Whilst (!) reading a review of a book on contemporary America, I came across a word that I like: hypermoral. That captures what I mean by high-mindedness, an ethical disorder typical of (but not limited to) liberals and well-documented in Burnham's 39 Articles.
Any kind of morality worth having must, it seems to me, be appropriate to the capacities of the subject in question. No one expects dogs or toddlers to act like nuns. In our case, the subject is the human race as it is, what Jung called empirical man, what Christians call fallen man. Most human moral codes call for a stretching of those capacities. I have more than once complained of the perfectionist streak in Jesus' teachings. On the other side, for example, the moral codes of warrior peoples certainly ask men to be braver and tougher than many of them ordinarily are. But a moral code which decides on high-minded goals simply because they are high --and the higher the better-- is no more usefully humanizing (and indeed far worse) than the identification of the good with the difficult.
As a form of Christian moralism without Christian beliefs, liberalism combines the worst of both worlds. And like some strains of Christianity, liberalism can only accept the ideal human, never humanity as it is. On the contrary, deep within liberalism lies a disdain and hatred for ordinary human life as it is actually lived.
Being convinced by Newton's Third Law, and by Heraklitus and Jung that enantriodromia is a reality, that extremes tend to provoke and turn into their opposites, I find it natural that the crypto-fascist hypermoralism of the post 60's cultural regime should give rise to the Anti-Political-Correctness of the overtly fascist traditionalist reaction.
Any kind of morality worth having must, it seems to me, be appropriate to the capacities of the subject in question. No one expects dogs or toddlers to act like nuns. In our case, the subject is the human race as it is, what Jung called empirical man, what Christians call fallen man. Most human moral codes call for a stretching of those capacities. I have more than once complained of the perfectionist streak in Jesus' teachings. On the other side, for example, the moral codes of warrior peoples certainly ask men to be braver and tougher than many of them ordinarily are. But a moral code which decides on high-minded goals simply because they are high --and the higher the better-- is no more usefully humanizing (and indeed far worse) than the identification of the good with the difficult.
As a form of Christian moralism without Christian beliefs, liberalism combines the worst of both worlds. And like some strains of Christianity, liberalism can only accept the ideal human, never humanity as it is. On the contrary, deep within liberalism lies a disdain and hatred for ordinary human life as it is actually lived.
Being convinced by Newton's Third Law, and by Heraklitus and Jung that enantriodromia is a reality, that extremes tend to provoke and turn into their opposites, I find it natural that the crypto-fascist hypermoralism of the post 60's cultural regime should give rise to the Anti-Political-Correctness of the overtly fascist traditionalist reaction.
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