{"id":6931,"date":"2014-01-21T15:37:05","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T23:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6931"},"modified":"2014-01-21T15:37:05","modified_gmt":"2014-01-21T23:37:05","slug":"the-eternal-darkness-of-the-progressive-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-eternal-darkness-of-the-progressive-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"The Eternal Darkness of the Progressive Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The attacks on\u00a0Lone Survivor<\/i>, the movie about 4 Navy Seals caught in an operation gone lethally wrong in Afghanistan, illustrate once again the fossilized orthodoxy of the left. The L.A. Weekly\u2019s Amy Nicholson called the movie a \u201cjingoistic snuff film\u201d that \u201cbleeds blood red, bone-fracture white, and bruise blue\u201d and assumes \u201cbrown people bad, American people good.\u201d Similarly,\u00a0Salon\u2019s Andrew O\u2019Hehir called it a \u201cjingoistic, pornographic work of war propaganda.\u201d\u00a0Such rhetoric reveals the anti-military, anti-American biases typical of progressives, a form of bigotry as stale as disco king Tony Manero\u2019s white leisure suit.<\/p>\n

The reference to 1977\u2019s\u00a0Saturday Night Fever<\/i>\u00a0isn\u2019t random. The next year another movie debuted that goaded the left into a similar fit of anti-American high dudgeon.\u00a0The Deer Hunter<\/i>,\u00a0<\/i>Michael Cimino\u2019s sympathetic portrayal of 3 working-class steelworkers caught up in the inferno of the Viet Nam war, generated the same sort of stale, leftist anathemas we\u2019re still hearing nearly 40 years later. An op-ed by\u00a0New York Times<\/i>\u00a0war correspondent John Pilger thundered, \u201cHollywood sensed that a lot of money could be made with a movie that appealed directly to those racial instincts that cause wars and that allowed the Vietnam war to endure for so long.\u201d That\u2019s how 37 years ago a lefty said \u201cbrown people bad, American people good.\u201d Viet Cong collaborator\u00a0Jane Fonda, whose treacly\u00a0Coming Home<\/i>\u00a0lost the best-picture Oscar to\u00a0Deer Hunter<\/i>, without bothering to see the movie whined that it was \u201cracist\u201d and that \u201cour picture was better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fashion in dance and dress changes and evolves, which is why these days no one dances or dresses like Tony Manero. But the progressive mind is permanently lost in its ideological darkness. It is still hostage to the left-wing catechism of American evil, a narrative already in its second century and obviously immune to historical change or logical coherence. You know how it goes: American foreign policy has always\u00a0really<\/i>\u00a0been about advancing the capitalist interests of corporate overlords by violently appropriating the labor and resources of the Third World, no matter how much cultural or environmental destruction is wreaked. The American people are coopted into this nefarious neo-colonialism by a spurious patriotism about the \u201cland of the free,\u201d and ginned up threats to \u201cour way of life.\u201d Behind this cheerleading rhetoric, however, lies the\u00a0\u201cinordinate\u00a0fear,\u201d to quote\u00a0Jimmy Carter, of alien ideologies like communism and now Islamism, which threaten the capitalist hegemony and white superiority.\u00a0This \u201cjingoism\u201d thus plays on the racist fear of \u201cbrown people\u201d and the need to validate white identity by contrasting it with an inferior \u201cother.\u201d Deeper insecurities\u2013\u2013no doubt of a sexual nature\u2013\u2013among lumpen Americans are likewise exploited and soothed by militaristic \u201cpropaganda\u201d and macho fantasies in which noble white heroes slaughter evil \u201cpeople of color\u201d under the banner of justice and freedom.<\/p>\n

Leftists have been taught by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Edward Said the deeper truths: that patriotism and \u201cfreedom\u201d are just ways to con\u00a0the oafish masses, racism is the cancer deep within the American psyche, and corporate profit and power are the prime movers of American foreign policy. This cartoonish melodrama is everywhere in American culture, from the movies of Oliver Stone to the obscure ruminations of university scholars.<\/p>\n

Lest you think I exaggerate, here\u2019s an example from 20 years ago,\u00a0penned by a \u201ccutting edge\u201d academic from a prestigious university: \u201cWe too in our culture need to come to grips with our deep emotional investments in our own John Waynes, Charles Bronsons, Chuck Norrises, and Clint Eastwoods\u2013\u2013with figures whose essential brutality, moral obtuseness, and gender-based emotional blockage we are constantly invited to forgive . . . And why? Perhaps because we are dimly aware that, as a society, our privileges derive from the genocide of Native Americans, from the crushing of Japan, the devastation of Korea and Vietnam, and\u2013\u2013not least\u2013\u2013the systematic brutal repression of the criminal element at home effected for us by our military and detective heroes.\u201d Change the names of the actors, and this mash-up of Marx, Freud, and Germaine Greer would not be out of place in the reviews of\u00a0Lone Survivor<\/i>\u00a0or\u00a0The Deer Hunter<\/i>, for these ideas have no grounding in historical reality, existing only as the free-floating jargon and clich\u00e9s of the progressive rosary.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the historical value of such comments is nil. Anyone who thinks that the \u201ccrushing of Japan\u201d in World War II\u2013\u2013the Japan of racist, imperialist Shintoism\u2013\u2013 was anything other than a great service to the human race is morally and intellectually idiotic. Ask the 300,000 Chinese raped, tortured, and slaughtered in Nanking, ask the thousands of American and Philippine soldiers brutalized during the Bataan death march, ask the thousands of allied POWs routinely starved, tortured, worked to death, and beheaded. This same obtuseness persists today, as the left ignores or rationalizes the beheadings, torture, and massacres perpetrated by the Taliban, but patronizes and\u00a0demonizes the American soldiers who not only put an end to such horrors, but risked their lives to rebuild Afghanistan and protect its people.<\/p>\n

These pathologies of the progressive mind bespeak a cult-like mentality in which fact or consistent principle has no place. How else can one explain the deep and abiding affection of the left for some of history\u2019s most brutal dictators? What else but terminal cognitive and moral dissonance can explain the creepy obsession with Che Guevara, a murderous thug whom lefties moon over like a teenybopper over Justin Bieber? What possible logical or moral reason could there be for the endless parade of celebrities and politicians\u2013\u2013like New York\u2019s new mayor\u2013\u2013 making the pilgrimage to Havana to kiss Fidel Castro\u2019s ring? Sure, fashion has a lot to do with it. But these thugs and killers are the saints of the left-wing cult, one that has always worshipped power and lusted to cut through the irreducible complexity of human identity and its conflicting goods in order to create their vision of heaven on earth, one in which they and their ilk will always call the shots.<\/p>\n

As for those who reject the progressive gospel, they are heretics and sinners to be persecuted, scorned, and insulted, the \u201cpreterite,\u201d as the old Puritans called them, cast aside by God to suffer eternal damnation while the \u201celect\u201d enjoy eternal bliss in their tony bicoastal enclaves. That explains the smugness and self-righteousness of the typical progressive\u2013\u2013the irony being that rather than enlightened, their minds have been darkened by stale clich\u00e9s and ignorance of basic history, the furniture of the mediocre mind trained not in basic skills and critical thinking, but only to repeat by rote the progressive catechism.<\/p>\n

Cults, however, can be dangerous. Right now a president marinated for decades in this rancid ideology of America\u2019s foreign policy sins is ceding American influence in the Middle East to predators like Iran and Russia, leaving behind a world more violent and dangerous, and more hostile to America\u2019s security and interests. And with his precipitate withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, he is squandering the sacrifices and heroism of better men like the Navy Seals of\u00a0Lone Survivor<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine\u00a0 The attacks on\u00a0Lone Survivor, the movie about 4 Navy Seals caught in an operation gone lethally wrong in Afghanistan, illustrate once again the fossilized orthodoxy of the left. The L.A. Weekly\u2019s Amy Nicholson called the movie a \u201cjingoistic snuff film\u201d that \u201cbleeds blood red, bone-fracture white, and bruise blue\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22,86],"tags":[1025,94,693,93,527,1030],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1NN","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5453,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/american-culture-the-truth-about-40-years-in-the-movies\/","url_meta":{"origin":6931,"position":0},"title":"American Culture: The Truth About 40 Years in the Movies","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers As\u00a0New York Times\u00a0critic A.O. Scott wrote recently, forty years ago this summer the movie that changed the movies premiered. Anybody old enough to remember films before\u00a0Bonnie and Clyde\u00a0can testify to the jolting power of Arthur Penn\u2019s kinetic blend of blue-grass slapstick, Depression-era nostalgia, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5461,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-passions-of-the-left\/","url_meta":{"origin":6931,"position":1},"title":"The Passions of the Left","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"CIA's new revelations fans the flames of \"progressive\" myths of our past by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers The publication of the CIA\u2019s \u201cfamily jewels\u201d \u2014 the record of its domestic spying, hare-brained plots against Castro, and mind-control experiments, among other oddities \u2014 is sure to add fuel to that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7589,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/immigration-and-americas-failure-of-nerve\/","url_meta":{"origin":6931,"position":2},"title":"Immigration and America\u2019s Failure of Nerve","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by\u00a0Bruce Thornton\u00a0\/\/ FrontPage Magazine The number of unaccompanied children from Central America into the U.S. has reached 47,000 since October, and may hit 90,000 by the end of this year. The official story is that they are fleeing drug-gang mayhem and political violence in their home countries, and so are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mexico"","block_context":{"text":"Mexico","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/mexico\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/br-450x288.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2454,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/time-for-a-foreign-policy-paradigm-shift\/","url_meta":{"origin":6931,"position":3},"title":"Time for a Foreign Policy Paradigm Shift","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The greatest danger in foreign policy is a reliance on worn out paradigms and unexamined assumptions. This received wisdom acts as a mental filter that ignores new developments and lets through only that information which fits the preordained narrative. For nearly forty years American\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2545,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-libya-venture-and-double-standards\/","url_meta":{"origin":6931,"position":4},"title":"Obama’s Libya Venture and Double Standards","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The champion of shameless chutzpah has always been the guy who murders his parents then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he\u2019s an orphan. But White House spokesman Jay Carney might be the new champ, given his response to the House\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1173,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/i-love-your-hate-osama-bin-laden-seduces-the-left\/","url_meta":{"origin":6931,"position":5},"title":"‘I Love Your Hate’: Osama bin Laden Seduces the Left","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton RightNetwork.com Al Qaeda headman Osama bin Laden recently released yet another of his promotional communiqu\u00e9s, and like the last decade's worth of his propaganda, this one too is designed not so much to appeal to his fellow Muslims, but to exploit the received wisdom and political\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6931"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6932,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6931\/revisions\/6932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}