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Ten Lashes Against Humanism
By Jorge Majfud
28 March, 2007
Countercurrents.orgA minor tradition in conservative thought is the definition of the dialectical adversary as mentally deficient and lacking in morality. As this never constitutes an argument, the outburst is covered up with some fragmented and repetitious reasoning, proper to the postmodern thought of political propaganda. It is no accident that in Latin America other writers repeat the US experience, with books like Manual del perfecto idiota latinoamericano (Manual for the Perfect Latin American Idiot, 1996) or making up lists about Los diez estúpidos más estúpidos de América Latina (The Top Ten Stupid People in Latin America). A list that is usually headed up, with elegant indifference, by our friend, the phoenix Eduardo Galeano. They have killed him off so many times he has grown accustomed to being reborn.
As a general rule, the lists of the ten stupidest people in the United States tend to be headed up by intellectuals. The reason for this particularity was offered some time ago by a military officer of the last Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983) who complained to the television cameras about the protesters marching through the streets of Buenos Aires: "I am not so suspicious of the workers, because they are always busy with work; I am suspicious of the students because with too much free time they spend it thinking. And you know, Mr. Journalist, that too much thinking is dangerous." Which was consistent with the previous project of General Ongaría (1966-1970) of expelling all the intellectuals in order to fix Argentina's problems.
Not long ago, Doug Hagin, in the image of the famous television program Dave's Top Ten, concocted his own list of The Top Ten List of Stupid Leftist Ideals. If we attempt to de-simplify the problem by removing the political label, we will see that each accusation against the so-called US leftists is, in reality, an assault on various humanist principles.
10: Environmentalism. According to the author, leftists do not stop at a reasonable point of conservation.
Obviously the definition of what is reasonable or not, depends on the economic interests of the moment. Like any conservative, he holds fast to the idea that the theory of Global Warming is only a theory, like the theory of evolution: there are no proofs that God did not create the skeletons of dinosaurs and other species and strew them about, simply in order to confuse the scientists and thereby test their faith. The conservative mentality, heroically inalterable, could never imagine that the oceans might behave progressively, beyond a reasonable level.
9: It takes a village to raise a child. The author denies it: the problem is that leftists have always thought collectively. Since they don't believe in individualism they trust that children's education must be carried out in society.
In contrast, reactionary thought trusts more in islands, in social autism, than in suspect humanity. According to this reasoning of a medieval aristocrat, a rich man can be rich surrounded by misery, a child can become a moral man and ascend to heaven without contaminating himself with the sin of his society. Society, the masses, only serves to allow the moral man to demonstrate his compassion by donating to the needy what he has left over – and discounting it from his taxes.
8: Children are incapable of handling stress. For which reason they cannot be corrected by their teachers with red ink or cannot confront the cruel parts of history.
The author is correct in observing that seeing what is disagreeable as an infant prepares children for a world that is not pleasant. Nonetheless, some compassionate conservatives exaggerate a little by dressing their children in military uniforms and giving them toys that, even though they only shoot laser lights, look very much like weapons with laser lights that fire something else at similar targets (and at black people).
7: Competition is bad. For the author, no: the fact that some win means that others lose, but this dynamic leads us to greatness.
He does not explain whether there exists here the "reasonable limit" of which he spoke before or whether he is referring to the hated theory of evolution which establishes the survival of the strongest in the savage world. Nor does he clarify to which greatness he refers, whether it is that of the slave on the prosperous cotton plantation or the size of the plantation. He does not take into account, of course, any kind of society based on solidarity and liberated from the neurosis of competition.
6: Health is a civil right. Not for the author: health is part of personal responsibility.
This argument is repeated by those who deny the need for a universal health system and, at the same time, do not propose privatizing the police, and much less the army. Nobody pays the police after calling 911, which is reasonable. If an attacker shoots us in the head, we will not pay anything for his capture, but if we are poor we will end up in bankruptcy so that a team of doctors can save our life. One deduces that, according to this logic, a thief who robs a house represents a social illness, but an epidemic is nothing more than a bunch of irresponsible individuals who do not affect the rest of society. What is never taken into account is that collective solidarity is one of the highest forms of individual responsibility.
5: Wealth is bad. According to the author, leftists want to penalize the success of the wealthy with taxes in order to give their wealth to the federal government so that it can be spent irresponsibly helping out those who are not so successful.
That is to say, workers owe their daily bread to the rich. Earning a living with the sweat of one's brow is a punishment handed down by those successful people who have no need to work. There is a reason why physical beauty has been historically associated with the changing but always leisurely habits of the aristocracy. There is a reason why in the happy world of Walt Disney there are no workers; happiness is buried in some treasure filled with gold coins. For the same reason, it is necessary to not squander tax monies on education and on health. The millions spent on armies around the world are not a concern, because they are part of the investment that States responsibly make in order to maintain the success of the wealthy and the dream of glory for the poor.
4: There is an unbridled racism that will only be resolved with tolerance. No: leftists see race relations through the prism of pessimism. But race is not important for most of us, just for them.
That is to say, like in the fiction of global warming, if a conservative does not think about something or someone, that something or someone does not exist. De las Casas, Lincoln and Martin Luther King fought against racism ignorantly. If the humanists would stop thinking about the world, we would be happier because others' suffering would not exist, and there would be no heartless thieves who steal from the compassionate rich.
3: Abortion. In order to avoid personal responsibility, leftists support the idea of murdering the unborn.
The mass murder of the already born is also part of individual responsibility, according to televised right-wing thought, even though sometimes it is called heroism and patriotism. Only when it benefits our island. If we make a mistake when suppressing a people we avoid responsibility by talking about abortion. A double moral transaction based on a double standard morality.
2: Guns are bad. Leftists hate guns and hate those who want to defend themselves. Leftists, in contrast, think that this defense should be done by the State. Once again they do not want to take responsibility for themselves.
That is to say, attackers, underage gang members, students who shoot up high schools, drug traffickers and other members of the syndicate exercise their right to defend their own interests as individuals and as corporations. Nobody distrusts the State and trusts in their own responsibility more than they do. It goes without saying that armies, according to this kind of reasoning, are the main part of that responsible defense carried out by the irresponsible State.
1: Placating evil ensures Peace. Leftists throughout history have wanted to appease the Nazis, dictators and terrorists.
The wisdom of the author does not extend to considering that many leftists have been consciously in favor of violence, and as an example it would be sufficient to remember Ernesto Che Guevara. Even though it might represent the violence of the slave, not the violence of the master. It is true, conservatives have not appeased dictators: at least in Latin America, they have nurtured them. In the end, the latter also have always been members of the Gun Club, and in fact were subject to very good deals in the name of security. Nazis, dictators and terrorists of every kind, with that tendency toward ideological simplification, would also agree with the final bit of reasoning on the list: "leftists do not undertand that sometimes violence is the only solution. Evil exists and should be erradicated." And, finally: "We will kill it [the Evil], or it will kill us, it is that simple. We will kill Evil, or Evil will kill us; the only thing simpler than this is left-wing thought."
Word of Power.
Jorge Majfud, Uruguayan writer, 1969. From an early age he read and wrote fictions, but he chose to major in architecture and graduated from the Universidad de la República in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1996. He taught mathematics and art at the Universidad Hispanoamericana de Costa Rica and Escuela Técnica del Uruguay. He currently teaches Latin American literature at the University of Georgia. Hi has traveled to more than forty countries, whose impressions have become part of his novels and essays. His publications include Hacia qué patrias del silencio/memorias de un desaparecido (novel, 1996); Crítica de la pasión pura (essays, 1998); La reina de América (novel, 2001), El tiempo que me tocó vivir (essays, 2004) and La narración de lo invisible/Significados ideológicos de América Latina (essay, 2006). His stories and articles have been published in various newspapers, magazines, and readers, such as El País and La República of Uruguay, Milenio of México, Jornada of Bolivia, Tiempos del Mundo of Washingtonn, Monthly Review of New Yor, Resource Center of The Americas de Minnesota, Rebelión, and Hispanic Culture Review of George Mason University. He is a regular contributor to Bitácora, the weekly publication of La República. He is a member of the International Scientific Committee of the magazine Araucaria in Spain. He was distinguished with Mention Premio Casa de las Américas, in Habana, Cuba in 2001, for the novel La Reina de América and Excellence in Research Award, UGA, United States 2006. His essays and articles have been translated into Portuguese, French, English and German.
Translated by Bruce Campbell
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