Plenty of cults exist - every cult has its 'religious dogma', its idols, its 'prophets', its 'science', its 'proof' and its intolerant liturgy of demands. Cults everywhere: Corona, 'The Science' or Scientism, Islam, the State, the cult of Gender Fascism, Marxism, Darwin and Evolution, Globaloneywarming, Changing Climate, Abortion...
Tempus Fugit Memento Mori - Time Flies Remember Death
As Hayek wrote, socialist movements display a ferocity of fervor.
by StFerdIII
Besides its immorality and illogicity, socialism always contains two other aspects which renders it dangerous to anyone who defends and covets freedom. First, socialist movements are incredibly emotional, matched only by religious and pagan movements in their appeal to irrational feelings. Second, this emotional mandate demands that the individual be subsumed into the mass. The mass and its collective fervor replace any rationality, doubt or non-emotive impulse that the individual might possess. Both of these facts taken together ensures that this mass emotionalism culminates in political-economic and social disaster. We see this fact today in the socialist-marxist movements of the Prophet Obamed; globaloney warming; or the communalism of Islam.
Hayek said it perfectly when he wrote in 'The Road to Serfdom':
“...the intensity of the moral emotions behind a movement like that of National Socialism or communism can probably be compared only to those of the great religious movements of history. Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation, most of those features of the totalitarian regimes which horrify us follow of necessity.”
Communalism, once it envelopes a society leads to the destruction of the individual. The ethos of the communal movement is by definition against individualism in any and all forms. Private property, free speech, opinions, dissent – all must be eradicated. The 'dreams' of the socialist – equality, community happiness, shared incomes, no poverty, love, tolerance and bliss – quickly mutate into the fascistic demands of compliance, support; regimentation; ritualism; and state dictat. There is no other result which can occur.
We see this is in the communal Umma of Islam. A paganism built on submission, ritualized prayer, a pilgrimage, an arcane 'holy' book; and a set of pre-modern ideas and injunctions. The idea of Islam is simple – replace the individual and any other loyalty or interest which that individual may possess – with subservience to the ideology, managed by an elite. The emotions of the self, are replaced with the emotions demanded by the mass. The individual does not exist – only the Umma.
This is also true of the Prophet Obamed's mass movement. The individual is replaced by 'Yes WE can'. We, in this phraseology, denotes those who join the movement and who demand that the power of government be expanded so that the movement can succeed. Dissension, opinion, rationality and individualism are to be sacrificed. The movement takes precedent. Hence the mad rush to spend money, socialize the economy, and ensure media and information compliance.
Hayek quotes E.H. Carr on this factual truth, “It is significant that the nationalisation of thought has proceeded everywhere pari passu with the nationalisation of industry.”
Indeed. Once the culture of statism takes hold, and once the freedom of economics has been confiscated by government, it naturally holds that political and social freedom will likewise be curtailed. Why should someone be allowed freedom of opinion or of dissent if they do not possess the freedom of economic action, or the freedom to follow the profit principle ? Once statism begins to envelope society it cannot be stopped – the entire culture will be corrupted.
Hayek makes this point perfectly, “Although the beliefs must be chosen for the people and imposed upon them, they must become their beliefs, a generally accepted creed which makes the individuals as far as possible act spontaneously in the way the planner wants.....brought about by the various forms of propaganda. Its technique is now so familiar that we need to say little about it.”
Socialist and cultural marxist techniques of reality distortion are hardly new, nor are they particularly clever. For the communalist the idea of propaganda is that it needs to loud, often stated, and repetitively simplistic. We see socialist dis-information on issues such as globaloney warming with the simplistic and nauseatingly repeated assertion that somehow a natural chemical like Co2 causes climate to warm; or the endlessly sympathetic and indeed hagiographic media descriptions of a corrupt Black politician from Chicago – the Prophet Obamed – a man who sat in a racist church for 20 years and recently was handing out mortgages to poor blacks as part of his community organiser 'job'; as the world's savior, replete with a halo and wings.
The Nazis would be proud of such a colossal re-imaging of a leader.
The end result of socialist and communal lying is of course to destroy real morality and the search for truth. True morality premised on an individual's and a culture's sense of right and wrong, good and bad, respect, humility, charity and compassion is simply replaced by what the cult says the prevailing ethos should be. Hence the bizarre and frightening spectacle of 60 million Germans following the mad creed of Nazism or the 280 million captive subjects of Russian communism following the diktats of absurd mad men like Lenin and Stalin. The cult replaces any objective sense of morality with a ready made plan of what people need to think and feel and how they should act.
This by extension denies the truth. The state, the cult, the leader, the lies and propaganda become reality. Inquiry into the truth is not permitted nor viewed as necessary. The myths of the cult become self-serving, self-obvious and eventually self-perpetuating, resulting in a universal desire to spread the cult everywhere in order to enlighten or enslave those who lie outside the group.
We see the destruction of truth and reality in the Obamed, Islamic and Eco-fascist cults. Hayek's says it wonderfully: “Once science has to serve, not truth, but the interests of a class, a community, or a state, the sole task of argument and discussion is to vindicate and to spread still further the beliefs by which the whole life of the community is directed.”
Well put. Don't believe in globaloney warming? Starting in elementary school the propaganda will begin and for adults you will be beaten through various measures ranging from regulations to taxes into supporting it. Don't believe that Islam is peaceful ? The state will sponsor schools and allow Arab money to construct courses and degrees, and inform the general media with its propaganda until you do. Failing that if you criticise Islam we the state, will jail you or sue you.
And on it goes. The endless cycles of socialism in its many forms. One thing is however certain. The emotional, irrational temperament of socialist ideas always leads to the destruction of the individual and of freedom, no matter what form the socialist movement takes.
