Self-Destruction–Now A Conditioned Reflex?
August, 2009 Feature–Return Of The Gods Web Site
Synopsis
Is self-destruction now a conditioned reflex of rooted Americans? Effect of two generations of educational conditioning in the myth of human interchangeability. Fatal flaw in the Cousins’ approach. Can we revive an American spirit?
When one considers America’s changing demographics in the context of Federal policy & legislation, mass media stereotypes, and contemporary educational norms with respect to the study of actual human variation, as opposed to those media stereotypes; it is clear that something very obvious is missing. There is a virtual absence of concern for the continuity of traditional American ethnic culture, its values, mores & identity. In its place there is, what we might call, a Norman Cousins’ pretense of human interchangeability. Yet there, perhaps, we err.
Norman Cousins, Editor of the Saturday Review, was the chief American advocate for actual World Government, in the decades immediately after World War II. In numerous formula speeches to those engaged in an educational process, he employed the fear of nuclear war to urge a fundamental shift in emphasis in the human study–away from that which showed how we differed, to one that focused on traits in common. While this, on its very face, was inherently dishonest and disingenuous, misleading students away from a realistic assessment of human variation, it was somewhat less extreme than the total fantasy being offered by prominent academic "one-worlders"; such as Ashley Montagu, who even pontificated to effect, that the apparent differences between peoples were really only a "myth."
Of course, Cousins’ point was to steer America towards World Government; towards an abandonment of the very idea of the Nation as something worth striving for, or defending. And while his approach may not have seemed as extreme as that of the Boas School of Cultural Anthropology, which produced Montagu and the like, Cousins gave the academic community a rationalization to embrace still greater rationalizations of the Boas & Montagus; those who posited one or another form of egalitarian environmentalism. It is from this, that we justify attributing, at least a significant part of the present American indifference to the preservation of traditional American culture, to Cousins.
Our previous two features–linked below–explained, inter alia, how Marxist influenced pseudo intellectual poseurs ("mipips") have suppressed serious debate by "gaming" underlying questions, begged by those accepting egalitarian premises. The result of such methodology, coupled with the Cousins’ rationalization for embracing it, as somehow idealistic, has led to a self-destructive conditioning of much of the public. The tragedy, here, is not just that those of us, who still resist educational indoctrination in make believe, may lose social & cultural achievements, we most value. A yet sterner reality is that our loss–even destruction–will serve the legitimate interest of no people on earth.
What Americans are being pushed towards, is a denial of the true & legitimate interests of every people, everywhere. By "gaming" fundamental questions, so well for so long, mipips–and those who pull their strings–have succeeded in conditioning a large segment of the public into reacting like so many Pavlovian dogs, to compulsively reject the very subject of ethnic, racial or even sexual differences, in human personality traits. These include, but are hardly limited to, or necessarily defined by, fundamental differences in specific aptitudes, amidst a vast array of dispositional or inclinational variations. In the name of "tolerance" and "good will," we are being pushed towards the most pervasive & intolerant ideological tyranny yet known.
Included in the underlying conditioned reflex, this compulsive rejection of even the subject of ethnic differences, are all the considerations that ever led to the concept of a nation. If we continue in the grips of this conditioned reflex, is it not inevitable that self-destruction must follow? Already, the internationalists–the "Cousinites," if you prefer–have so undermined our sense of self-interest & ethnic identity, that we have just allowed Congress to put a tax on domestic use of our most abundant natural resources–the pretended excuse, an unproven global warming, supposedly driven by a mechanism, which by helping to grow greater forests, could just as easily be driving global cooling! Meanwhile, more of our unappreciated coal now flows to China, which better understands her people’s interest.
Of course, no people will ever benefit from a fantasy world in which we pretend that all peoples are equal, in any of the significant traits of the human personality. It is the same fallacy that we have raked in our novel, Return Of The Gods; the same insult to women that radical Feminism has embraced in the delusion that men & women are competing interest groups, rather than essential components in the only reality in which Mankind has a future.
Even as woman is insulted by those who tell her that she must compete in terms of measures & occupations, previously associated with man, rather than continue to excel in those activities once recognized as uniquely feminine; so it is an insult to any race, white, black, brown, red or yellow, to ignore its better traits in the pretense that all are really interchangeable. The egalitarian fantasy seekers are neither altruistic nor kind. They offer not enlightenment but stultification; not freedom, but a virtual prison of enforced pathology where no one is completely comfortable, everyone on guard against any natural human reflex that does not fit that, to which we all are being conditioned.
The Fatal Error In The Cousins’ Approach
What Cousins suggested, basically, was that by reducing awareness of differences for which earlier generations had been willing to fight, we could create a new, more peaceful, world order. Put even more simply, if you take away those things that people value more than peace, more even than life itself, you will eliminate any need to fight. Yet people, if mean spirited, or personally ambitious, will fight over almost anything. The pretense of human interchangeability–or anything approaching it–will not prevent the mean spirited from doing mean spirited things to other people; nor will it prevent the internal struggles, among the ambitious, in any established order. All that the Cousins’ approach would actually accomplish is to remove the offsetting positive motivations, which flow from a sense of kinship; from a common history, common struggle & achievement, common purpose & multi-generational values. We will grant that almost any nation will sometimes fight for what is important to it. But its mere existence does not inherently threaten anyone–except, perhaps, those who would deny its people the liberty to be themselves!
A people who respect themselves; who honor & seek to measure up to their forebears; who strive to build on past achievement; actually have less reason to threaten others than do those, in effect, ethnically disembodied. Respect begets respect, not cruelty. The answer to preventing aggressive war, is the same as that to prevent domestic perfidy & turmoil. It is in developing a sense of respect for others, and measuring up to your fathers’ moral values. This was the basis for the Founding Fathers’ foreign policy. Respect was also the key for the, ideologically varied, citizens of the newly independent States coming together in a Federal Union: Respect for one another, not in a pretense of being interchangeable, but as unique peoples; yet, in the latter case, with a common history, common ethnic roots. We are well aware of what those, who love clichés, have referred to as "Man’s inhumanity to man." It does not come from those taught to respect others. It is far more likely to come from those who seek the fantasy of human "oneness." It was the pursuit of uniformity that slaughtered tens of millions in the Communist empires; very significant, if somewhat smaller numbers, after completed Nazi conquests.
What might one expect from a new "World Order," firmly in place? Consider murders by the Palace Guard in Imperial Rome, at the height of its power. Consider the treatment of domestic religious dissenters, in many lands, throughout history. It is idiotic to believe that there is greater danger from a world in which diverse peoples are recognized to actually be quite different peoples–rather than superficially "diverse" in the sense recognized by those now seeking to deconstruct America’s historic ethnicity–than in one where there is a frenetic need to pretend human equality, in all major attributes! The danger, in the latter situation, of course, is greatest for those with greatest talent; those seen, always, as the greatest threat to those enjoying a "New Order." Thus the fate of the skilled farmers in Stalin’s Russia; the self-consuming idiocy of the French Revolution; the Cultural Revolution in Mao’s China; the fate of intellectuals in Hitler’s Socialist Germany.
For those who would reduce violence in human interaction, the answer is not a head in the sand pretense of anything; rather a return to principles better understood by America’s forebears. The Washington/Jefferson foreign policy posited dealing with others on the basis of mutual respect. We did not seek to inflict our perspective on anyone. We offered trade and interaction with other nations; yet respect for who they were. If we received respect in return, there was no problem. If not? Jefferson advised "punishing the first insult." It was a policy consistent with the "Golden Rule," yet recognized the parental duty to take care of your own. It worked very well for us in dealing with all the World’s peoples–up until World War I & the infestation of our foreign service with internationalists, building cloudborne notions of a "League of Nations."
Can We Yet Ungame The "Questions," To Revive An American Spirit?
Over the past two months, we have focused on some of the more strident ways spokesmen for the American Left have gamed previously begged questions, which should have challenged underlying premises of a collectivist egalitarian dogma, now dominant in American education, politics & journalism. It is by this method that normal psychological defense mechanisms have been thwarted, and the traditional warp & woof of American society, culture and mores, almost systematically deconstructed. Yet in illustrating the technique by its overt aspects, we would not suggest that more subtle methods are not also in play.
One subtle form of "gaming" previously begged questions, is simply by ignoring questions, which obviously should be asked, yet somehow never are. Thus, the situation, where almost no one in the mass media–or even in local media in many areas of the United States–even inquires as to a Constitutional basis for radical proposals to increase the scope of Government. This is particularly noticeable in the growing Federal thrust into education and health care: A thrust, in the direction of an ever more dependent, ever less independent minded, population, with forced uniformity in approaches to vital local services; one totally inconsistent with the original Union of culturally varied States, each–in turn–comprised of strong, cohesive & self directed, local communities. It is a thrust that further undermines any meaningful ability to resist an approaching tyranny. Yet American journalism seems unable–or unwilling–to examine it closely.
The evidence of a conditioned reflex, that leaves traditional America unable to defend its continued existence, is everywhere apparent. Take a survey of those around you. Ask friends or acquaintances about immigration–legal & illegal. Almost to a man or woman, those who consider themselves Conservative or moderate will deplore illegal immigration, but many will quickly assure you that they love "legal" immigration. Some will not stop there. They will go on to assure anyone listening that it matters not whence those legal immigrants come; seemingly driven to convey that they do not recognize any significant differences between peoples. Such need is a clear example of the conditioned reflex under discussion.
Another example of the same conditioning, is a widespread tendency for many, who denounce Jesse Jackson for one or another of his excesses, to immediately seek to identify with Jackson’s mentor, Martin Luther King. The fact that Jesse Jackson, as a disciple, was with King when the latter was murdered, and has applied King’s tactics for the past 41 years, goes unperceived because of the same reflex. The result of each of these conditioned reflexes is a serious flaw in the perception of human society, which prevents even consideration of dynamic factors flowing from what is unique, as opposed to what is common. The fact that many egalitarians believe that a simple recognition of innate human differences insults other peoples, says a great deal about flawed perceptions. Recognizing that a Bushman will find water in a region where a White, Yellow or Black Ph.D., would likely perish for the want thereof, insults neither the Bushman nor the Ph.D. If the need to reassure others that we have no ethnic pride continues, the struggle that began for many in the Seventeenth Century and gained momentum in 1775, is over.
The Founding Fathers had a unique complex of values, some common among themselves, some not. Our formal institutions grew out of their interaction–based upon mutual respect, not "Let’s Pretend"–and their studies of human history, from their own unique ethnic perspective. Our phenomenal progress, both material & spiritual over the first 125 or so years, reflected characteristics peculiar both to those who charted our direction, and to the population involved.
This is no less true, when the subject is "freedom." How any people define "freedom," depends upon their personal priorities; and the Founding Fathers priorities reflected a combination of nature & experience, unique to themselves. The perceived reflections & expressions of that nature heavily influenced the type of settlers, who followed over the next few generations. Neither a nation, nor any true community, is a game of "musical chairs." The nature of each depends upon who occupies those chairs. As a grandson of 19th Century immigrants, one has no problem in recognizing that reality. Watching the traditional America–which drew those grandparents and enhanced their aspirations–self-destruct because of a conditioned reflex, is quite another matter.
There is little hope for any people who lose touch with their own identity, history & roots. It is from their history that a people derive both inspiration & purpose. It is from communities of those who share a common history & culture, that we develop effective defenses against tyranny. If liberty dies in America, a major part of the blame will be in the failure of rooted Americans to respond appropriately to a deliberate deconstruction of their culture; a deliberate reduction of their significance by incongruous immigration; a failure to instill pride in heritage, with a sense of continuing multi-generational purpose, in their progeny; and, above all, in allowing themselves to be "gamed" out of asking questions, essential to their continued existence.
William Flax
On The Web: pages.prodigy.net/krtq73aa/condition.htm