condescension of a liberal

Note: This is the last of four posts about my exchange with Justin.
Also see Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Our uber-liberal friend, Justin, writes:

There are some people that can handle complicated truths.  We call these people liberals.  Most people by far however cannot handle truth of that level.

The complicated truth, in this context, was that Dems' healthcare strategy really is all about rationing.  And those "people who can't handle that truth" are people whom you and I might call "liberals," but who actually believe the left's lies about Obamacare (or as Justin calls it, "guidance"). 

You see, Justin doesn't call them "liberals" because they're not in on the fraud -- they're just the ones who are falling for it.  Where you know the truth and choose to disagree, these are people who only agree because they don't know the truth, making them kind of helpful to the scammers.  That explains why Lenin referred to such people as "useful idiots."  I asked Justin what he calls them:

Those people call themselves liberals but don't really follow the high ideas that real liberals champion.  Liberals say "everyone's viewpoint deserves to be considered in our government" and the people you describe are only capable of hearing "you should get whatever you want".  It is unfortunate that so many people hear such a small part of such a big message, but if only those smart enough to be true liberals voted Democrat, we'd only get about 10% of the popular vote, so I'm going to take what I can get on this one.

In other words: Useful Idiots.

There's plenty more where that came from, and a lot of it is like a James Bond villain bwahahahah-ing over the pending death of conservatism.  But I do want to show you some of the elaborate rationalization behind Justin's philosophy.

Nearly everything Justin said was presented as if it was a hassle to communicate "down" to my level.  And, not surprisingly, such levels exist in Justin's view of the world.  This excerpt is long, but it's not boring, and in fact it's very revealing about the sort of logic elites use to justify telling everyone else how to live.  Justin believes that liberals have evolved a heightened capacity to care for their fellow man, a "universal care for all people." 

And those liberals who cannot handle "complicated truths" -- the useful idiots? It turns out that they're called "level 6":

Protecting yourself physically is important.  Let's call this "level 1" in development.  Caring for yourself -- finding food, shelter, air, water, mates.  Basic survival.  There's nothing WRONG with this behavior, and we ALL have to exhibit it, but imagine what the world would look like if that's all everyone did, all the time.  It would be hell. 

That's why we develop to "level 2", where we recognize that other people have needs like ours.  Here, we can begin to care about our family members and other people who are close to us.  Again, we all have to behave this way, or we can't maintain our personal support connections.  Societies with a majority of people maximally developed to this level still exist -- tribal societies in Africa, for example.  Again, they appear hellish to us, families constantly warring against one another, technology and science at virtually 0, diseases still being treated with magic spells. 

That's why most of the world matured to level 3, in which those different families or tribes can join together into a clan or even a city-state union, where care is expanded from immediate relationships to a confederation of people with the same societal values.  Think ancient Greece -- Sparta and Athens.  Both Greek, but very much competitive against one another.  Modern day Islam looks identical -- Sunni vs Shia, for example.  This level of care has its problems as well, of course.  What happens when one confederation meets another?  When they have a dispute over land?  They fight and war, just like individuals do at level 1 and tribes do at level 2. 

At level 4, those confederations can again bond into larger care groups we might call "nations", wherein the differences between each level 3 power structure are mediated by law, which is often dogmatic and authoritative.  Of course the problem is that these nations still conflict, but hopefully you can see that the world becomes a better place as society evolves upward -- the rule of increased care replaces the frightening selfishness that would otherwise exist in its place. 

At level 5, a world-centered view begins to appear.  Nations no longer matter and value is placed on individual behavior.  Care increases from level 1's "what I desire for myself is good" to level 2's "whatever supports my immediate connections is good" to level 3's "anyone who gives strength to the collective is good" to level 4's "if you obey our society's rules, you are good" and can finally come to see that anyone in the world can be seen as "good" as long as what they do increases the absolute value of the human race.  We live in a society right now that contains a majority of people at this level of development.  Your Ayn Rand and her Objectivism is very firmly rooted in this level of development, which focuses strongly on individualism and being a "good" person by seeking material growth that benefits yourself.  This, however, is the maximum limit of conservatism, which is a very strongly level 3 area philosophy, as it can almost universally be seen to exclude care for whatever lies outside of the boundaries of its native power structure.  Conservatism takes a liking to some level 5 attributes, however, because level 5 is a powerful self-empowerment tool -- if you can rationalize selfishness and use it for material gain, all the better.  It also utilizes level 4 to attempt to dominate nations and authoritatively push out values that are not intrinsic to its own native power structure.

Level 6, however, is where liberalism begins.  Again, care is once more increased from "whoever increases the value of the human race" to literally everyone, regardless of their rate of production or level of development.  This has its own problems, just like every previous level (the main problem is that it empowers all of the lower levels and lets them function in places where they do not belong, which is a perfect echo back to that question [of people who think they're liberals, but who can't handle real, complicated truths] (that's what we call those people -- people that think they're like us just because we care about them and conservatives don't)).  Additionally, level 6 still has enemies even though it claims universal care for all people -- it fights people who DO NOT have universal care for all people.

Of course the levels continue higher.  7 is an integral level of development that grows out of 6 by putting all of the lower levels in their correct places instead of empowering them, 8 appears when a network of people at level 7 exercise this ability to coordinate flow and harmony in structures like government, and 9 is not well understood because there are so few people who have grown that far.  Level 6 is estimated to be 10% of the world's population, level 7 estimated to be 1%, 8 would be .1%, and 9 is indeterminably small.  I hope you are able to see through my description that each level doesn't replace, but INCLUDES the former level.  you can't care about your family if you're not alive and healthy (2 includes 1), you can't create value for the human race if you don't do so within the agreed upon rules of your country (5 includes 4) and you can't help every human being on earth and create global harmony if you don't first actually genuinely care for ALL PEOPLE, BAR NONE, AND NOT JUST YOUR FAMILY. (7 includes 6).  This is what makes me upset about conservatives trying to take power.  They're trying to install a system of low, selfish care in a high system that has to deal with lots of different groups and is already rooted in higher care.  What you see going on in US government right now is somewhat 6 and somewhat 7.  Very respectable, considering how rare it is to find people that well-developed.

I get so little out of this conversation because people who are developed to each of these different levels look at the world in very different ways.  You're exhibiting a maximum development of level 5 and showing some strong level 3 values.  That's why I don't get anything out of this.  We can't communicate on the same terms.  When I say from level 7 that what we need to do is take power away from people who can't handle it so that we can use it for their own good, you only hear this assertion from level 5 at maximum, and to you that sounds like we are 'stealing' or 'lying' because it conflicts with your moral set which promotes an every man for himself attitude, and to you, "good" isn't when the competent take care of the incompetent -- or more accurately help them to BECOME competent -- but rather when each individual does what they can for themselves.

Now, there's something in here that Justin's shown us before.  The ideas, it turns out, are not too complicated for everyone to understand, but embracing them does require an unconventional morality -- a morality which, obviously, has no problem subjugating mere commoners like you and me.  For the greater good, of course.

Justin's philosophy is something called "Spiral Dynamics."  Not surprisingly, this is the product of academics with too much time on their hands -- literally.  I find it reminiscent of (and fully explained by) Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. 

Maslow holds that each level of satisfied needs frees the individual to focus on needs at a higher level.  Suppose you met all the lower needs of someone whose "esteem" needs include telling other people how to live -- see what I mean? 

Look at global warming.  Americans only focus on such nonsense because they can afford the luxury of doing so.  Nations full of hungry people -- like China and India -- are not going to impoverish themselves while they have mouths to feed.  Yet our liberals actually go to third-world countries to urge their citizens not to industrialize for the sake of the planet -- it would be even funnier if it wasn't so sad.

And Justin himself admits that his universal care for all people goes out the window as soon as his own lower needs are threatened.  He does not have a higher level of care, he has a higher level of freedom, which affords him the luxury of experimenting with alternate moralities.  But the freedom to experiment?  That's only possible because conservative values -- conservative morality -- created it.

What do you call someone whose values are skewed by never having had to meet basic needs?  My parents called them "spoiled."  Apparently, Justin calls them "level 7."

But then, what would I know?  After all, I'm only at level 5.

Comments

[Mitch Baker]

Come on, John. You had to have made up this whole thing.

[John Galt]

Honestly, Mitch, I've wondered whether anyone would think that. It's surreal, isn't it?

What's interesting is that despite cultivating this advanced selflessness, they still lack a grasp of even the most basic economics. So much for science vs. voodoo.

Our science is their voodoo, while their "moral set" is supposedly science. Morality a science? Get real.

Totally whacked.

[ConservativeLibertine]

Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler all thought like that too.

You can boil it down to 'a theory for world domination by a few leaders, wrapped in the pretense of all brothers working together and being treated equally.'

It's been tried. The theory is great. The human reality is that it does not work. Tell Justin to go read Animal Farm.

[J Green]

Makes perfect sense, it's common to see people with mentalities like this every day on Television or at work. Although it should be said level 9 should be a level of realization - that no matter the intentions of an individual or their capability to implement them, whether they are intelligent and good willed with some higher understanding in some regard, their right to manipulate the lives of others in ways that are negative to that person's level in favor of being positive to your own is inherently evil. As Justin states, people don't ascend because they're cared for, they do so because they struggle and improve themselves.

Thus the smartest people of level 7 and level 8 are dangerous. A man with ideals and the will to live by them is an honorable thing, a man with ideals and the will to interfere with the necessary development of others, to subjugate them for their own benefits shows many characteristics of a level 1, except they consume and reproduce other people. They don't allow for a world in which individuals may create themselves.

[Hank Rearden]

According to Justin, a "complicated truth" is nothing more than his opinion. And it's not that Universal Healthcare includes rationing. That's simple, if well hidden. What's complicated is the reasoning (if you can call it that) behind why it's better.

[John Parlier]

Are you sure Justin's real name isn't Bill Maher?

[Charles Garman]

Yeah! Level 5 unite! We have nothing to lose but levels 6-9!

[Tom Mitchell]

If your child asks for bread, would you give him a stone? Level 7s and 8s would, it seems.

Almost 9 million people die of hunger each year. Yet progressivism seems to gaining dominance in the charities of the world. Green revolution now means organic low yield methods instead of life saving pesticide & GMO methods. Oxfam boasts of electing a progressive African leader in its annual report.

I've seen estimates of 30 million dead due to the ban on DDT alone.

It seems as though the progressives have now become as militarized as any other group.

They fanatically pilot their ship of state at the Japanese whaling fleets. Throw blood on fur, and countless other mayhem about "higher level" causes while flesh and blood "level 1" needs are not met and real people starve.

It must indeed be frustrating to communicate with people who refuse to be enlightened to understand why elite ideas are of higher significance than human lives.

[Hank Rearden]

Tom: I'm a big advocate of pesticide use, especially in agriculture. They save crops, prevent disease, and help keep food prices low. If used properly, most will break down well before they cause environmental damage. That being said, DDT is a lost cause; trust me. There are many other molecules in various formulations on the market now that are better suited to killing mosquitoes (organic phosphates, synthetic pyrethroids, carbamates, nicotinics, etc). Because DDT was so safe around people, it was basically used until it lost its efficacy long before it was ever banned in the US. This allowed the target insects to develop a strong chemical resistance (similar to bacteria and antibiotics), resulting in the need for ever-stronger concentrations to be effective. Organic chlorines were particularly bad about this because, unlike the modern molecules you see today, they were very stable in the environment; thus, the target populations were constantly exposed to the various chemical intermediates and residues even between applications. There's a particular breed of caterpillar native to northern Michigan that's basically immune to DDT now because of that. What African officials really need to do to control the malaria problem is get off of their collective butts and set up a revolving treatment program so those damn mosquitoes never get a chance to build chemical-specific immunities. Sorry for the impromptu biochemistry lecture.

[c]

That's a lot of words from Justin to justify fascism.

[Rainer]

It's easy to argue any point if you start by saying, "You're not on my level, so you won't understand."

The ideals that Justin suggests come from evolution, are in my opinion just guilt.

From comments I hear from a few liberal friends and people like Warren Buffet, I realized people who have done well, or even just moderately well for themselves, feel guilty when they see someone else "in need." These liberals perceive they are lucky in life, and want to give back. It's a generous thought, but flawed in the application of their ideal.

To apply their ideology, they must take from others and give to those in need. Either the taking is by force, or it's voluntary, or both. Either way, they give. And give. And give. And nothing changes. An alcoholic needs alcohol to feel better. But, after a few hours the alcoholic needs more drink to feel better again.

Those liberals who are Christians even reject Jesus' own statement "The poor you have with you always". There will always be poor people, and you could never do enough to stop them from being poor. Being poor is a state of mind, and is often blended with a lack of money, or rather it shows itself more clearly when there is a lack of money. The state of mind discourages advancement and bettering oneself.

Understand that you can be poor monetarily and be perfectly at peace. The guilty rich often misunderstand this concept since they feel guilty about having more than the person they see. So, they perceive a need that isn't there. They give through the government to help out these without money, and further encourage them to be dependent on government largess.

I think conservatives recognize something else: You can't sustain propping up someone for all time. Therefore, another solution is required: teaching someone to better themselves. It's not a promotion of self interest, but an idea that if you can rise above your circumstances, then we can both move forward in a better world. ("...Teach a man to fish…")

We wouldn't have a health care crisis if we would all pitch in to be more healthy, and to spend more on medical research, among a thousand other things. We could teach third world countries to better use resources and grow their own food, or trade for it, instead of just giving it to them. We would still have problems, but we would be moving toward resolutions of those problems. That is why Conservatives believe in preserving freedom.

[Jason]

So the truth is, the starving people must die so Justin can eat, those African villagers are only level 1 anyway -- they can't contribute to his world.

He gains nothing from them by talking to them. He is worried about gain... hmmm, sounds like level 1. Maybe he needs to be retrained.

Sounds to me like he basically thinks we are all here to run him up the ladder to level 9 since we can't function in his society. I think he and his kind are taking advantage of my ignorance, since I am only level 2. He threatens my family's ability to function well by taking my money and wrecking the economy. Am I supposed to give him a big hug and thank him for it? He won't explain it to me so I can understand what he's doing. Maybe that is why there are so few level 9's, they didn't tell us idiots why they were taking from us, so we killed them? The rest of the level 9's are trying to figure out how to take my hard earned labor without me getting mad and doing the same to them.

I don't know, how can I, I am only level 2, but this guy sounds like he has a super-inflated sense of worth. Do you suppose Al Gore is a level 9? Maybe these Grand Poo-bah's should show us common folk how we should function. I learn better from example. If he gave all of HIS money to the government to help the world, maybe I would think it such a grand idea and do the same. At the very least it could make me think much better of him and start me on the path to enlightenment.

[John Galt]

Careful, Jason. You keep talking like that and someone's going to mistake you for a level 5.