25 August 2009

It's the polylogism, stupid (2)

One of the ironies in this (aforementioned) article is the complaint that protesters against government-option healthcare coverage are hindering the so-called discussion about health care. It's ironic because there is already a bill. Actually, I'm using the word 'ironic' to be kind. It's actually dishonest. But I digress.

Quite clearly, with the President's demand for a ready-to-sign bill, the debate (or discussion, to use to word of the day) is over -- as are all debates or discussions, once the left have made up their minds. Besides, the article mentions Democratic congressmen who are at these supposedly disrupted town hall meetings to explain the plan. There isn't much to discuss, in a certain sense. I've been to meetings where an insurance plan was to be explained; and it was a plan that had already been decided upon, by an employer. The only discussion involved what the plan covers and how. There was no discussion of whether the plan should be adopted, no discussion of whether employees wanted the plan.

Clearly, in true statist fashion (believing that we work for the state), whether some sort of government option should even be implemented is not for discussion -- in this land of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Our employer, the state, has already made its decision, and it remains only to explain to us their benevolence. (But sadly, that is what the protesters want to discuss.) The people may show up; that's their right. But they are their to listen and ask questions about the plan; and that's all. That's the problem with the protesters: they (employees) still want to discuss whether; the Congressmen (employers) only care to discuss how.

So the complaint that discussion is being hindered is a bit disingenuous. The key determination has already been made; and it doesn't matter who, or how many, object to it. The only acceptable questions are those related to how the plan will work. Objecting to the plan itself is out of line.

How, we might ask, do the left come to have the notion that they can be so dismissive of opponents? I really wasn't engaging in rhetorical flourish when I said (here) that opponents of the left do not matter to the left. The left are polylogists. (They are also, for that reason, irrational.)

Polylogism asserts that the logical structure of the mind is different with members of various groups of humans. And the two most common forms of polylogism, at least here in the U.S., are racial and marxist. Racial polylogism, which I discussed to an extent here, differs from Marxist polylogism only in so far as it ascribes to each race a peculiar logical structure of mind and maintains that all members of a definite race, no matter what their class affiliation may be, are endowed with this peculiar logical structure. (That's why someone like Jesse Jackson is black, but Clarence Thomas is not.) Marxist polylogism asserts, in contrast, that each class has its own logical structure and only members of a given class are endowed with this logical structural. In both cases, however, polylogism is a debunking tool: it exists only to provide grounds for dismissing an opponent without engaging in logical rejoinder. In other words, the racial or marxist polylogist can respond to an argument by telling you that you hold the position you do only because of your race or your social class. The logical structure of your race's mind (or your social class's mind) simply prevents you seeing the wisdom of his position, and, thus, also prevents your agreeing with him. Given these differences in logical structure, why should the left bother?

In a sense, this is at least one way in which the left are logically consistent. If you take seriously the polylogists' claim, then there simply is no way for members of different races or classes to persuade each other of anything. How could there be? In order for two people to persuade each other of anything they must share the same structure of mind. Two leftists could, therefore, be persuasive to each other, and so could two rightists. But leftists and rightists, having differing mental structures, simply cannot reach each other. One is on AM and the other is on FM. Consistent with their position, the left do not feel obligated to reason with those who, on their view cannot be reasoned with. (The right feel the same way about the left, but for a slightly different reason: polylogists are, by definition, irrational.)

But the left also believe that they are correct. And this is not because they can, or have, proved anything. Rather it is because, in true Hegelian fashion, they believe that what arises later in history is superior to that which arose earlier. Leftism (socialism, new liberalism, whatever) is later than rightism (capitalism, the Judeo-Christian ethic, whatever); therefore, leftism is superior to rightism. Rightism (like laissez-faire capitalism) is yesterday's news; we must look not to the past, but to the future. Rightists are wrong, not demonstrably so, but because they are on the wrong side of history. They are looking backward, rather than moving forward, as His Beatitude likes to say. They are, to societal evolution, what someone would be to human evolution who wanted us to devolve back into, say, Neanderthals. In fact, Rightists are neanderthals, and Leftists are homo sapiens sapiens -- on their humble view, of course.

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James Frank Solís
Former soldier (USA). Graduate-level educated. Married 26 years. Texas ex-patriate. Ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.
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