DEMON (continued)
Antonio Sosa explains that Ryszard Legutko believes "Political correctness is, in essence, the attempt to compel the human mind to only say and even think thoughts that accord with the insatiable appetite of equality. Legutko is a stern critic of contemporary liberal democracy who is fundamentally concerned with prospects for human excellence under a political order in which what is common to all men is increasingly taken as the standard for understanding what man is" If Sosa's reader (of his review of The Demon in Democracy) stomachs the continual use of the words "man" and "human" then they may get a sense of what Sosa thinks of Legutko's book. Sosa carefully explains that the book does not revell in the disdain for something outside of liberal democracy (of the socialistic type, i.e., the democracy of "modernity," Sosa calls it) or communism. It is as though Legutko tries to stay objective in his discussion of both but also sees liberal modern democracy becoming somewhat akin to communism. My question is, does modern democracy, as it is conceived of by progressives, stolen from people who would enjoy freedoms in a democracy? What does the left want to do with the democracy we used to have? Has it been so distorted that it is unrecognizable and irredeemable as a measure of freedom and justice? What is meant by the word democracy? I would suggest studying those questions a bit because the carpet has been ripped out from under us; it is deception at play and not simply semantics. The word democracy has taken on a new meaning over the past few decades, and we must be aware of this.
Comments
If we're not intrinsically equal, then we can only hope to be "extrinsically" equal in some way. That means our worth is defined by how much someone else values us, either in a relationship or in some utilitarian way - by what they get from us. This could include employment, slavery or even prostitution. Since this fails as a standard of equality, humans must be intrinsically equal. But it is impossible to get something from nothing, so our intrinsic equality implies the existence of an infinite Creator.
Socialism, on the other hand, implies that people are not equal because it divides people into oppressor and oppressed classes in every imaginable dimension: race, sex, religion, age, ability, gender preference, sexual orientation, etc. Equality only results when the oppressor groups are wiped out by social activism, which can include ideological deconstruction, "canceling", legal action or violence.
However, it takes someone to organize the "rabble" into some sort of functionality, The "organizers" then become the new power-wielding "oppressors", who therefore only recreate the problem. The "utopian" "classless" society, which is the vision and goal that spurs on socialists and communists, has one flaw. It never deals with human nature. People are people. As Lord Acton famously said, "Power corrupts, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely." So, how are the humans in the utopian society any different from the ones in the pre-utopian society? If they're the same, then how can one expect a different outcome.
The only other way the left can define equality is as "equity", which is slippery to define, but approximately seems to mean financial equality. But this suffers the same fate as above. Because there is no qualitative change in human nature, someone will doubtless become jealous of someone else whom he thinks has more. Some will be better at gaining wealth than others, and then enforcers have to step in to equalize everything again. But who are the enforcers and who controls them. They only recreate the oppressor-oppressed dynamic again.
It is only by qualitatively changing human nature, which is the core of the Christian gospel, that can lead to a true utopian heaven full of truly transformed people.
Some argue that slaves, during the early settlement and foundation of the US, were not considered even to be humxn. Therefore, the cards were stacked against blacks from the beginning including the writing of the Declaration of Independence. Frederick Douglas wrote extensively of the black experience in early US formation. He stated that the 4th of July “is yours not mine” and that he could not rejoice in it, but rather “mourn(s).” Douglas stated thus about the Constitution: “I repeat, the paper itself, and only the paper itself, with its own plainly written purposes, is the Constitution. It must stand or fall, flourish or fade, on its own individual and self-declared character and objects”
Your point about there being no way to create intrinsic equality is well taken. An argument could be made that this is based on a humxnist understanding of equality, which is very Western and Global North in origin. This humxnism is a type of individualism that does not take into account community and the relative nature of existence.
That the powerful or elite would scoff saying “poor white mxn,” is it fear that motivates white mxn’s reasoning? David Hume once said “reason is and always will be the slave of the passions.”
Just a note about your reference the lack of address to “human nature” by socialism and communism: BF Skinner in Waldon Two wrote about this dilemma for utopian conceptualizations and design for society. In a just society there might be the “veil of ignorance” that John Rawls discusses. The “veil of ignorance” “is a moral reasoning device designed to promote impartial decision making by denying decision makers access to potentially biasing information about who will benefit most or least from the available options” according to who else but Google. This might provide some guidance to decision making in a certain set of social circumstances.