The Illusions of Moral Neutrality: The source of ideological possession

 

So, I lied, I told my wife yesterday that I had grown totally fed up with the prevailing Zeitgeist for the simple reason that it has killed even the very possibility of having fun, of enjoying the normal natural joys of life free from the ever grasping cloying and authoritarian hand of the MAN. In an age when literally everything has been politicized, from our medical care, our sexuality, and certainly that most liberal of all ideas, namely the free market and capitalism. I need to understand why something that I saw in Scandinavia which closely resembles the Borg-like mind meld reminiscent of a dystopian Star Trek episode has now arrived in North America to capture the minds and hearts of a considerable proportion of the population. This is not to say that Norwegians do not each have unique personalities, but I do mean that despite this they will react to the same stimuli virtually identically when confronted with ideas and behaviours that contradict their shared mojo. I have often previously spoken about Janteloven (Tall Poppy Syndrome), so I won’t bore you with that now, other than to state that the ten foundational ideas of Janteloven are the petri dish in which ideological possession grows. Basically, it is ten ways of stating that your individuality is meaningless, prideful, and that no one gives a shit about you anyway.

It is weird, it is illiberal, it is authoritarian, and it is hiding behind kid gloved Marxofascism where even family members and dear friends are disassociating themselves from those for whom they formerly cared deeply. If we do not manage to come to terms with this it will eventually destroy all social cohesion and it will put an end to democratic government under the Rule of Law. In fact, it has almost already done so where we are suffering under a political class who think that they are above the law. They live by the adage "laws for thee but not for me!"

This will be the topic of today's episode on the Food for the Faithful Channel. If such things interest you, please ensure that you have subscribed to my vodcast.

From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Budziszewski

“Dr. J. Budziszewski (born 1952) is an American philosopher and professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has taught since 1981. He specializes in ethics, political philosophy, and the interaction of these two fields with religion and theology.[1]

Budziszewski has written widely, in both scholarly and popular venues, about a variety of moral and political issues including abortion, marriage, sexuality, capital punishment, and the role of judges in a constitutional republic. His principal area of publication is the theory of natural law. He has been a leading advocate for natural law theory over the past twenty years.[2] In this context, he has given particular attention to the problem of moral self-deception: what happens when human beings tell themselves that they don't know what they really do. Among his research interests are also virtue ethics and the problem of tolerance.[1]

His research on self-deception:

One of Budziszewski's research interests has been to analyze what he regards as general human tendency to self-deception.[5] The problem arises from a theoretical tenet defended by Thomas Aquinas, who he said "we must say that the natural law, as to general principles, is the same for all, both as to rectitude and as to knowledge."[6] This claim amounts to saying that the most general principles of right and wrong are not only right for everyone but known to everyone, even though the same cannot be said of their remote implications. According to Budziszewski, Aquinas is right. He argues that often, even when people appear to be ignorant of the moral basics, the hypothesis that they are self deceived provides a better explanation of their actual behavior.[7]

This leads to Budziszewski's theory of guilty knowledge, of violated conscience. Following Aquinas, Budziszewski distinguishes between synderesis, which supplies the first principles of practical reason and which he calls "deep conscience," and conscientia, which he calls "surface conscience" and supplies judgments about particular acts. According to Budziszewski, conscience operates in three different modes: In the cautionary mode, it alerts us to the peril of moral wrong and generates an inhibition against committing it. In the accusatory mode, it indicts us for wrong we have already done. In the avenging mode, it punishes the individual who knowingly does wrong but refuses to admit that he or she has done so. Conscience is therefore teacher, judge, or executioner, depending on the mode in which it is working.[8]

 The most original part of this schema is what Budziszewski says about the avenging mode. The most obvious penalty of guilty knowledge is the feeling of remorse. Remorse is not always present. However, Budziszewski suggests that even when remorse is absent, guilty knowledge generates objective needs for confession, atonement, reconciliation, and justification. Calling these other four "Furies" the "greater sisters of remorse," he argues that they are "inflexible, inexorable, and relentless, demanding satisfaction even when mere feelings are suppressed, fade away, or never come."[7]

Apart from his scholarly philosophical work, Budziszewski is known for articles and books of Christian apologetics, addressed to a broad audience including young people and college students. Known as one of the prominent evangelical intellectuals in America and former atheist, Budziszewski was received into the Roman Catholic Church on Easter Sunday 2004.[3] After his conversion, he continues to address his writings and lectures on Christian themes to Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Christians, as well as to those who are uncertain of their beliefs but are sincerely seeking.[3][4]”

So, I will read from “THE ILLUSION OF MORAL NEUTRALITY” by Dr. J. Budziszewski published in August of 1993

You may read this article for yourself as the following link: https://www.firstthings.com/article/1993/08/the-illusion-of-moral-neutrality

“Nietzsche claimed that if men took God seriously, they would still be burning heretics at the stake. In the same spirit, one supposes, are the notions that if men really cherished moral truth, they would suppress all beliefs that they considered wrong, and that if men still cared about the sanctity of the marriage bed, they would go back to making adulterers wear the scarlet A.

Today two different groups of people agree with conditional statements of this sort. In the first group are the ordinary bigots, who are always among us. The second are a kind of modern backlash—call it the reaction—found principally among the “cultural elite.” For instance, whereas the bigots respond to Nietzsche’s conditional by saying, “Yes, that’s why we should burn heretics,” the reactionaries respond to it by saying, “No, that’s why we should suppress the public expression of belief in God.”

These reactionaries claim to love tolerance, but, misunderstanding it, they strangle it in their embrace. Their creed is that intolerance is born at the same moment as public moral commitments; that morality must therefore be a “private” affair; that in order to say that tolerance is a good, we must forbear to say aloud that anything else is good or evil. Their god is Neutrality. In certain intellectual regions he travels under other names such as Autonomy and Rights.

We meet this jealous and negating god on the philosophic right, where conservatives like Michael Oakeshott tell us that the specific and limited activity of “governing” has “nothing to do” with natural law or morals. We encounter him on the philosophic left, where liberals like John Rawls and Marxists like Jurgen Habermas invent devices like the Veil of Ignorance and the Ideal Speech Situation to convince us that if we wish to understand truly the principles of justice, we must pretend to forget not only who we are, but also everything we ever thought we knew about good and evil. We meet this god in law, where many jurists treat ethical distinctions such as “family” vs. “non-family” as “invidious classifications” that deny citizens the equal protection of the law. We meet him in education, where elementary school children are offered books like Daddy’s Roommate, Heather Has Two Mommies, and Gloria Goes to Gay Pride. In fact, we meet this god

everywhere: in the university, in the movie theatre, in many churches and synagogues, and, it goes without saying, on the even more ubiquitous altar of the television.

It might seem remarkable that people who insist that tolerance means moral neutrality should themselves be so earnest in ridiculing those who aren’t neutral. But of course, they themselves aren’t neutral either. The scandal of Neutrality is that its worshipers cannot answer the question “Why be neutral?” without committing themselves to particular goods—social peace, self-expression, self-esteem, ethnic pride, or what have you—thereby violating their own desideratum of Neutrality. Yet even this is merely a symptom of a deeper problem, namely, there is no such thing as Neutrality. It isn’t merely unachievable, like a perfect circle; it is unthinkable and unapproachable, like a square circle. Whether we deem it better to take a stand or be silent, we’ve offended this god in the very act of deeming.

To see the folly of neutralism is one thing; to escape from it is another. Many who understand perfectly well that tolerance cannot be defended by suspending judgment about goods and evils have difficulty defending it in any other way. They suspect the worst: that if neutrality is a square circle, then so is tolerance, along with all of its component virtues like objectivity and fairness. They fear that by leaving the reactionaries, they will join with the ordinary bigots. They are right to fear this trap, but make the difficulty of avoiding it greater than it is.”

From Bing AI, “The nature of ideological possession”:

Ideological possession is a complex phenomenon that can be caused by several factors:

1. **Extreme Identification with an Ideology**: Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung believed that psychological problems arise when the natural balance of the human psyche is disrupted. This can occur through extreme identification with a particular ideology, leading to what Jung called "ideological possession"².

2. **Excessive Group Cohesiveness**: One potential cause of ideological possession is excessive group cohesiveness. An extravagant amount of group togetherness and harmony can lead to becoming indoctrinated due to individuals of a group exhibiting too little skepticism and thus, employing too few critical thinking skills in the process³.

3. **Fear and Cognitive Dissonance**: Pathologically, ideological possession may even be understood as the substitution of that highest value by another, such as Self-Preservation. This often happens when Evidence receptors become overwhelmed by Fear (the most powerful epistemic pathogen) or deactivated to prevent Cognitive Dissonance⁴.

4. **Exclusion of External Opinions and Influences**: Keeping an open mind is an important aspect to prevent becoming ideologically possessed³.

These factors can lead to a loss of objectivity, a sense of righteous conviction, and a tendency to demonize those with different beliefs². In political contexts, ideological possession can be particularly concerning as it can lead to polarization and even violence².

Source: Conversation with Bing, 2024-02-10

(1)  Final Thoughts: Explaining Ideological Possession | SpringerLink. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-39642-7_15.

(2)  What is ideology and why can it possess people. https://healthybodyathome.com/what-is-ideology-and-why-can-it-possess-people/.

(3)  Ideological Possession Is the Real Pandemic - Brownstone Institute. https://brownstone.org/articles/ideological-possession-real-pandemic/.

(4)  The Diagnosis and Treatment of Ideological Possession. https://fee.org/articles/the-diagnosis-and-treatment-of-ideological-possession/.

From Bing AI “Ideological possession has become a significant issue in the present time due to several reasons”:

1. **Polarization and Violence**: When individuals or groups become ideologically possessed, they may see opposing political viewpoints as not just different, but as fundamentally wrong or even evil³. This can lead to polarization and even violence³.

2. **Threat to Healthy Discourse**: Ideological possession is to healthy political discourse as scientism is to science¹. Any ideology has the potential to be deadly when advanced by those who are so sure of their own knowledge and moral outlook that they would impose it against the protestations of those affected by it¹.

3. **Social and Societal Impact**: Understanding what motivates people to join violent ideological groups and engage in acts of cruelty against others is of great social and societal importance². Ideological obsession changes people's social interactions by making them gravitate towards like-minded individuals who support ideological violence².

4. **Resistance to Communication Strategies**: Ideologically obsessed individuals are prone to psychological reactance, making them immune to communication strategies intended to dissuade them from using violence². In fact, messages espousing non-violence can have the opposite effect by reinforcing their violence-supporting ideology².

These factors contribute to the increasing concern about ideological possession in our current times. It's important to promote open-mindedness, critical thinking, and respectful dialogue to mitigate the negative impacts of ideological possession¹²³.

Source: Conversation with Bing, 2024-02-10

(1)  Final Thoughts: Explaining Ideological Possession | SpringerLink. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-39642-7_15.

2) The Diagnosis and Treatment of Ideological Possession. https://fee.org/articles/the-diagnosis-and-treatment-of-ideological-possession/.

(3) The sociocognitive processes of ideological obsession: review and .... https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rstb.2020.0144.

(4) undefined. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0144.

My conclusions:

Firstly, despite Bing AI being programmed by those who themselves may well be ideologically possessed, its ability to collate vast amounts of digitized written material pertinent to the topic at hand makes it an invaluable tool for doing research. If questioned correctly it can save hundreds of hours of work searching the web or physical libraries for pertinent materials.

Secondly, ideological possession must first have its root causes analyzed so that we may counter these pathological ideas effectively since use of logic and reason will be insufficient to engage the ideologically addled.

Thirdly, and most importantly for me, the very fact that Christians are paying so little attention to this attack on our faith and values is deeply disturbing to me. Ideological possession is the basis for the most pernicious immoral false doctrines of our time. Why Christian leaders are not doing a better job of equipping the Church of Christ to fight the good fight is literally beyond my poor ability to comprehend.

Lastly, the fact that these toxic ideas are undermining our faith, our family and seek to rob us of our property yet so few even dare to speak about it is to me remarkable. But hey, what do I know? Please tell me what you think. Or are you like so many today who are unaware of how radically illiberal things around us have been altered with no end in sight? How do you remain unaware that ideological possession opposes our previously held fundamental values such that you can still remain silent, compliant, and ignorant of how cosmically dangerous that our present dilemma truly is?