A change in thought

From the time I began to write about immigration in the late 1980s, and then about culture and politics in general in the 1990s and 2000s, I thought that the odds were against our society being saved, but I believed that it was possible. The way I often put this over the years was as follows: Liberalism (or, to be more precise, the rule of liberalism) is doomed, but there are two different ways in which its end will come. Either liberalism will continue until it has destroyed our civilization, and liberalism itself, having been deprived of its host, will also perish; or liberalism will be rejected at some point short of the destruction of our civilization. In my thinking and writing, particularly at VFR, I have always put the emphasis on the second, hopeful possibility.

Last fall, my view on this subject changed. Readers should understand it was not some political disaster or personal trauma that triggered this experience. I simply noticed that my thinking had changed, namely that when I observed or reflected on some false liberal slogan or attitude or belief, on whatever subject, the thought no longer arose in me that this falsity could be corrected or stopped. Instead, it seemed to me these liberal beliefs would continue in existence as the dominant beliefs of our society as long as our society exists. In other words, I now believed that only the first of my two above scenarios of the demise of liberalism was possible. And this change in my thought process was not temporary, but—at least over the last three or four months—permanent.

Here are entries at VFR discussing that change. The first three are short. The fourth is a full length article.

Is America is too far gone to bring it back? [November 2011.]

If we conclude that America cannot be brought back, what do we do? [November 2011.]

A mainstream columnist recognizes that diversity is a problem [November 2011.]

Small moves away from liberalism are not going to turn around the society as a whole [January 2012.]


Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 26, 2012 08:53 AM | Send
    

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