the media, and even then is liable to collapse suddenly. Leftists are not aware of the pervasiveness of self-hatred in contemporary cultural messages, so the source of their hatred of "their own people" is mysterious to them. Probably it is rare for them to acknowledge it the first place, as Ms. Finch does. (Though I imagine that she would indignantly deny that the BNP were "her own people".)

Both leftist and rightist attitudes to outsiders can have evil consequences. These are obvious in the case of right-wing xenophobia; perhaps less so in the case of leftist self-hatred. We do not really know other groups as we know our own. Thus, focusing our benevolence on outsiders is likely to be wasted or counterproductive. Self-hatred also leaves a society defenceless against aggression by other societies which believe in their own values and which are prepared to impose them on others. As xenophobia is likely to destroy others, self-hatred is likely to result in the destruction of one's society, and of whatever good is in it.

It is insane for a society to adopt self-hatred as a principle, rather than as a reaction to specific flaws in one's society. While recognition of genuine flaws should lead to social improvement, principled self-hatred logically leads only to suicide. But the West has chosen principled self-hatred, which is merely rationalized on the basis of perceived flaws. This is why Western education now has the character of propaganda.