{"id":2849,"date":"2013-07-31T14:26:32","date_gmt":"2013-07-31T21:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/politicalhat.com\/?p=2849"},"modified":"2013-07-31T14:26:32","modified_gmt":"2013-07-31T21:26:32","slug":"it-is-in-our-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/2013\/07\/31\/it-is-in-our-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"It Is In Our Nature"},"content":{"rendered":"

     The nature of man, and antithetical beliefs there regarding, are at the heart of the differences between the Progressives and those stand athwart their march in history and yell, “Stop.”<\/p>\n

     The Progressives’ view can be discerned from their intellectual ancestors the Jacobins, and the Jacobins’ intellectual father, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.\u00a0 Indeed, the goals of both, and their view towards government, are remarkably similar.\u00a0 Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of the Jacobins that they believed<\/a> \u201cthe function of the State was not merely one of the ruling the nation, but also that of recasting it in a given mold, of shaping the mentality of the population as a whole in accordance with a predetermined model and instilling the ideas and sentiments they though desirable in the minds of all.\u201d\u00a0 This sentiment is echoed<\/a> by the modern day Progressive: “[L]esbian advocate Paula Ettelbrick proclaimed, about ‘transforming the very fabric of society \u2026 [and] radically reordering society\u2019s views of reality’.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

     This is consistent, and indeed springs from, the Progressives’ core beliefs about human nature.\u00a0 It is the same belief that the Jacobins had, which was the same of fascists, communists, and other fellow-goers.\u00a0 In essence, the nature of human beings is one of a tabula rasa<\/em>, where all societal norms, interactions, and groups are artificial.\u00a0 For Rousseau, this “asocial state of blissful isolation in the state of nature was lost forever,” and that society and<\/em> science bring pain and misery.\u00a0 Further:<\/p>\n

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“[A]n all-powerful state could ameliorate the situation of alienated man. The closest man can come to secular salvation is to abolish those dependent forms of association which have enslaved him to other men and kept him always outside of himself. He must sever, as much as possible, his relations with his fellow members of society so he can return the sentiment of his own existence to himself. How can this be done?<\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

“Rousseau described the accomplishment of this condition: \u201cEach person would then be completely independent of all his fellowmen, and absolutely dependent upon the state\u201d. The state could restore a simulacrum of that original well-being by removing all of man\u2019s subsidiary social relationships. By destroying man\u2019s familial, social, and political ties, the state could make each individual totally dependent on the state and independent of each other. The state is the vehicle for bringing people together so they can be apart: a sort of radical individualism under state sponsorship.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

     How can man be independent of his fellow man if he is dependent on the state?\u00a0 Is not the state run by his fellow man?\u00a0 For the Progressives, it is not, but rather a manifestation of the volont\u00e9 g\u00e9n\u00e9rale<\/em>, which springs forth spontaneously ex nihilo<\/em> from the hoi polloi<\/em>, yet has an existence completely separate than those of mere mortals.\u00a0 In effect, the Progressives, just as their intellectual ancestors did, serve and worship the false god the volont\u00e9 g\u00e9n\u00e9rale<\/em>, to which the people must submit in all things and allow themselves to be shaped and uplifted thereby.<\/p>\n

     It also explains the difference between conservatives and those who hold to the moral and civic heritage of Western Civilization, and the Progressives and their intellectual relations.\u00a0 Progressives believe in a managerial<\/em> view of government<\/a> where it is the right and duty of the state (or de facto<\/em> state, in the case of anarcho-syndicalists) to mold society along the preferred principles of the volont\u00e9 g\u00e9n\u00e9rale<\/em>.\u00a0 If, according to those who divine the “general will,” certain mores are considered good, then they will be imposed on the people, with the legitimacy derived from the people themselves, even if they did not choose it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

     Therein lies a contradiction.\u00a0 People can only be liberated from the “slavery of freedom<\/a>” if they surrender completely to the state, which is but the volont\u00e9 g\u00e9n\u00e9rale<\/em> taken physical form.\u00a0 Yet the state must<\/em> be run by people and decisions made my those same people.\u00a0 It is their<\/em> will which is imposed.\u00a0 Yet, we are told this is not so and they are simply fellow tabula rasa<\/em> which receive their motile will from the fictitious god, the volont\u00e9 g\u00e9n\u00e9rale<\/em>.<\/p>\n

     From this, it is clear that not only can<\/em> the state manipulate and mold society, but that it must<\/em> do so.\u00a0 It is done along the lines of “justice” because that is what the augers of the volont\u00e9 g\u00e9n\u00e9rale<\/em> have revealed the “general will” is.\u00a0 This goes right down to the core of our society, the family, which is seen as just another “social construct”:<\/p>\n

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“If the family is artificial in its origins, as Rousseau claimed, then it can be changed and rearranged in any way the state or others may desire. It is simply a shift in convention, a change in a cultural artifact. We can revise human relations in any way we choose. Whoever has sufficient power may make these alternations to suit themselves. There is no standard in Nature to which they must adhere or by which they can be judged.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

     In contrast, not only conservatives, but common sense sees this to not be true<\/a>.\u00a0 In other words, \u201cmaybe, just maybe social traditions aren’t just arbitrary rules set down by the elite \u2013 but are solutions to common human problems that have been worked out over millennia.\u201d<\/p>\n

     Society is organic<\/a>, and those traditions and mores which survived did so because they were healthy for society, and beneficial for individuals, or at least not so harmful as to lead to societal collapse.\u00a0 We might not fully understand our nature as human beings, but the truth lies in the demonstrable past, and not in the musings cerebral onanists.<\/p>\n

     What then, is the difference?<\/p>\n

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“Nature is what is, regardless of what anyone desires or abhors. We are part of it and subject to it. It is not subject to us. Thus, we shall see how, once the objective status of Nature is lost or denied, we are incapacitated from possessing any true knowledge about ourselves and about how we are to relate to the world.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

     In other words, “Everything that exists has a specific nature. Each entity exists as something in particular and has characteristics that are part of what it is. A is A”.<\/p>\n