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Michael Hancock's Undercurrent's avatar

Dr. K., you've delivered a blistering and necessary critique of a Democratic Party that has traded reason and self-awareness for ideological dogma and performative virtue. 

As you so aptly point out, the growing public rejection of progressivism isn’t ignorance—it’s clarity. 

Ordinary Americans are catching on to the contradictions—from gender absurdities to authoritarian policies—and they’re rapidly heading for the exits.

I fully agree that until Democrats confront the consequences of their ideas, they’ll keep losing—and keep blinking in confusion.

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Dave Walden's avatar

There are so many good observations/insights in this article, Tom! I have my own term for what has been happening. I call it a "Flight From Reason."

What is termed “The Enlightenment,” was triggered by Aquinas’s awakening of Europe to the Reason of Aristotle. This “stirring” in the philosophical pot of the value of Reason then led to staggering improvements in human well-being, brought about through the unleashing of the scientific and industrial revolutions. This period of history has become characterized by use of the phrase, “the age of Reason.”

I would argue that one could just as easily, upon properly defining one’s terms, call it “the age of humanity.” As an example, in addition to the citing of “rights” in the Magna Carta, followed by political recognition that they should apply to all individuals, the near-abolishment of slavery occurred - in spite of it being a characteristic of the human species throughout the entirety of human history! It is but one sign in the rise of humanities “humanity,” as its “flight of Reason” gained altitude and velocity.

I choose to further metaphorically characterize this period of history, which represents an unprecedented acceleration of mankind’s on-going journey from the mud to the stars, as a soaring flight aboard "Reason Airlines." As this flight continued to gain momentum, the founding of America represented an unprecedented milestone. Most Americans, who had become politically free to board it, have enjoyed a flight (life!) of well-being and humanity, unprecedented in history – past or present!

Of course, one could choose to ignore the “inhumanity” that has continued to unfold as well, though it might be argued that such inhumanity is the result of unequal application of the Enlightenment’s ideals – i.e., the Reason and reasoned moral/political values revealed during reason’s accelerating flight. As most are aware, not all Americans remained free to board this flight. However, in terms of overall human well-being, the results of humanity’s breathtaking journey aboard Reason Airlines speak (scream!) loudly for themselves! To argue to the contrary is laughably/ominously absurd.

Tragically, we have now begun to board, what I term, “a flight from reason.” Self-evident logical contradictions are routinely proffered, seriously considered, and ceremoniously instituted! One contemporary example of these growing logical contradictions can easily be demonstrated by the political prescriptions to deal with lingering racial discrimination.

Begun during the sixties, passengers traveling aboard Reason Airlines, began to receive a new “in-flight service.” It went by the acronyms of EO/AA (Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action). This “service” offered (required!) the practice of the virtue of discrimination, in order to end the evil of discrimination! The legally enforced sanctions were based on a belief that one’s intentions take precedence over the inescapable facts that those intentions logically embody.

Of course, logical affronts to Reason had previously been occurring with regularity, but largely confined to what are called the “soft” sciences. In economics, for example, the idea that consumption drives production had begun to permeate their “science.” Even more telling, in the study of psychology, free will was giving way to the idea of “determinism.” Determinists ignoring the fact that if their theory was correct, their conclusions about it were not arrived at through “free will,” but were determined! This inescapable self-refuting illogic, being either ignored or vociferously proclaimed, demonstrate yet more evidence of what is afoot!

Of political importance, however, is the fact that illogic has increasingly emerged in the cannons of law. Affronts to reason that threaten routine societal “rationality,” are now manifesting politically. Left unchallenged and gaining momentum in economics for example, has led to the widespread belief that one can consume their way to prosperity, having previously justified the creation of banking/financial institutions to, among other things, “stimulate” consumption! Of more-recent demonstrations, consider where “DEI/ESG” will logically take us when it comes to the concepts of “merit” and “value” as well as freedom itself!

This leads me to the latest affront to Reason, and serves as the impetus for my penning this article. It goes by the popular euphemism of “self-identification.” It represents what is perhaps the most blatant passing milepost aboard this flight from Reason. Why? Reason itself offers the reasoning and explanation as to why this is the case.

As a child begins to experience budding emotions, depending on his/her environment and interpretation of it, he/she may begin to experience apprehension and fears over aspects of it. If this fear is not understood and properly dealt with, he/she will begin to consciously alter their behavior to avoid such fear(s).

Unresolved, should this fear reach a level where the individual begins to consciously take steps to alter their actual values, increasingly going to more and more tragic lengths to avoid such fear(s), the age of reason had previously taught that this represents the behavior of a neurotic.

Should this neurosis continue to fester whereby the individual reaches the point that they begin to fashion an alternative “reality” – one with which they profess to “identify,” and with which they begin to act in accordance, the age of reason had taught that they have become psychotic. This condition of psychosis, defined by reason, being a potentially destructive mental illness.

As our current flight from reason continues to gather speed and altitude, this latest example indicates our flight has now reached momentum where the psychotic feels it is appropriate to make demands of those not supportive of their affliction. They demand that others join with them in altering their reality as well, to one comporting with the psychotic’s fantasies/delusions.

This concept of “self-identification,” taking precedence over reality, is simply a denial of reality. It produces the sad spectacle that any such denial of reality produces. A human being suffering potentially unimaginable psychological torment and misery, wherein they have reached a point whereby they must demand that the rest of us affirm/confirm their denial! Demands “proudly” proclaimed because of what has become an accepted fracture in the philosophical “wing” of our previously-soaring aircraft of Reason. A fracture now augmenting not only their psychological damage – and instances of purposeful self-mutilation, but now having reached the point of potential socially-destructive political damage imposed on the rest of us!

Make no mistake, this is not a political issue! It is an epistemological one. It is nothing less than a disregard for Aristotle’s discovery of Reason and his subsequent laws of logic – specifically his law of identity. The axiom that a thing cannot be itself and something else at the same time or in the same respect. What Aquinas was to remind and reacquaint the world, and what Ayn Rand succinctly stated as “A is A!”

Though politics has begun to impose on all of us the illogical, if one truly wishes to understand and help these individuals, and not simply ignore their sad pathology, then do so without condemnation. Just don’t join them in their fantasies. It only adds to their affliction, while you wait in line to purchase your ticket to board this doomed “return” flight. A return flight that inevitably leads to the inhumanity so characterized by most of recorded history!

A return flight that I fervently hope will soon become grounded! Grounded by a renewal of the soaring flight of Reason.

Dave

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