At any given time in history and in any given place, there is a climate of opinion. Climate of opinion is loosely defined as the ideas swirling about in the public sphere contributing to the debate about current events. What people see on TV news programs or read on their favorite internet journals contribute to the atmosphere of ideas and opinions. For any reader of news and opinion, the ideas presented run up against their own closely held beliefs and people become swayed by elite opinion or they don’t. Some ideas swirling about in the atmosphere are unstated and taken for granted as background in the conversation. With the unstated ideas in play, different commentators acquire reputations as being righty or lefty along the political spectrum.
With the unstated ideas floating about and intermingling with current events, it can be a challenge separating out the ideological background from the actual news content. And more importantly, how elite opinion came about being, well…elite. One of the elitist ideological nuggets floating about is the collective guilt people hold (or are supposed to hold) from sins of the historical past. Slavery, European colonialism, economic and military expansionism at the expense of neighbors are all pulled out of elite commentator’s back pockets as an all purpose cudgel to induce a sense of guilt in their ideological opponents and to suppress debate.
Suppression of debate is what is observed on college campuses these days and to a lesser extent on TV news programs. The Antifa’s (short for anti-fascists) as they call themselves, engage in the suppression of debate and now perpetrate acts of violence against those they disagree with. They have, in essence, declared some ideas or points of view off limits and closed for further argumentation. Also, accusing what you yourself have become (like what the Antifa’s do to those they oppose) is a ploy to misdirect and confuse. The Antifa’s ostensibly are against fascist ideas, but only they get to designate what a fascist idea is. Pretty neat trick, really.
Lefties sling the word fascist about, not with the intent of debate and coming to a reasoned political conclusion. Oh, no, no, no. They do it with the intent of coerced and co-opted change. And what is the change they have in mind? It is suppressing the rule of law, anti-American, and anti-free market. What they are positively for are statist solutions and the economic pie firmly in control of the state apparatus. This is not your father’s Democratic Party. It is not liberal, or at least, how American liberals used to be defined. It is Leftism. In other words, the Democrats are now firmly in the hands of Leftists. The Democratic Party is also the party of malcontents, but that is a story for another time. Suffice it to say the Trump Administration has been declared fascist by the Antifa’s. Consequently, all Trump supporters are fascists and any policy Trump adopts is a fascist policy. Really?!?!? He’s only been President for 85 days!
So, to open-up and unpack some of those unstated ideas floating about in the climate of opinion, we here at School of Vice would like to examine exactly what it is Leftists take for granted. Here we go…
One of the cudgels in use by the Left to flog their intellectual opponents over the head with is the history of European colonialism. The emotional cudgel goes like this:
- Columbus discovered the New World in 1492.
- Europeans colonized other parts of the world.
- Colonization is bad
- All Europeans are white.
- Ipso facto, all white people are bad.
- Guilt is an excellent emotional lever.
- The Left will guilt Whites into their agenda.
It’s actually pretty simple when you think about it. To be continued…