RIGHT AND REASON

      So, yesterday was the 4th of July, which is still celebrated despite actual Independence Day officially being changed to mid-June by the Putschists and their Republican enablers. Based on some recent debate going on in the Blogsphere, we're certain that the 'Conservatives' who voted for the change back in 2021 didn't let their feelings or emotions get in the way of their realistic reasoning in opting for the new date. July 4th is just another day, after all---who cares what holidays symbolize? 

    The intellectual divorce between Reason and Emotion (as if the two were mutually exclusive in the first place) really largely began among the Punditocracy with the rise of Neoconservatism during the 1990s and was reinforced with the rise of the Alt-Right during the 2010s. The concept was deeply tied to the mythos that "Rugged Individualism Built this Country," (a belief which ignores things like citizens' militias, pioneer communities, and Constitutional Conventions). Actually, the reasonable people acting upon enlightened self-interest back in the 1770s were the pro-British Tories. 

    As we've demonstrated here many times; what the Neocon actually means by  'Reason' and 'Rugged Individualism' is the cost-benefit principle as the basis of society. It's basically the inversion of Radical Marxism; not its opposition. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" simply has been modified to "From each according to his ability, to each according to his greed." The 'parasitic capitalist' is now the 'parasitic proletariat.' If Communists believe that capitalist exploitation of the farmers and workers of the world is killing them, then the Neocons argue that capitalists producing value is the only thing keeping the farmers and workers of the world alive. If the Communists ideal is collective ownership, we are told, in contrast, that there is no such thing as society, only individuals. In the ideal of the New Right, we have a small group of men in charge of the whole economy. They are above the law, they can kill those who stand in their way so long as the trains run on time and 'stakeholders' see a return. That is very similar to how the Soviet Union's economy operated; except that Neocons replace Politburo-appointed apparatchiks with the Lords of High Finance and the Wizards of Wall Street. Dissent from the agreed-upon deterministic economic model isn't tolerated either. 

   Arch-Neocon Dennis Prager even went so far as divide ethics into economic terms of Macro and Micro values. "The human being is composed of two moral components—the micro and the macro. In a truly good human being—”good” is not the same as “nice”—one is good in both realms. It is therefore quite possible to be nice in the micro and hold awful values for society; and it is quite possible to have excellent macro values and not be a particularly nice person." Sophistry like this is how it's possible for so many on the contemporary Right to look the other way at gross injustice while justifying it all because Might Makes Right.

   Citizen Tom, who's been defending the position that feeling has no place in statecraft makes this astonishing analogy: 

  "The whole debate got started because insanitybytes22 doesn’t think some Christians are loving enough. Does that seem silly? Neither insanitybytes22 nor The Night Wind are crazy enough to do such a thing, of course, but imagine living in a totalitarian state. What if we don’t cheer the Dear Leader with sufficient enthusiasm?"

  I wanted to highlight this statement because it reflects the thinking of many who hold this position. In his hypothetical example, I would surmise that fear is the dominant emotion during such displays: a good percentage are applauding Dear Leader because they fear whatever bogeyman he's supposed to be defending them against; or because they fear insufficient enthusiasm might draw the attention of the secret police. Likely though a large percentage are applauding enthusiastically because everyone is. 

  Therein lies the core of the problem with such thinking: the people who criticize emotion in social policy fail to differentiate between positive and negative emotions. They don't grasp the fact that our emotions are expressions of our values. Such have been codified in various ways, but since these positive values are based in the Positive Attributes of the Divine, they form the basis of Law in a just society.

    While the natures of Virtue and Vice can be defended with reasoned arguments, we have within our Nature the instinctual ability to discern right from wrong, although we also have Free Will to choose between them (or not make any choice at all; which is what most seem to do). 

   Since these Virtues come from an Absolute and we all have knowledge of them, the idea of Equality before the Law is related to the idea of Equality before God. If people would simply exercise this kind of discernment, it would be apparent that most of the 'reasoned' Sophistry coming from the 'established experts' are nothing but a tissue of lies used to justify their own vices; or to evade responsibility for the damage their policies cause. 

  Human beings are fallible; and it's no argument that people in democracies get carried away with emotions at times and do stupid things like enacting Prohibition or imposing Mask Mandates. The Third Reich's euthanasia program was totally logical---completely unjust, but quite reasonable and cost-effective based on the settled science of Eugenics. Both runaway emotions and runaway reason are products of failing to see others as human beings; and things like Greed, Pride, Envy, and Wrath quickly find an opening to join the debate. I've often said that the Seven Deadly Sins have become America's Postmodern Moral Code: and that's largely because the Seven Cardinal Virtues are no longer socially rewarded or enforced. 

   The net result of this false dichotomy has been the creation of a divided society where neither side is interested in fixing actual problems, but is ruthlessly engaged in a dogfight to sacrifice the nation, if need be, to hold onto their powers and privileges. The only way that we're going to reverse that trend is to stop and think about people are actually impacted by what is being proposed.