June 01, 2006

From Ramirez:

Liberalism and Evolution: Liberalism Explained

(This is an updated version of this post. The earlier version is here.)

Conservatives often feel puzzled as to the intentions of Liberals.

We wonder, what can they be thinking?

Many Liberals seem to debate by trying to keep the other person from talking, and by using personal insults. They have yet to support any policy that would defend this nation from future 911s, and they oppose most policies instituted to prevent such attacks. How can they pursue such suicidal behavior?

What causes Liberals in the U.S. to attack our own government and to turn a blind eye to the evils of the cultures that brutally oppress their own citizens?

We  wonder, what causes nations in Europe to devote themselves to socialist policies that are destroying them?

What's driving them?

What are they thinking?

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Today it's all but forgotten (due to what I have called The Memento Syndrome), that in its beginnings, Liberalism included an opposition to the theory of evolution. From the Wikipedia article, "Evolutionary theory and the political left:"

Some on the political left, especially Marxists and communists, have been critical of aspects of the theory of evolution by natural selection (Darwinism). Some of this opposition appears for ideological reasons; the concepts of "survival of the fittest", and "nature red in tooth and claw" appear not to fit with economic or social ideals.

... Scientific theories of evolution developed at approximately the same time as left-wing political theories.

Today we can't remember what a revolutionary thing the discovery of evolution was. But survival of the fittest was interpreted by some as meaning that "might makes right". It was used by some to justify any sort of war as part of a sequence of natural selection; to justify any sort of conquest and destruction by one people of another, as part of the natural sequence of evolution.

There is no doubt that in the Darwinian competition for survival, the less capable are by definition at a disadvantage.

Evolution is seen by Liberals as unfair to the less successful. Liberalism seeks to champion the weak, who are at such a disadvantage.

Championing the weak is understandable, and gives good use to our emotions of love, compassion, understanding, sympathy, and empathy.

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Liberalism almost immediately developed into the statecraft of attempting to unite the less successful into a political party. The tactics of Liberalism were an attempt, hopeless from the start, to help the less successful, by means of punishing the more successful. The result was a Liberalism that in effect seeks to halt evolution, as something that is unfair to the weak.

Liberals, of course, would say that they don't oppose evolution; they would say that they believe the less successful are made so primarily by the oppression of the more successful. But this Liberal view is in fact, whether Libs like it or not, in opposition to Darwinism.

Darwinism tells us that the less successful are made so because they are less well-adapted to their environment, and not necessarily (and in many cases, not at all) due to oppression by members of their own or other species. The Liberal view disregards all this in favor of a view that in humans, there is only oppression of the less successful by the more successful. It's a nice view, but it's got no scientific basis. It's a pseudo-science.

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And the halting of evolution - at least that of society - is the practical result of Liberal policies.

In Communism, the less successful were called "workers," and the more successful were called, "exploiters of workers." And the Communists did succeed in halting evolution. Very little in Communist Russia improved. Everything stagnated. And everyone suffered.

Today's Liberals call the more successful, "oppressors" and "racists," and the less successful, "victims."

They support higher taxes to punish the more successful and to transfer money to the less successful.

They promote a welfare state in which money is given to broken families, but not to whole ones - again rewarding the less successful, and punishing those who succeed. This harms the very people it is promoted as helping, leading one author to recently quote a student who told her, "marriage is for white people."

Today's Liberals turn a blind eye to the failings of less successful cultures, for example, to the failings of the Sharia culture, which oppresses women, performs honor killings of women, performs female mutilation, enforces second-class citizenship on non-Muslims prior to killing them or expelling them, and which produces terrorists who cut off heads on video. At the same time, Liberals devote all their energies to attacking the more successful culture in the United States.

In short, in every case, today's Liberals reward the lack of success, and punish the successful; this is all done in a mistaken attempt to help the weak, based on a pre-Darwinian view that the less successful are made so primarily by the oppression of the more successful.  This view has never been subjected to scientific scrutiny, primarily because it has been outdated since the time of Darwin.

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As seen in Communist Russia, and in Socialist Europe, the absence of rewards for the more successful, does not produce a fair world for all; it produces an unfair world for all. When success is punished, everything stagnates, and everyone suffers.

Rewarding success produces a better world for everyone, including the less capable. As seen in the U.S., in which the more successful are powerfully rewarded, the results are better technology, more wealth, better living conditions, and longer life for all, including the less successful, as documented in tremendous detail in Gregg Easterbrook's book "The Progress Paradox."

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The difficulties many Liberals have in maintaining a polite, civil, logical argument, stem from the contradictions inherent in basing their policies on a view that has no scientific basis, is opposed to Darwinism, and is explicitly opposed to the interests of one-half of society, namely the more successful (i.e. "the oppressors." ).

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Liberalism today is flawed because it is based on an outdated view of evolution, and through that view, on the mistaken assumption that harming the more successful in society will help the less successful. The premise itself is flawed, and leads to devastation for the whole of society, including the less successful.

Liberalism must itself evolve into a means of helping the less successful, while recognizing and welcoming the achievements of the more successful.

A Liberalism that was updated so as to be based on Darwinism, would be very powerful. A Liberalism that sought out those who are less successful, and who through hard work are headed in the right direction (for example, lower-income homes with children and with both the mother and father present) - and used the power of the state to reward them - would massively accelerate the evolution and improvement of the nation.

 

Update 6-10-06: Additional articles on, and examples of, Liberalism Explained, can be found here.