Is liberalism worse, in one key respect, than Communism?

I thanked a reader for a donation he had sent to VFR, and he sent back this interesting e-mail:

I am happy to compensate in some small way for the valuable insights I have gotten from VFR in the months I have been reading it.

We are certainly living at a strange time. Here we are, attempting to recreate our society as a multicultural utopia, a project as radical and as self-destructive as any Communist revolution of the 20th century, and yet we do not even acknowledge that it’s going on! In the freest society on earth, we have a taboo against recognizing the most fundamental issue of our destiny. This taboo extends from the political arena, to our arts, literature, and popular culture. There is almost no violation of it by our journalists and academics. This vast social upheaval is treated as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and even to raise it as a topic for debate brands one as a pariah. In fact, I don’t think most people will admit their doubts even to themselves. Is there any historical parallel for this? Even in the heyday of Communism, there was an active philosophical opposition both inside and outside the society. Today, in all Western societies, outside of a few fearless folks like yourselves, we have none. About seven or eight years ago I met a recent Polish immigrant and I asked him what had surprised him most about America. “That you are propagandized more thoroughly than we Poles ever were under communism,” he told me, and I believe that is correct.

I look forward to your continued input at VFR.

The reader has articulated very well what is perhaps the single most astonishing—indeed it is unprecedented—fact of our time, the abolition of discussion about the most vital issues facing the society, which means the abolition of politics itself.

In the late ‘90s I visited Thomas Molnar a couple of times at his home in Ridgewood, New Jersey and he said something along the same lines: that Communist apparatchniks in Communist Hungary had more respect for the historic Western culture than American “conservatives” have.

A reader writes:

I cannot help making a comment on that question, even though you never post my comments. That is probably because you are much better educated than me (Ph.D. in chemistry does not count), but I have some experience that you don’t, in particular I lived in the USSR. I believe you are right in your comment on Communism. Communism required some sacrifice of one’s personal for common, whereas liberalism require sacrificing common for personal. Therefore, liberalism is much more attractive to a person who seeks only comfort. Most people who I knew in the USSR, criticized communism for its being not enough liberal and not enough convenient.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 13, 2006 05:51 PM | Send