A brief review of conservative websites, print media, and pundit blogs will reward this quest with a deep frustration arising from the ideology of progressivism. Mind you, it is not merely the disagreement with their policies and priorities — a given — but their peculiar unresponsiveness to arguments of reason and logic. The scenario runs something like this: Some Democrat or liberal pundit makes an outrageous charge about conservatives, or foreign policy, or Republicans, or Christians, or whatever. Commentators then erupt in response, followed shortly by a detailed rebuttal of the charges or ample testimony of prior events proving the foolishness and hypocrisy of the attack. Well-reasoned, factual defense is often the rule rather than the exception. Yet this is to no avail. Those of the progressive persuasion either shrug, respond with even more outrageous accusations or go ad hominem. I wonder whether all this energy and effort ever accomplishes anything beyond making people feel better about themselves and venting their frustration.
The problem is that we don’t understand progressivism — at least in its current manifestation. Now, lest you start thinking I’m having a Kumbaya moment, hear me out: we don’t comprehend progressivism because contemporary liberalism is the new Gnosticism.
Gnosticism is an ancient religion, predating Christianity by at least several centuries, and coexisted along side it for several more before largely dying out. It was a syncretic belief system, drawing elements from virtually every religion it touched: Buddhism, Hindu pantheism, Greek philosophy and myth, Jewish mysticism, and Christianity. Gnosticism (from the Greek gnosis, to know, or knowledge) manifested itself in many forms and sects. However, all shared certain common core beliefs: dualism, wherein the world was evil and the spiritual or immaterial good; the importance of secret knowledge, magical in nature, by which those possessing such revelation could transcend the evil of the material world; and pantheism – the belief that the divine essence permeated all of creation, living and inanimate. It was a profoundly pessimistic belief system. As J.P. Arendzen, in his excellent summary of Gnosticism, explains:
This utter pessimism, bemoaning the existence of the whole universe as a corruption and a calamity, with a feverish craving to be freed from the body of this death and a mad hope that, if we only knew, we could by some mystic words or action undo the cursed spell of this existence — is the foundation of all Gnostic thought … Gnosticism is pseudo-intellectual, and trusts exclusively to magical knowledge.
First and foremost, in modern progressivism, what you believe is more important than how you act. Gnostic sects were often hedonistic – after all, because you possess secret knowledge of the Truth, and the physical world is evil, why pursue noble behavior with an inherently wicked material body? While progressives are not universally hedonistic (although Hollywood does come to mind…), contemporary liberalism has enshrined tolerance of deviant sexuality and other forms of degeneracy as core tenets of their worldview.
More fundamentally, there is a disconnect in liberalism between belief and action. As a result, there is no such thing as hypocrisy. So the National Organization of Women, tireless in its campaign on violence against women, sexual harassment, and the tyranny of men in the workplace and in society, stood wholeheartedly behind Bill Clinton, who used a dim-witted intern for sex (in the workplace, moreover!) and who was credibly charged with sexual assault on Juanita Brodderick. Hypocrisy? No, Bill Clinton “understood” women and women’s issues — his knowledge trumped his behavior, no matter how unseemly.
It is no accident that many of our most progressive intellectuals reside in universities, in the rarefied atmosphere where ideas are everything and their practical application is moot. Conservatives often marvel at the naivety of the pacifist movement, where World Peace can be achieved if only we “visualize” it. Like the magic formulas used by the Gnostics to dispel evil spirits and emanations, simply believing that peace can be achieved by “loving one another” and mutual understanding is sufficient to transform those intent on evil, destruction, and domination. Protestors defend tyrannical monsters who would slaughter them in a heartbeat were they not so helpful to “put an end to war.” Judges implement rulings based on higher Sophia rather than the law, blissfully dismissing their profound impact on the Great Unknowing Masses beneath them.
The Gnostic worldview’s profound pessimism is also seen in contemporary liberalism. If ever there was a gentle giant in history — a nation overwhelmingly dominant yet benign in its use of power — while certainly not without its flaws, like any nation – it is the United States of the 20th and 21st centuries. Yet we are treated to an endless litany of tirades about our racist, sexist, imperialist ways, which will only end when the Left “takes America back” – did someone steal it? – while ignoring that a nation so administered would cease to exist in short order. American liberalism was not always so. As recently as twenty years ago, it was optimistic, hopeful, and other-oriented, albeit with misconceptions about human nature, which proved the undoing of its policies and programs. Only at its farthest fringes did such pessimism reign, but today, this dark view is increasingly dominant.
Analogies have their limits, as does this one. Ancient Gnosticism was deeply religious, although pantheistic, whereas modern liberal thinking is profoundly secular and agnostic. But even at that, similarities persist: how many New Age conservatives do you know? Environmentalism endorses pantheism in its more radical forms, as “we are all one with the earth.” Modern secular liberalism is far more a religion – and a cultic one at that – than a political philosophy. Thus, it has proven resistant primarily to confrontation or compromise based on logic and reason.
Gnosticism as a religious worldview collapsed of its weight, crippled by elitism, its internal inconsistencies, and the lack of power sufficient to transform and ennoble the human spirit. Yet failed philosophies wither reluctantly, given the intransigence of human pride. How odd that our predominant political philosophy has such ancient and fatuous roots while permeating our contemporary culture.
