Global Research Assembly
Chicago Nexus
July 1976
THE LIBERAL HERESY
Anyone who has been caught up inthe great drive for renewal which characterizes our time will know that thereare forces which work against him. There is something that does not like resurgence,that tries to defeat new life, that is out to destroy anything that speaks ofhope or vitality of a human future. However mild or friendly he may be he findshimself in a life and death struggle with a vicious and malignant enemy that isout to destroy him. This has always been the case, and the enemy has won allkinds of titles for itself over the centuries, such as Satan, the Lord of theFlies, the Cloven Hoof, the Evil One, the Serpent, etc. This essay is noattempt to anatomize him all over again for our time, only to describe one ofhis more dangerous and insidious disguises. I've have called it the LiberalHeresy, because it bears the same relation to true Liberalism as the wolf doesto Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother: it looks pleasant and harmless but infact it is out to gobble you up, so that all your fine intentions and greatexpectations vanish without trace.
In the first place this heresyuses the Abstraction of theGood Idea. This is a kind of romantic rationalism or idealism which emphasizesfine ideas and admirable thinking at the expense of effective action. Thus thisliberal might say, "All people should love one another", or,"Freedom of the press at all costs", or "It is tyrannical to usethe English language in Africa", or"All forms of air pollution, including driving and smoking should be madeillegal", and so on. The ideas are not bad on the contrary they are very goodideas, often irrefutable, and that is that gives them their power to destroy.For instance, you know in the very depth of your being that people should loveone another, but since they hate each other and always will it is hard to comeup with a practical response to the love ideal: it would be much more logicalto commit suicide or to sit very still for the rest of your life so that you atleast do not hurt anyone. You don't have to go that route, of course, but thereis something in the tone of such ideals when they come from the liberal hereticthat encourages you to do so. In fact a valuable clue as to whether it is theenemy you are listening to is whether you are getting depressed and paralyzed:if you are, it probably is. He makes you feel terribly reluctant to soilyourself in the dreadful complexity of actual situations, and guilty abouthaving ever gotten involved in something.
The problem with this kind ofliberalism is evident. It quickly becomes a brand of hatred for lifemasquerading as compassion or honest thinking. It has the power to destroywhile pretending to redeem. "Action", however, "will remove thedoubt that theory cannot solve", which is why the man of faith is a man ofaction. This is the deep address of a Town Meeting or a Social Demonstration:one necessary deed has more life giving power than a thousand good ideas.
In the second place, the liberalheresy uses the Weaponry of anImmediate Eschaton. An immediate eschaton of any kind provides you withenough weapons to destroy pretty much anything." Since the world is on thebrink of extinction (through population explosion or nuclear warfare orinsecticides or Communism or the fuel crisis or the beef shortage or thedrought or galloping inflation or pollution etc.) it need not be takenseriously. Why would you build anything when the whole world is about to comecrashing down about your ears? The best you can do is stock your basement withcanned foods and wait for it to happen, or build up an arsenal and hope you canfight your way out when it happens, or bury your head so that a piece of debrisdoesn't dash your brains out, or just carry on unobtrusively getting the mostyou can out of the few days that are left." This approach to life could berelatively harmless, but it tends to crusade, and in doing so to negateeverything that does not react the same way. For instance if someone says "Unlesswe introduce mandatory sterilization for every welfare recipient in the westernworld there is not going to be any future"' he is implying that any otherhuman undertaking is absolutely futile and pathetic and misguided. Thus alethal attack has been launched, quite possibly without your even realizing it,and any hope or courage you may have had is massacred before you had a chanceto do much about it.
Lucidity about inevitable doom isall very well, but when it invites you to base your decisions on fear ordespair it has revealed itself as just another illusion, as hostile to new lifeas any complacency. The clue to the inauthenticity of this stance is that theliberal blithely hops from one eschaton to the next as time moves on. Itproclaims a predestined, imminent, inevitable doom of the world. It bulliespeople into diving on the edge of catastrophe, either taking some emergencyaction or some special dispensation from action It negates any7 seriousresponsibility by showing the way the uselessness of everything. It refuses todeal with existing structures .since there is no time for this and they areall. doomed anyway. Meanwhile
Sisyphus continues to roll hisboulder and the man of faith continues with inexorable patience to build theearth.
In the third place the libera1heresy is characterized by a propensity to live in The Romanticism of the DemocraticPrinciple. Here the liberal prefers to poll the opinions, reasoned orhaphazard, of every Tom, Dick and Harry, rather than take the awful step ofactually deciding about something. "Since there is nothing to be done wecan at least make the situation less unpleasant by agreeing aboutsomething." In this case political justice takes precedence overeverything, and if someone is upset about what is happening you should stop orsabotage the whole program until they are happy about it. "Every humanbeing is important, therefore we must ride roughshod over no one." A real dyedin the wool liberal heretic will not be deterred by any paralysis or chaos oreven disaster that may ensue from this approach to polity, since to himanything is better than oppression, and therefore it is in fact probablypreferable to abandon an enterprise before someone gets hurt. By the sametoken, he will not co operate with any unjust government. This means of coursethat his hands are rather tied for the moment in America, India, Italy, thePhilippines, China, Russia, Rhodesia, Scotland, and so on, but even if hishands are tied at least they are clean.
Since the ideal of one man onevote is very dear to him, and since it is consistently impracticable, one ofthe liberal heretic's more characteristic states of mind is outrage. He swellswith indignation, his eyes flash with scorn: "How can you say that India's doingwell now the Emergency has taken hold?" "How can it be good if MayorDaley thinks it's good?" "So you just went ahead and wrote proposalswithout a single anthropologist on the team? Without even speaking the sevendialects they speak there?" This kind of attack can effectively wreck yourwhole operation if you don't look out. By some tragic irony the cry of libertyand equality that once was used to set men free, and still can be used thatway, has become a weapon to kill initiative. And the one who is using it willprobably look better than his opponent. The man of faith, however, cares forthe world; his reverence extends to all of life. He will not tie his destiny toa political principle, however noble it may be, and he will not condemn wholesections of the world to starvation or chaos because they seem to contradicthis favorite truth about life. He reads the signs of the times, he discernswhat is necessary in order that life and still more life may be given back tothe world, and then uses whatever political mechanisms may be needed for thework to continue.
The fourth device used by thisliberal heretic is a safe one Criticismof the Detached Observer. His three best ways of doing this have alreadybeen described, but you cannot rely on him to limit himself to these: he canfind fault with any plan of action, for a boundless variety of reasons, andfurthermore he will, since this is the only way to justify his own immobility.Thus you may come under vicious attack at any time for serving bananas toooften or getting up too early or speaking too plainly or too deviously or withtoo much of a nasal twang or too academically or too inaccurately. No matterhow effective or even miraculous a community program may be, if it fallsoutside the pale of his ethical piosity he will shoot to kill. This may come inthe form of a suave academic critique, or a chocking denunciation of yourtechniques, or a withering description of your wall decor, or some spinechilling hints about your possible political affiliations. Since he is alwaysmore or less justifiable in this activity, and since he is sniping from abullet proof ivory tower, it should be said plainly here that he is verydangerous.
Fortunately, however, the hopethat renews community is a hope that does not disappoint; it cannot bedestroyed. Thus, although it is constantly taking the necessary precautionsagainst sabotage it continues relentlessly to do its work. This does not meanthat someone involved in this work is safe on the contrary he is extremely vulnerable and can be wiped out at a moment’snotice, and will be if he doesn't take care. It just means that he can put histrust in nothing but the power of being itself, and when he does he and hiswork are indestructible.
Now the liberal heretic has onelast trick up his sleeve to thwart the forces of renewal, and it is liable tocatch you off guard, since it seems so out of tune with the other four. It iscalled the Activism of anInnocent Helper. Just when you were beginning to think he suffered fromsome kind of chronic inertia he swings into action. He jumps up from the tablesaying, "You can just spend another year figuring out how to win the wholewar if you like, but while you are just sitting around I'm going to be outthere doing something.." So he goes off to help someone with something orto visit some old folk or teach someone to read or dig a flowerbed. This is athinly disguised invitation to abandon the Long March of Care for the sake ofsome more reasonable or acceptable kind of activity. The liberal heretic wouldrather be doing something, anything, than the whole thing. Since winning thewar is such an overwhelming responsibility he opts for engaging in a couple ofskirmishes instead. He does not actually want to win, he just wants to be busy,busy enough to be innocent. In the name of hope he perpetuates the despairwhich says, "I knew it was just another do-good project." Under thebanner of action he promotes a rebellion whose goal is in fact the same asbefore: inertia.
The man of faith however knowsthe song which goes, "To only to is less/ Than forming humanness,"and though he may share the unbearable impatience to be out gettingkilled in a skirmish he continues to watch over the whole war and pray over thewhole world.
The liberal heresy often poses asheroism, but is in fact a cowardly retreat from life's slings and arrows, forunderneath it is a profound negativism, an assumption that real life the way itis, is bad. The opposite approach to life releases human creativity. But thecontemporary campaign for human development often finds itself in peril at thearrival of this enemy in one of its guises. However, as the general says,"Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never bein peril." In this case if you know just one of these you will probablyknow the other well enough.
Jim Wiegel
“If you want an adventure . . . what a time to be alive!”. Joanna Macy
401 North Beverly Way,Tolleson, Arizona 85353623-363-3277jfwiegel(a)yahoo.comwww.partnersinparticipation.com
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