Fools, Frauds and Firebrands (Part 2)

A previous article - Fools, Frauds and Firebrands (Part 1) - outlined the history and structure of the thoughts that permeate much of today’s left-wing thinking. This one looks at some practical implications.

Coming to terms with reality

We may express surprise and outrage at the policies of the elites, both of left-wing parties and, to a slightly lesser degree, the ‘conservatives’. But they all make sense when you see what they grew up on. This is not just a general philosophy but a rigid belief system - their true view of reality.

This is why they cannot understand the howls of protest from the common people, other than to write them off entirely as ‘far-right’.  They decide what’s true and then arrange the narrative to support it! (as we saw with the BBC’s falsification of Trump’s January 6th speech).

Theirs are not even necessarily consciously held ‘beliefs’. Even if we're quite sure of the truth of the beliefs we hold, we should also be able to see that there are alternative conclusions. Many on the left cannot see that – in their mind, what they think is right is therefore absolutely true, end-of.
 

Even if we're quite sure of the truth of the beliefs we hold, we should also be able to see that there are alternative conclusions. 

This inevitably results in ‘cognitive dissonance’ when in contact with reality. As writer Mike Jones comments, “Right-wingers may lie or spin, sure, but on the Left it’s practically pathological. Their blind spots are legion: ethnicity, crime, cultural differences, free-rider problems with the welfare state. These are truths they refuse to touch. Yet their belief in their own honesty is so deep-rooted that to challenge it is like desecrating a holy text.”

This ‘dissonance’ is also reflected in the picture that the Labour party conjured up for us in their manifesto at the last election: good, reliable leadership, not ideology. Sadly, they have shown their true colours, and the absence of logic is seen in Government announcements repeatedly.
 
We saw recently how Labour MPs, including Keir Starmer, would criticise any calls for limits on immigrants as racist, but how, in contact with the reality of the situation, the Home Secretary then has had to change tack, saying that there needs to be controls on migrants wishing to settle in the UK: they will have to volunteer, have a spotless criminal record, speak English to a high standard and be a net contributor.
Marxist views are not just academic; they can become deadly.

One historical detail: we may have heard of the spies, Blunt, Maclean etc., who betrayed wartime secrets to the Soviets. That may feel rather distant and esoteric, but they also betrayed the contacts the British had in what became the Soviet Bloc countries. These contacts were meant to be the key leaders post-war, relying on Allied support, but the Soviets murdered each group, making the communist takeover easier.
 

Their belief in their own honesty is so deep-rooted that to challenge it is like desecrating a holy text.

These views are just as deadly today and are unquestionably behind many of the evils that we see in society. We must realise that we need conviction to defeat them; these are not just political or spiritual games.
 

What the ‘left’ are for

Before we go any further, some clarification is required. By the ‘left’, I am not automatically referring to everyone who votes Labour, Liberal Democrat or Green. I am not by default encompassing everyone who believes that it is right for workers to have legal protections, or for the poor, elderly and disabled to receive adequate assistance from the State. Rather, I am talking more of an ideological belief in the wholesale transfer of wealth and property from the rich to the poor; a conviction that the groups controlling the population need to be overthrown, and control placed in the hands of those more ‘worthy‘. It’s a language of victimhood and lack of agency.

According to Roger Scruton, former Professor of Philosophy at Oxford, “The language of the New Left is a language of accusation and defiance.” He also says of the American legal philosopher and jurist Ronald Dworkin; “Briefly, if conservatives were against it, he was for it”.

There are masses of leftist literature, making it natural to assume that there must be something positively structural in their ideology. But it appears not. Arguably, such structure did exist with the basis of the Welfare State, before it morphed into the behemoth we currently see. But that is no longer the case. The central principle, ‘equality’, is neutral at best, so the overriding driving force is what they are against.
 

Instead, France had economic and communal chaos, led by bloodthirsty revolutionaries, and the result was Napoleon, who went on to terrorise Europe.

The French Revolution was the throwing off of monarchical (and ecclesiastical) rule. But as Edmund Burke argues in ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’, some judicious reform would have been better for everyone. Instead, they had economic and communal chaos, led by bloodthirsty revolutionaries, and the result was Napoleon, who went on to terrorise Europe.

Marx was a contemporary of Spurgeon in 1870s London, and Spurgeon commented: “German rationalism, which has ripened into socialism, may yet pollute the mass of mankind and lead them to overturn the foundations of society. Then ‘advanced principles’ will hold carnival, and free thought (atheism) will riot with the vice and blood which were, years ago (in the French Revolution), the insignia of the ‘age of reason’.” Jamie Bambrick later noted that Spurgeon “also recognized that many had confused the gospel of Jesus Christ with the  secular knock-off promoted by Marx.”

For Marx, the problem was the structural inequities caused by capitalism and enforced by the bourgeois. For many today, it’s the identification of whatever ‘Other’ is perceived to be their oppressor. Thus, we see the sense of institutionalised envy and victimhood. For the Frankfurt school, the oppressor - the ‘Other’ - came in the form of ‘The patriarchy’, and Hegemony, and later morphed into the manufactured divisiveness of Critical (Race) Theory.

In whatever form it comes, Marxism seeks to throw off perceived organisational oppression. However, because its proponents are against ‘the hierarchy’ in principle, they have no model to replace it with. Therefore, those who lead are those (men) who are best at projecting an air of invincible secret knowledge (like Gnosticism), with a bit of help from ‘the muscle’.
 

In the eyes of Marxists, customary law must be overthrown as it is seen as codifying oppression.

Their leadership is supposed to be transitional, to get to the egalitarian utopia. But somehow that’s always just out of reach – they need more power to get there, more suppression of the opposition. Being self-referential, they brook no challenge. So, we see the curtailment of free speech, as we have recently witnessed in the UK more than any nation in Europe, where in certain places, even praying in your head is criminalised.

Incidentally, the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ originated with the seating arrangements in the French National Assembly. But for us it’s not really ‘left’ or ‘right’ that matters – it’s whether the trajectory is ‘up’ or ‘down’!
 

Law

In the eyes of Marxists, customary law must be overthrown as it is seen as codifying oppression.  Divine Law is included in this, hence the necessity of atheism, to represent a rebellious cry against godly authority: “Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their yokes from us” (Ps 2:3). In its place is the unchallengeable right of the elite. Britain’s reduction in jury trials, expansion of magistrates’ powers and two-tier justice, are out-workings of this. Likewise, under Tony Blair, we saw the advancement of political law, reduction in representative government sovereignty and the rise of unelected quangos.

It’s about the moral centre of mankind: truth, responsibility, ethics.

Instead of public law – which God delivered on two tablets of stone for all to see and for no one to rise above – there is arbitrary law, and the abuse of it with lawfare (legal action undertaken as part of a hostile campaign against a country or group).
 
This explains much of the failure of socialist states. But it also explains the attraction – as it suits our rebellious natures. Roger Scruton recognises that all this, at heart, is a religious issue.

It’s about the moral centre of mankind: truth, responsibility, ethics.

There is, rather, a better way – the way of Jesus Christ. And His yoke is easy and his burden is light.