Pauls' Revere
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- Nov 15, 2007
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THE DANGER OF LEFTISM
213. Because of their need for rebellion and for membership in a movement, leftists or persons of similar psychological type often are unattracted to a rebellious or
activist movement whose goals and membership are not
initially leftist. The resulting influx of leftish types can easily turn a non-leftist movement into a leftist one, so that
leftist goals replace or distort the original goals of the movement.
214. To avoid this, a movement that exalts nature
and opposes technology must take a resolutely anti-leftist
27
stance and must avoid all collaboration with leftists. Leftism is in the long run inconsistent with wild nature, with
human freedom and with the elimination of modern technology. Leftism is collectivist; it seeks to bind together the
entire world (both nature and the human race) into a unified whole. But this implies management of nature and
of human life by organized society, and it requires advanced technology. You can’t have a united world without rapid transportation and communication, you can’t make all
people love one another without sophisticated psychological techniques, you can’t have a “planned society” without
the necessary technological base. Above all, leftism is driven by the need for power, and the leftist seeks power
on a collective basis, through identification with a mass
movement or an organization. Leftism is unlikely ever to
give up technology, because technology is too valuable a
source of collective power.
215. The anarchist [34] too seeks power, but he seeks
it on an individual or small-group basis; he wants individuals and small groups to be able to control the circumstances of their own lives. He opposes technology because
it makes small groups dependent on large organizations.
216. Some leftists may seem to oppose technology, but
they will oppose it only so long as they are outsiders and
the technological system is controlled by non-leftists. If
leftism ever becomes dominant in society, so that the technological system becomes a tool in the hands of leftists,
they will enthusiastically use it and promote its growth. In
doing this they will be repeating a pattern that leftism has
shown again and again in the past. When the Bolsheviks in
Russia were outsiders, they vigorously opposed censorship
and the secret police, they advocated self-determination
for ethnic minorities, and so forth; but as soon as they
came into power themselves, they imposed a tighter censorship and created a more ruthless secret police than any
that had existed under the tsars, and they oppressed ethnic minorities at least as much as the tsars had done. In
the United States, a couple of decades ago when leftists
were a minority in our universities, leftist professors were
vigorous proponents of academic freedom, but today, in
those of our universities where leftists have become dominant, they have shown themselves ready to take away
from everyone else’s academic freedom. (This is “political correctness.”) The same will happen with leftists and
technology: They will use it to oppress everyone else if
they ever get it under their own control.
217. In earlier revolutions, leftists of the most powerhungry type, repeatedly, have first cooperated with nonleftist revolutionaries, as well as with leftists of a more libertarian inclination, and later have double-crossed them
to seize power for themselves. Robespierre did this in the
French Revolution, the Bolsheviks did it in the Russian Revolution, the communists did it in Spain in 1938 and Castro and his followers did it in Cuba. Given the past history
of leftism, it would be utterly foolish for non-leftist revolutionaries today to collaborate with leftists.
218. Various thinkers have pointed out that leftism is a
kind of religion. Leftism is not a religion in the strict sense
because leftist doctrine does not postulate the existence of
any supernatural being. But, for the leftist, leftism plays a
psychological role much like that which religion plays for
some people. The leftist NEEDS to believe in leftism; it
plays a vital role in his psychological economy. His beliefs
are not easily modified by logic or facts. He has a deep
conviction that leftism is morally Right with a capital R,
and that he has not only a right but a duty to impose leftist morality on everyone. (However, many of the people
we are referring to as “leftists” do not think of themselves
as leftists and would not describe their system of beliefs as
leftism. We use the term “leftism” because we don’t know
of any better words to designate the spectrum of related
creeds that includes the feminist, gay rights, political correctness, etc., movements, and because these movements
have a strong affinity with the old left. See paragraphs
227-230.)
219. Leftism is a totalitarian force. Wherever leftism is
in a position of power it tends to invade every private corner and force every thought into a leftist mold. In part
this is because of the quasi-religious character of leftism:
everything contrary to leftist beliefs represents Sin. More
importantly, leftism is a totalitarian force because of the
leftists’ drive for power. The leftist seeks to satisfy his need
for power through identification with a social movement
and he tries to go through the power process by helping
to pursue and attain the goals of the movement (see paragraph 83). But no matter how far the movement has
gone in attaining its goals the leftist is never satisfied, because his activism is a surrogate activity (see paragraph
41). That is, the leftist’s real motive is not to attain the ostensible goals of leftism; in reality he is motivated by the
sense of power he gets from struggling for and then reaching a social goal. [35] Consequently the leftist is never
satisfied with the goals he has already attained; his need
for the power process leads him always to pursue some
new goal. The leftist wants equal opportunities for minorities. When that is attained he insists on statistical equality of achievement by minorities. And as long as anyone
harbors in some corner of his mind a negative attitude
toward some minority, the leftist has to re-educated him.
And ethnic minorities are not enough; no one can be allowed to have a negative attitude toward homosexuals, disabled people, fat people, old people, ugly people, and on
and on and on. It’s not enough that the public should be
informed about the hazards of smoking; a warning has to
be stamped on every package of cigarettes. Then cigarette
advertising has to be restricted if not banned. The activists
will never be satisfied until tobacco is outlawed, and after
that it will be alcohol, then junk food, etc. Activists have
fought gross child abuse, which is reasonable. But now
they want to stop all spanking. When they have done that
they will want to ban something else they consider unwholesome, then another thing and then another. They will
never be satisfied until they have complete control over
all child rearing practices. And then they will move on to
another cause.
220. Suppose you asked leftists to make a list of ALL
the things that were wrong with society, and then suppose
you instituted EVERY social change that they demanded.
It is safe to say that within a couple of years the majority
of leftists would find something new to complain about,
28
some new social “evil” to correct; because, once again,
the leftist is motivated less by distress at society’s ills than
by the need to satisfy his drive for power by imposing his
solutions on society.
221. Because of the restrictions placed on their thoughts
and behavior by their high level of socialization, many leftists of the over-socialized type cannot pursue power in
the ways that other people do. For them the drive for power has only one morally acceptable outlet, and that is in
the struggle to impose their morality on everyone.
222. Leftists, especially those of the oversocialized type,
are True Believers in the sense of Eric Hoffer’s book, The
True Believer. But not all True Believers are of the same
psychological type as leftists. Presumably a true-believing
nazi, for instance, is very different psychologically from a
true-believing leftist. Because of their capacity for singleminded devotion to a cause, True Believers are a useful,
perhaps a necessary, ingredient of any revolutionary movement. This presents a problem with which we must admit we don’t know how to deal. We aren’t sure how to
harness the energies of the True Believer to a revolution
against technology. At present all we can say is that no
True Believer will make a safe recruit to the revolution
unless his commitment is exclusively to the destruction of
technology. If he is committed also to another ideal, he
may want to use technology as a tool for pursuing that
other ideal (see paragraphs 200, 201).
223. Some readers may say, “This stuff about leftism is
a lot of crap. I know John and Jane who are leftish types
and they don’t have all these totalitarian tendencies.” It’s
quite true that many leftists, possibly even a numerical
majority, are decent people who sincerely believe in tolerating others’ values (up to a point) and wouldn’t want
to use high-handed methods to reach their social goals.
Our remarks about leftism are not meant to apply to every
individual leftist but to describe the general character of
leftism as a movement. And the general character of a
movement is not necessarily determined by the numerical proportions of the various kinds of people involved in
the movement.
224. The people who rise to positions of power in leftist
movements tend to be leftists of the most power-hungry
type, because power-hungry people are those who strive
hardest to get into positions of power. Once the powerhungry types have captured control of the movement,
there are many leftists of a gentler breed who inwardly
disapprove of many of the actions of the leaders, but cannot bring themselves to oppose them. They NEED their
faith in the movement, and because they cannot give up
this faith they go along with the leaders. True, SOME leftists do have the guts to oppose the totalitarian tendencies
that emerge, but they generally lose, because the powerhungry types are better organized, are more ruthless and
Machiavellian and have taken care to build themselves a
strong power base.
225. These phenomena appeared clearly in Russia and
other countries that were taken over by leftists. Similarly,
before the breakdown of communism in the, USSR, leftish types in the West would, seldom criticize that country. If prodded they would admit that the USSR did many
wrong things, but then they would try to find excuses for
the communists and begin talking about the faults of the
West. They always opposed Western military resistance
to communist aggression. Leftish types all over the world
vigorously protested the U.S. military action in Vietnam,
but when the USSR invaded Afghanistan they did nothing.
Not that they approved of the Soviet actions; but because
of their leftist faith, they just couldn’t bear to put themselves in opposition to communism. Today, in those of our
universities where “political correctness” has become dominant, there are probably many leftish types who privately disapprove of the suppression of academic freedom,
but they go along with it anyway.
226. Thus the fact that many individual leftists are personally mild and fairly tolerant people by no means prevents leftism as a whole form having a totalitarian tendency.
227. Our discussion of leftism has a serious weakness. It
is still far from clear what we mean by the word “leftist.”
There doesn’t seem to be much we can do about this. Today leftism is fragmented into a whole spectrum of activist
movements. Yet not all activist movements are leftist, and
some activist movements (e.g., radical environmentalism)
seem to include both personalities of the leftist type and
personalities of thoroughly un-leftist types who ought to
know better than to collaborate with leftists. Varieties of
leftists fade out gradually into varieties of non-leftists and
we ourselves would often be hard-pressed to decide whether a given individual is or is not a leftist. To the extent
that it is defined at all, our conception of leftism is defined
by the discussion of it that we have given in this article,
and we can only advise the reader to use his own judgment in deciding who is a leftist.
228. But it will be helpful to list some criteria for diagnosing leftism. These criteria cannot be applied in a cut
and dried manner. Some individuals may meet some of
the criteria without being leftists, some leftists may not
meet any of the criteria. Again, you just have to use your
judgment.
229. The leftist is oriented toward large-scale collectivism. He emphasizes the duty of the individual to serve
society and the duty of society to take care of the individual. He has a negative attitude toward individualism.
He often takes a moralistic tone. He tends to be for gun
control, for sex education and other psychologically “enlightened” educational methods, for social planning, for
affirmative action, for multiculturalism. He tends to identify with victims. He tends to be against competition and
against violence, but he ofte finds excuses for those leftists who do commit violence. He is fond of using the
common catch-phrases of the left, like “racism,” “sexism,”
“homophobia,” “capitalism,” “imperialism,” “neocolonialism,” “genocide,” “social change,” “social justice,” “social responsibility.” Maybe the best diagnostic trait of the
leftist is his tendency to sympathize with the following
movements: feminism, gay rights, ethnic rights, disability
rights, animal rights, political correctness. Anyone who
strongly sympathizes with ALL of these movements is almost certainly a leftist. [36]
230. The more dangerous leftists, that is, those who
29
are most power-hungry, are often characterized by arrogance or by a dogmatic approach to ideology. However,
the most dangerous leftists of all may be certain oversocialized types who avoid irritating displays of aggressiveness
and refrain from advertising their leftism, but work quietly
and unobtrusively to promote collectivist values, “enlightened” psychological techniques for socializing children,
dependence of the individual on the system, and so forth.
These crypto-leftists (as we may call them) approximate
certain bourgeois types as far as practical action is concerned, but differ from them in psychology, ideology and motivation. The ordinary bourgeois tries to bring people under control of the system in order to protect his way of life,
or he does so simply because his attitudes are conventional. The crypto-leftist tries to bring people under control
of the system because he is a True Believer in a collectivistic ideology. The crypto-leftist is differentiated from
the average leftist of the oversocialized type by the fact
that his rebellious impulse is weaker and he is more securely socialized. He is differentiated from the ordinary
well-socialized bourgeois by the fact that there is some
deep lack within him that makes it necessary for him to
devote himself to a cause and immerse himself in a collectivity. And maybe his (well-sublimated) drive for power is
stronger than that of the average bourgeois.
FINAL NOTE
231. Throughout this article we’ve made imprecise statements and statements that ought to have had all sorts
of qualifications and reservations attached to them; and
some of our statements may be flatly false. Lack of sufficient information and the need for brevity made it impossible for us to formulate our assertions more precisely
or add all the necessary qualifications. And of course in
a discussion of this kind one must rely heavily on intuitive judgment, and that can sometimes be wrong. So we
don’t claim that this article expresses more than a crude
approximation to the truth.
232. All the same, we are reasonably confident that the
general outlines of the picture we have painted here are
roughly correct. Just one possible weak point needs to be
mentioned. We have portrayed leftism in its modern form
as a phenomenon peculiar to our time and as a symptom
of the disruption of the power process. But we might possibly be wrong about this. Oversocialized types who try to
satisfy their drive for power by imposing their morality on
everyone have certainly been around for a long time. But
we THINK that the decisive role played by feelings of inferiority, low self-esteem, powerlessness, identification with
victims by people who are not themselves victims, is a peculiarity of modern leftism. Identification with victims by
people not themselves victims can be seen to some extent
in 19th century leftism and early Christianity, but as far as
we can make out, symptoms of low self-esteem, etc., were
not nearly so evident in these movements, or in any other
movements, as they are in modern leftism. But we are not
in a position to assert confidently that no such movements
have existed prior to modern leftism. This is a significant
question to which historians ought to give their attention.
213. Because of their need for rebellion and for membership in a movement, leftists or persons of similar psychological type often are unattracted to a rebellious or
activist movement whose goals and membership are not
initially leftist. The resulting influx of leftish types can easily turn a non-leftist movement into a leftist one, so that
leftist goals replace or distort the original goals of the movement.
214. To avoid this, a movement that exalts nature
and opposes technology must take a resolutely anti-leftist
27
stance and must avoid all collaboration with leftists. Leftism is in the long run inconsistent with wild nature, with
human freedom and with the elimination of modern technology. Leftism is collectivist; it seeks to bind together the
entire world (both nature and the human race) into a unified whole. But this implies management of nature and
of human life by organized society, and it requires advanced technology. You can’t have a united world without rapid transportation and communication, you can’t make all
people love one another without sophisticated psychological techniques, you can’t have a “planned society” without
the necessary technological base. Above all, leftism is driven by the need for power, and the leftist seeks power
on a collective basis, through identification with a mass
movement or an organization. Leftism is unlikely ever to
give up technology, because technology is too valuable a
source of collective power.
215. The anarchist [34] too seeks power, but he seeks
it on an individual or small-group basis; he wants individuals and small groups to be able to control the circumstances of their own lives. He opposes technology because
it makes small groups dependent on large organizations.
216. Some leftists may seem to oppose technology, but
they will oppose it only so long as they are outsiders and
the technological system is controlled by non-leftists. If
leftism ever becomes dominant in society, so that the technological system becomes a tool in the hands of leftists,
they will enthusiastically use it and promote its growth. In
doing this they will be repeating a pattern that leftism has
shown again and again in the past. When the Bolsheviks in
Russia were outsiders, they vigorously opposed censorship
and the secret police, they advocated self-determination
for ethnic minorities, and so forth; but as soon as they
came into power themselves, they imposed a tighter censorship and created a more ruthless secret police than any
that had existed under the tsars, and they oppressed ethnic minorities at least as much as the tsars had done. In
the United States, a couple of decades ago when leftists
were a minority in our universities, leftist professors were
vigorous proponents of academic freedom, but today, in
those of our universities where leftists have become dominant, they have shown themselves ready to take away
from everyone else’s academic freedom. (This is “political correctness.”) The same will happen with leftists and
technology: They will use it to oppress everyone else if
they ever get it under their own control.
217. In earlier revolutions, leftists of the most powerhungry type, repeatedly, have first cooperated with nonleftist revolutionaries, as well as with leftists of a more libertarian inclination, and later have double-crossed them
to seize power for themselves. Robespierre did this in the
French Revolution, the Bolsheviks did it in the Russian Revolution, the communists did it in Spain in 1938 and Castro and his followers did it in Cuba. Given the past history
of leftism, it would be utterly foolish for non-leftist revolutionaries today to collaborate with leftists.
218. Various thinkers have pointed out that leftism is a
kind of religion. Leftism is not a religion in the strict sense
because leftist doctrine does not postulate the existence of
any supernatural being. But, for the leftist, leftism plays a
psychological role much like that which religion plays for
some people. The leftist NEEDS to believe in leftism; it
plays a vital role in his psychological economy. His beliefs
are not easily modified by logic or facts. He has a deep
conviction that leftism is morally Right with a capital R,
and that he has not only a right but a duty to impose leftist morality on everyone. (However, many of the people
we are referring to as “leftists” do not think of themselves
as leftists and would not describe their system of beliefs as
leftism. We use the term “leftism” because we don’t know
of any better words to designate the spectrum of related
creeds that includes the feminist, gay rights, political correctness, etc., movements, and because these movements
have a strong affinity with the old left. See paragraphs
227-230.)
219. Leftism is a totalitarian force. Wherever leftism is
in a position of power it tends to invade every private corner and force every thought into a leftist mold. In part
this is because of the quasi-religious character of leftism:
everything contrary to leftist beliefs represents Sin. More
importantly, leftism is a totalitarian force because of the
leftists’ drive for power. The leftist seeks to satisfy his need
for power through identification with a social movement
and he tries to go through the power process by helping
to pursue and attain the goals of the movement (see paragraph 83). But no matter how far the movement has
gone in attaining its goals the leftist is never satisfied, because his activism is a surrogate activity (see paragraph
41). That is, the leftist’s real motive is not to attain the ostensible goals of leftism; in reality he is motivated by the
sense of power he gets from struggling for and then reaching a social goal. [35] Consequently the leftist is never
satisfied with the goals he has already attained; his need
for the power process leads him always to pursue some
new goal. The leftist wants equal opportunities for minorities. When that is attained he insists on statistical equality of achievement by minorities. And as long as anyone
harbors in some corner of his mind a negative attitude
toward some minority, the leftist has to re-educated him.
And ethnic minorities are not enough; no one can be allowed to have a negative attitude toward homosexuals, disabled people, fat people, old people, ugly people, and on
and on and on. It’s not enough that the public should be
informed about the hazards of smoking; a warning has to
be stamped on every package of cigarettes. Then cigarette
advertising has to be restricted if not banned. The activists
will never be satisfied until tobacco is outlawed, and after
that it will be alcohol, then junk food, etc. Activists have
fought gross child abuse, which is reasonable. But now
they want to stop all spanking. When they have done that
they will want to ban something else they consider unwholesome, then another thing and then another. They will
never be satisfied until they have complete control over
all child rearing practices. And then they will move on to
another cause.
220. Suppose you asked leftists to make a list of ALL
the things that were wrong with society, and then suppose
you instituted EVERY social change that they demanded.
It is safe to say that within a couple of years the majority
of leftists would find something new to complain about,
28
some new social “evil” to correct; because, once again,
the leftist is motivated less by distress at society’s ills than
by the need to satisfy his drive for power by imposing his
solutions on society.
221. Because of the restrictions placed on their thoughts
and behavior by their high level of socialization, many leftists of the over-socialized type cannot pursue power in
the ways that other people do. For them the drive for power has only one morally acceptable outlet, and that is in
the struggle to impose their morality on everyone.
222. Leftists, especially those of the oversocialized type,
are True Believers in the sense of Eric Hoffer’s book, The
True Believer. But not all True Believers are of the same
psychological type as leftists. Presumably a true-believing
nazi, for instance, is very different psychologically from a
true-believing leftist. Because of their capacity for singleminded devotion to a cause, True Believers are a useful,
perhaps a necessary, ingredient of any revolutionary movement. This presents a problem with which we must admit we don’t know how to deal. We aren’t sure how to
harness the energies of the True Believer to a revolution
against technology. At present all we can say is that no
True Believer will make a safe recruit to the revolution
unless his commitment is exclusively to the destruction of
technology. If he is committed also to another ideal, he
may want to use technology as a tool for pursuing that
other ideal (see paragraphs 200, 201).
223. Some readers may say, “This stuff about leftism is
a lot of crap. I know John and Jane who are leftish types
and they don’t have all these totalitarian tendencies.” It’s
quite true that many leftists, possibly even a numerical
majority, are decent people who sincerely believe in tolerating others’ values (up to a point) and wouldn’t want
to use high-handed methods to reach their social goals.
Our remarks about leftism are not meant to apply to every
individual leftist but to describe the general character of
leftism as a movement. And the general character of a
movement is not necessarily determined by the numerical proportions of the various kinds of people involved in
the movement.
224. The people who rise to positions of power in leftist
movements tend to be leftists of the most power-hungry
type, because power-hungry people are those who strive
hardest to get into positions of power. Once the powerhungry types have captured control of the movement,
there are many leftists of a gentler breed who inwardly
disapprove of many of the actions of the leaders, but cannot bring themselves to oppose them. They NEED their
faith in the movement, and because they cannot give up
this faith they go along with the leaders. True, SOME leftists do have the guts to oppose the totalitarian tendencies
that emerge, but they generally lose, because the powerhungry types are better organized, are more ruthless and
Machiavellian and have taken care to build themselves a
strong power base.
225. These phenomena appeared clearly in Russia and
other countries that were taken over by leftists. Similarly,
before the breakdown of communism in the, USSR, leftish types in the West would, seldom criticize that country. If prodded they would admit that the USSR did many
wrong things, but then they would try to find excuses for
the communists and begin talking about the faults of the
West. They always opposed Western military resistance
to communist aggression. Leftish types all over the world
vigorously protested the U.S. military action in Vietnam,
but when the USSR invaded Afghanistan they did nothing.
Not that they approved of the Soviet actions; but because
of their leftist faith, they just couldn’t bear to put themselves in opposition to communism. Today, in those of our
universities where “political correctness” has become dominant, there are probably many leftish types who privately disapprove of the suppression of academic freedom,
but they go along with it anyway.
226. Thus the fact that many individual leftists are personally mild and fairly tolerant people by no means prevents leftism as a whole form having a totalitarian tendency.
227. Our discussion of leftism has a serious weakness. It
is still far from clear what we mean by the word “leftist.”
There doesn’t seem to be much we can do about this. Today leftism is fragmented into a whole spectrum of activist
movements. Yet not all activist movements are leftist, and
some activist movements (e.g., radical environmentalism)
seem to include both personalities of the leftist type and
personalities of thoroughly un-leftist types who ought to
know better than to collaborate with leftists. Varieties of
leftists fade out gradually into varieties of non-leftists and
we ourselves would often be hard-pressed to decide whether a given individual is or is not a leftist. To the extent
that it is defined at all, our conception of leftism is defined
by the discussion of it that we have given in this article,
and we can only advise the reader to use his own judgment in deciding who is a leftist.
228. But it will be helpful to list some criteria for diagnosing leftism. These criteria cannot be applied in a cut
and dried manner. Some individuals may meet some of
the criteria without being leftists, some leftists may not
meet any of the criteria. Again, you just have to use your
judgment.
229. The leftist is oriented toward large-scale collectivism. He emphasizes the duty of the individual to serve
society and the duty of society to take care of the individual. He has a negative attitude toward individualism.
He often takes a moralistic tone. He tends to be for gun
control, for sex education and other psychologically “enlightened” educational methods, for social planning, for
affirmative action, for multiculturalism. He tends to identify with victims. He tends to be against competition and
against violence, but he ofte finds excuses for those leftists who do commit violence. He is fond of using the
common catch-phrases of the left, like “racism,” “sexism,”
“homophobia,” “capitalism,” “imperialism,” “neocolonialism,” “genocide,” “social change,” “social justice,” “social responsibility.” Maybe the best diagnostic trait of the
leftist is his tendency to sympathize with the following
movements: feminism, gay rights, ethnic rights, disability
rights, animal rights, political correctness. Anyone who
strongly sympathizes with ALL of these movements is almost certainly a leftist. [36]
230. The more dangerous leftists, that is, those who
29
are most power-hungry, are often characterized by arrogance or by a dogmatic approach to ideology. However,
the most dangerous leftists of all may be certain oversocialized types who avoid irritating displays of aggressiveness
and refrain from advertising their leftism, but work quietly
and unobtrusively to promote collectivist values, “enlightened” psychological techniques for socializing children,
dependence of the individual on the system, and so forth.
These crypto-leftists (as we may call them) approximate
certain bourgeois types as far as practical action is concerned, but differ from them in psychology, ideology and motivation. The ordinary bourgeois tries to bring people under control of the system in order to protect his way of life,
or he does so simply because his attitudes are conventional. The crypto-leftist tries to bring people under control
of the system because he is a True Believer in a collectivistic ideology. The crypto-leftist is differentiated from
the average leftist of the oversocialized type by the fact
that his rebellious impulse is weaker and he is more securely socialized. He is differentiated from the ordinary
well-socialized bourgeois by the fact that there is some
deep lack within him that makes it necessary for him to
devote himself to a cause and immerse himself in a collectivity. And maybe his (well-sublimated) drive for power is
stronger than that of the average bourgeois.
FINAL NOTE
231. Throughout this article we’ve made imprecise statements and statements that ought to have had all sorts
of qualifications and reservations attached to them; and
some of our statements may be flatly false. Lack of sufficient information and the need for brevity made it impossible for us to formulate our assertions more precisely
or add all the necessary qualifications. And of course in
a discussion of this kind one must rely heavily on intuitive judgment, and that can sometimes be wrong. So we
don’t claim that this article expresses more than a crude
approximation to the truth.
232. All the same, we are reasonably confident that the
general outlines of the picture we have painted here are
roughly correct. Just one possible weak point needs to be
mentioned. We have portrayed leftism in its modern form
as a phenomenon peculiar to our time and as a symptom
of the disruption of the power process. But we might possibly be wrong about this. Oversocialized types who try to
satisfy their drive for power by imposing their morality on
everyone have certainly been around for a long time. But
we THINK that the decisive role played by feelings of inferiority, low self-esteem, powerlessness, identification with
victims by people who are not themselves victims, is a peculiarity of modern leftism. Identification with victims by
people not themselves victims can be seen to some extent
in 19th century leftism and early Christianity, but as far as
we can make out, symptoms of low self-esteem, etc., were
not nearly so evident in these movements, or in any other
movements, as they are in modern leftism. But we are not
in a position to assert confidently that no such movements
have existed prior to modern leftism. This is a significant
question to which historians ought to give their attention.
