February
22, 2005
Liberal Feelings vs. Judeo-Christian Values
By
Dennis Prager
With
the decline of the authority of Judeo-Christian values in
the West, many people stopped looking to external sources
of moral standards in order to decide what is right and
wrong. Instead of being guided by God, the Bible and religion,
great numbers -- in Western Europe, the great majority --
have looked elsewhere for moral and social guidelines.
For
many millions in the twentieth century, those guidelines
were provided by Marxism, Communism, Fascism or Nazism.
For many millions today, those guidelines are . feelings.
With the ascendancy of leftist values that has followed
the decline of Judeo-Christian religion, personal feelings
have supplanted universal standards. In fact, feelings are
the major unifying characteristic among contemporary liberal
positions.
Aside
from reliance on feelings, how else can one explain a person
who believes, let alone proudly announces on a bumper sticker,
that "War is not the answer"? I know of no comparable conservative
bumper sticker that is so demonstrably false and morally
ignorant. Almost every great evil has been solved by war
-- from slavery in America to the Holocaust in Europe. Auschwitz
was liberated by soldiers making war, not by pacifists who
would have allowed the Nazis to murder every Jew in Europe.
The
entire edifice of moral relativism, a foundation of leftist
ideology, is built on the notion of feelings deciding right
and wrong. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom
fighter.
The
animals-and-humans-are-equivalent movement is based entirely
on feelings. People see chickens killed and lobsters boiled,
feel for the animals, and shortly thereafter abandon thought
completely, and equate chicken and lobster suffering to
that of a person under the same circumstances.
The
unprecedented support of liberals for radically redefining
the basic institution of society, marriage and the family
is another a product of feelings -- sympathy for homosexuals.
Thinking through the effects of such a radical redefinition
on society and its children is not a liberal concern.
The
"self-esteem movement" -- now conceded to have been a great
producer of mediocrity and narcissism -- was entirely a
liberal invention based on feelings for kids.
The
liberal preoccupation with whether America is loved or hated
is also entirely feelings-based. The Left wants to be loved;
the conservative wants to do what is right and deems world
opinion fickle at best and immoral at worst.
Sexual
harassment laws have created a feelings-industrial complex.
The entire concept of "hostile work environment" is feelings
based. If one woman resents a swimsuit calendar on a co-worker's
desk, laws have now been passed whose sole purpose is to
protect her from having uncomfortable feelings.
For
liberals, the entire worth of the human fetus is determined
by the mother's feelings. If she feels the nascent human
life she is carrying is worth nothing, it is worth nothing.
If she feels it is infinitely precious, it is infinitely
precious.
Almost
everything is affected by liberal feelings. For example,
liberal opposition to calling a Christmas party by its rightful
name is based on liberals' concern that non-Christians will
feel bad. And for those liberals, nothing else matters --
not the legitimate desire of the vast majority of Americans
to celebrate their holiday, let alone the narcissism of
those non-Christians "offended" by a Christmas party.
And
why do liberals continue to endorse race-based affirmative
action at universities despite the mounting evidence that
it hurts blacks more than it helps? Again, a major reason
is feelings -- sympathy for blacks and the historic racism
African-Americans have endured.
Very
often, liberals are far more concerned with purity of motive
than with moral results. That's why so many liberals still
oppose the liberation of Iraq -- so what if Iraqis risk
their lives to vote? It's George W. Bush's motives that
liberals care about, not spreading liberty in the Arab world.
Elevating
motives above results is a significant part of liberalism.
What matters is believing that one is well intentioned --
that one cares for the poor, hates racism, loathes inequality
and loves peace. Bi-lingual education hurts Latino children.
But as a compassionate person -- and "compassionate" is
the self-definition of most liberals -- that is not the
liberal's real concern. His concern is with an immigrant
child's uncomfortable feelings when first immersed in English.
Reliance
on feelings in determining one's political and social positions
is the major reason young people tend to have liberal/left
positions -- they feel passionately but do not have the
maturity to question those passions. It is also one reason
women, especially single women, are more liberal than men
-- it is women's nature to rely on emotions when making
decisions. (For those unused to anything but adulation directed
at the female of the human species, let me make it clear
that men, too, cannot rely on their nature, which leans
toward settling differences through raw physical power.
Both sexes have a lot of self-correcting to do.)
To
be fair, feelings also play a major role in many conservatives'
beliefs. Patriotism is largely a feeling; religious faith
is filled with emotion, and religion has too often been
dictated by emotion. But far more conservative positions
are based on "What is right?" rather than on "How do I feel?"
That is why a religious woman who is pregnant but does not
wish to be is far less likely to have an abortion than a
secular woman in the same circumstances. Her values are
higher than her feelings. And that, in a nutshell, is what
our culture war is about -- Judeo-Christian values versus
liberal/leftist feelings.
Copyright
2005 Creators Syndicate
Send
Today's Article to a Friend
