Throughout this essay I use “left” and its cognates rather than “progressive” or “liberal” (in the modern, authoritarian sense). The latter terms exemplify doublespeak, an indispensable tool of leftism, inasmuch as “progressives” often endorse regressive economic and social policies, and “liberals” embrace a sanitized version of fascism. This essay draws on many years of reading and observation. Rather than weigh it down with links, I have listed some relevant and supporting books, essays, articles, and posts in the bibliography at the end.

Imagine all the people sharing all the world….

John Lennon

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Make peace or I’ll kill you.

M.D. Haykin

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Conservatives are the new liberals, and liberals the new fascists.

Bill Vallicella (Maverick Philosopher)

I often refer to the left and analyze the sources and consequences of leftist ideology. Here I will try to paint a comprehensive picture of leftism, as a reference point for future posts and as a guide to those readers who are open to the truth behind the “compassionate” facade of leftism. Specifically, I will address the left’s agenda, the assumptions and attitudes underlying it, the left’s strategic and tactical methods, the psychological underpinnings of leftism, the heavy economic and social costs of realizing the left’s agenda, and the remedy for leftism in America.

Ideologies breed in-groups. Most people like to belong to or identify with something bigger than themselves — clan, religion, social group, company, or nation, for example. Leftists are different only in what they identify with. Even libertarians, who claim to renounce the state — or more than a minimal state for the defense of citizens from force and fraud — are cliquish; they put great store in their self-identification, spend a lot of time ferreting out heresies against their creed, and spend a lot of time defending their various interpretations of libertarianism.

Only conservatism of a certain kind is non-ideological. This kind of conservatism can be described, but the description is that of a disposition toward politics in its broadest sense, which is

the process and method of decision-making for groups of human beings. Although it is generally applied to governments, politics is also observed in all human group interactions. [Wikipedia, as of December 11, 2004]

Michael Oakeshott describes conservatism as a disposition in Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays. I classify conservatism — of the true, traditional kind — as a kind of libertarianism (right-minarchism). But the classification is meant only to locate the conservative attitude toward the state in relation to other attitudes. I don’t mean to imply that conservatism of the kind described by Oakeshott is an ideology or creed with tokens of membership.

(There are many people who claim to be conservative, but who are not. I will address them at various places in this essay.)

Leftism also originates in a disposition, as I will discuss, but it ends in an ideology: a collection of particular (if often abstract and shifting) objectives toward which political outcomes should be directed, nay, coerced. Leftists are abetted in their efforts by enablers of various kinds, who may not be leftists by disposition but who lend support (intellectual and material) and votes to the leftist cause because of the allure of its proclaimed goals or promised benefits.

With that essential business out of the way, I turn to the several facets of leftism.

For the rest, go to the “Leftism” page of this blog.