13. Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups
that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians),
repellent (homosexuals) or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel
that these groups are inferior. They would never admit to themselves that
they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these
groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not mean
to suggest that women, Indians, etc. ARE inferior; we are only making
a point about leftist psychology.)
14. Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong and as
capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as
strong and as capable as men.
15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and
successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate
white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for
hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives.
They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist,
ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist
countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or
at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY
points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in
Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the
leftist’s real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and
the West because they are strong and successful.
16. Words like “self-confidence,” “self-reliance,” “initiative,” “enterprise,”
“optimism,” etc., play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary.
The leftist is anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants society to
solve everyone’s problems for them, satisfy everyone’s needs for them, take
care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of
confidence in his ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own
needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because,
deep inside, he feels like a loser.
17. Art forms that appeal to modern leftish intellectuals tend to focus on
sordidness, defeat and despair, or else they take an orgiastic tone,
throwing off rational control as if there were no hope of accomplishing
anything through rational calculation and all that was left was to immerse
oneself in the sensations of the moment.
18. Modern leftish philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science, objective
reality and to insist that everything is culturally relative. It is true
that one can ask serious questions about the foundations of scientific
knowledge and about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can be
defined. But it is obvious that modern leftish philosophers are not simply
cool-headed logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge.
They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality.
They attack these concepts because of their own psychological needs. For one
thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that it
is successful, it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly, the
leftist hates science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs
as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e.,
failed, inferior). The leftist’s feelings of inferiority run so deep that he
cannot tolerate any classification of some things as successful or superior
and other things as failed or inferior. This also underlies the rejection by
many leftists of the concept of mental illness and of the utility of IQ
tests. Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities
or behavior because such explanations tend to make some persons appear
superior or inferior to others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit
or blame for an individual’s ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is
“inferior” it is not his fault, but society’s, because he has not been
brought up properly.
19. The leftist is not typically the kind of person whose feelings of
inferiority make him a braggart, an egotist, a bully, a self-promoter,
a ruthless competitor. This kind of person has not wholly lost faith in
himself. He has a deficit in his sense of power and self-worth, but he can
still conceive of himself as having the capacity to be strong, and his
efforts to make himself strong produce his unpleasant behavior. [1] But the
leftist is too far gone for that. His feelings of inferiority are so
ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and
valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. He can feel strong only as
a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies
himself.
20. Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics. Leftists protest by
lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke police or
racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many
leftists use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER
masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait.
Minorities and women are the footsoldiers for the leftist elite