Ace is known as a snark artist in the blogosphere. Sometimes he takes the lampshade off his head however, and comes up with some thoughtful stuff. In his post Why Does The Unhinged Left So Hate Jeff Goldstein? he brilliantly deconstructs the psychology behind leftist 'thinking', such as it is, and shows it for what it is: ego defense. There is a bit I'd like to add to the thesis.

The default political stance for humans is conservatism. Your parents spent a lot of time and effort teaching you the rules of society that have developed into tradition in your social or ethnic group over many generations, and you learn how the status quo operates. It isn't really that much of a political conservatism per se, just a practical grappling with society as it has developed. Only when you know the rules, do you become free to question and break them.

This conservatism is for the common guy. The special, gifted, thinkers however are not satisfied being the hoi polloi. They self-select into an elite - an avant-garde who gain admission by rejecting the major tenets of society. Mind you, it doesn't take real brainpower to join - logic and reason are actually impediments to the suspension of disbelief required to think that Marxism, for example, is viable and should be emulated. Buying into the rhetoric of such failed philosophies such as Marxism actually reveals a gullibility and an inability to reason that runs counter to real intellectualism.

But that is not the point. Leftism isn't about pursuit of the truth - it is about feeling special. Leftism isn't about trying to find new and effective ways of doing things - it is about proving that you deserve to remain among the elite by accepting new ideas - any new ideas - as long as they skewer tradition. All it takes is knee-jerk contrariness, as in: the traditional concept of marriage is wrong and men should be allowed to marry men. There is no real examination of the worth and value of traditional marriage here, nor even a real investigation of its faults - just a desire to shock all of those billions of squares who think traditional marriage should stay what it is. Rejecting the peasant beliefs catapaults one into the elite. Mission accomplished. So then becoming a leftist 'thinker' is an easy task that requires very little thought: simply find a cherished traditional or conventional belief, and demand its repeal. The more outrageous, the better in fact.

Conventional belief: the victims of the 911 attacks were regular folk harming no one, who didn't deserve to die.

Repealer: those who died on 911 were 'little Eichmanns' keeping the wheels of the Nazi death machine well-oiled, and deserved to die for their past crimes.

See how easy it is? If you play along, maybe you too can earn big bucks as a tenured professor at a major university.

The good news is, leftism is a huge soporific that avoids the need to actually act upon any ideals. After all, we have heard repeatedly from the left that Bush is the new Hitler, and that we are living under a fascist state. If they really believed this, wouldn't they be manning the barricades? Either they think our fascism isn't really all that bad ( I guess because it is a strange fascism that, for some reason, allows the free flow of ideas on the internet), or once they merely mouth opposition to the 'fascism', the real task at hand -maintaining one's elite bona fides - has been accomplished. No need to get up from the keyboard and actually do anything about it. Expressing 'outrage' are the dues paid for ongoing elite membership - that is all that is required.

Crossposted from WILLisms.com