Marx and Possibility vs Reality
“The seat of knowledge,” said William Hazlitt (1778-1830), “is in the head, of wisdom in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right.” What does “feeling right” mean in a head stuck in politics, and what wisdom can ensue from a cold heart? Does “feeling right” link up with the practice of doing what is right for humanity when the realities of being human are ignored, a habit typical of the Left?
At the heart of the matter, ordinarily misframed as a conflict between liberals and conservatives, is the essential difference between ethics structured on the politics of the day and ethics based on centuries of human experience. The “progressive” mindset ignores the organic unity between generations while the “conservative” stance is mindful of the vital continuity between one generation and the next. The one assigns progress to a vertical Now, while the other places it into a horizontal Always.
Which of the two stances of mind and heart comes closer to getting what is “right” and what is “wrong,” what is “acceptable” and what is “unacceptable,” what is “justified” and what is “unwarranted” in political and social action? Is it the mindset that disregards consequences to people of predetermined actions toward “progress,” or is it the outlook that puts consequences of action to people at the top of the list of priorities?
A value missing from the equations of Marxists and would-be scientists regarding human conduct is the forgotten value of morality, lost along the way to modern times. This deficit is plain to those who see the misappropriation of science in dealing with purely human problems. The suspicion that scientific scrutiny is off the mark in dealing with people is justified.
Few if any notice that the social and political sciences have nothing of substance to say about greed, plunder, revenge, and other inscrutable tendencies of mind and heart, as though such harmful inclinations are unimportant to the effective conduct of human affairs. The social sciences necessarily depart from the rigor of scientific methodology to remain in the “scientific” loop. This creates a loophole for political manipulation. The “liberal” notion of progress, for example, needs a fungible “science” to validate its unscientific pathways to desired goals. A troubling side effect of pseudoscience as justification for an agenda is that what is deemed possible finds its way into practice and the law without having to prove its suitability for human beings.
Is there a right to murder? Is there a right to eliminate those whose ideas conflict with yours? These are the type of questions let out the back door by social and political “scientists” in the process of promoting “progress.”
What else to expect when validity of action is overruled by possibility of action?
How plain must it be that what is possible is not equal to what is justified? Should hands do what they can because of the possibilities? Hands that feed and caress and hold from falling can as well strangle and smash and pull triggers. Science does not provide the wisdom to determine what actions are morally justifiable. Nor does ethics, usually tailored to the politics of the day. Given a license to act on what is possible, ethics may easily turn “justice” into an asset of agenda without vetting its consequences to people.
The attempt to make any science really know, and therefore own, the life force behind our existence must result in failure because there can be no rational grasping of the totality of human life. Things like love, hate, anger, vengeance, compassion, etc., are as enigmatic today as they were in ancient times.
“Man is now only more active, not more happy, or more wise, than he was 6000 years ago,” observed Edgar Allan Poe, a man with as sharp a mind as they come.
It should be clear, no matter the generation, that separating wisdom from knowledge leads to major error in judgment regarding knowledge and morality. Such disconnect is rampant among leftists, “liberals,” Progressives, and others who are in some way lured by Marxism. A well–funded group of left-bent political activists has been raiding our schools, our homes, our streets, our workplaces, our families, even our places of worship, where neo-Marxist subversion promotes a “theology of inclusion” that obliterates doctrine, weakens faith, and runs off the track of sanity.
In a sane society, mainstream folk accept the central mysteries surrounding life and do not feel slighted for having to depend on a power felt in the heart, which most people know as God. It is a ground expressed in sacred scripture, in culture, in tradition, in love for one another regardless of the differences among us. This is what “feeling right” about what is right is about, a sense evidently lacking from many in high office who have no use for God or have appropriated that role for themselves, in the interest of lording over others.
How far the misappropriation of moral authority has advanced in this century makes daily news. A stunning instance is that for the first time in history America was being systematically dismantled by its Administrators after 2001. No spin can hide the fact that any act to “transform” America into some form of collectivist state is not sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States and does not reflect the will of the American people.
All the whining about the “destruction of democracy” from delusional and self-righteous celebrities is in fact a raging against Americans who fight to restore this nation to its legitimate foundation, defined and clarified in the U. S. Constitution.
To the head turned to the Left, the concept of God must be upsetting. That there can be a higher authority than the human punches too many holes in neo-Marxist plans for total control of humanity. The limits of reality mean nothing to minds that think reality is winning political games at any price.
Paraphrasing the oxymorons of the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s 1984, one that fits the Left is “Impossibility is Possibility.” What can go wrong?
When enough people have had more than they can swallow of “leftist reality” regarding truth, justice, and wellbeing –– essential input to wisdom –– the experiment on human life introduced by Karl Marx will find its rightful place in the trash heap of history.
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