Liberal Ideology is Designed to Polarize

 Brookline Massachusetts, public school, 1970's and 80's:

Liberal assumptions were in fact a social experiment. Experiments are supposed to be evaluated. 

The liberals experiment never was evaluated by its own adherents.

Some basic assumptions at that time:

 - Liberal and relativist, meaning that there is no Truth so you need to be an activist in order to create Truths, as Truth is what most people think.

- Sexual freedom was a given.

- ProChoice on abortion was a given.

- Affirmative Action, ie quotas was the only solution to racism, which is the worst problem in the world. (Well, that is racism against blacks is wrong, but no one gave a thought to the plight of poor whites, or what could be if Black Nationalism dominated.)

- Look for racism everywhere. 

- Assert yourself. Social situations are a place for you to impose, since you have to create Truths.

We could not question those basic assumptions. 

If you said, "wait, affirmative action may lower academic standards. How about a social experiment in which say have the New England colleges hold by Affirmative Action, and half just keep blind admissions according to academic standards, and see what works better over the next like 20 years?" Nope.

Or: "hey, the stable kids have monogamous, sober parents, what if sexual freedom leads to the inability to make committed relationships?"

Or: "Who really has the right to assert? Why can't situations be win-win?"

Or: "Didn't Martin Luther King Jr. say that black supremacy is just as bad as white supremacy?"

Or: "What are the side effects of abortion for a woman? When does the unborn feel?"

We did not simply refrain from asking these questions, the whole liberal ideology dictated that you never even dream of asking such questions, lest you be dubbed racist, phobic, sexually repressed, wanting to control women, etc.

We were not allowed to think. Yet we thought we were liberal, and therefore enlightened.

Some middle ground may have kept more people in the liberal fold and not led to the surprise election of Trump. But we could not moderate liberal stances, just widen the picture a bit, and so society polarized.

The interactions I had with liberals after I embraced traditional Judaism only confirmed how ideologically possessed liberals are. They treated me in a manner gruff, contemptuous, sarcastic, and provocative. They treated me in the same way that they feared they would be treated, in ways that would seal their fate as liberals for life, lest they be treated badly, excluded, maybe even unable to attain some positions.

I began to understand: liberal society is actually geared to polarize! To throw people out on the grounds of liberal claims that can get so absurd that you cannot stay in it unless you are directly benefiting say from a job, paid activism, or a social position.

Luckily I got out young. But if say a liberal professor in a college started to swing to the Right, she better keep it a secret, lest she face social shunning and even the loss of her position.

The solution for liberals: if you could no longer stand what you were being fed, yet you wonder at others who seem to hum along obliviously in the liberal world, it is because liberal ideology is designed to polarize.  It throws people out in order to be able to point fingers at the racists and phobes and what-have-you so they can have someone to loathe and thus be prodded to activism.

The solution for conservatives: be loving all the time. Be prepared for accepting as friends former liberals who are somewhat emotionally battered from their experience in the liberal world.

 

Build Family and Community. Resist Liberal Individualist Relativism.

 Uncle Ally and Uncle Leon were traditional Jews. They each had three children.

Both decided to move to Brooklyn from Pawtucket Rhode Island in order to send their kids to orthodox day schools.

The message at those schools: build strong family and community.

And they did.

Dad and his brothers were somewhat traditional. They remained basically where the boat landed in Massachusetts.  Their grandparents had immigrated from the Ukraine, fleeing the pogroms.

They sent their kids to local public schools.

The message at those schools: individualism. And for the younger kids the message was: liberal-left activism, be pro-choice, feminist, individualist, seek racism everywhere.

In Brooklyn, NY, they built strong families. Their progeny has fanned out over the globe as educators, spreading traditional values.

In Lynn and Brookline, MA, they built individuals who would set out on their own unique journey, engage in debate at every interaction, thus alienating other family members who differed in their political or social views. Some of the progeny attained the American dream, others sought spirituality in Eastern religions, turns out that the liberal world has limited place for its own people.

The religious cousins' value on Jewish education was partly because they saw their cousins assimilate, and not even end up with happy lives: one who made it big, another who remains floundering. 

They could not save their own cousins but they are doing all they can in outreach across the globe to help people bypass a liberal individualist relativist system in which few can make it, most will feel cynical, lost, and will flounder.

Sexual Promiscuity Leads to Cruelty

Linda was one of the nicest girls in Brookline High School, class of 1985.

The class nerds could talk to her and she was always friendly and kind, yet she remained respected by the popular kids - usually those who respond with friendliness to the class nerds get shunned a bit, but not her.

She dated a fellow that she said she is hoping to marry. When you saw them together, she would gaze at him admiringly. I do not know why they broke up, but rarely did I see anyone date in the 11th grade in Brookline High and end up marrying each other.

Then she started experimenting with promiscuity.

I saw her transform from a sunny optimistic girl to an increasingly bitter young woman.

Once at school she was wearing short shorts, and some guy fondled her bare leg, she laughed and pulled back. 

Why did she laugh? To stay in the social group.

Why did she pull back? That was her soul talking, in contradiction to her behavior. Your psyche craves boundaries, it actually does not crave sexual promiscuity or anything connected to it.

In college, she had intimate relationships with both men and women.

At a summer job, she wore short shorts, halter tops, and every time she sat, spread out her legs, sometimes with one knee raised on a nearby chair, or say the car door. She was exposing her body as much as possible.

She said the following to myself and to Julie and Nina:

"My boyfriend is upset with me, he said, 'I never know if you are sleeping with Anna,' Julie and Nina  laughed, but I was offended by her callous attitude regarding her boyfriend's need for commitment, for being hurt for being cheated on. I saw that I was the odd one out. There was my friend from childhood laughing along with her, while I was stunned and sad at this scene.

Previously kind young women had turned callous - and it was because of sexual promiscuity.

Sexual promiscuity leads to cruelty.  If you are sensitive, either because you were the rejected young man or because you were a stunned eavesdropper, you better pack your bags and look elsewhere - like towards those who truly practice safe sex, and this is what safe sex really is:

Safe Sex is:

Only having sex after you are in a committed relationship, and only if you prepared to handle a pregnancy.

Marry. Commit. Use birth control of you wish, but if it does not work, be prepared to cope with a pregnancy, which can actually become your greatest joy.

Then something even stranger happened: Nina parked her car in a public garage, a man opened his pants and flashed her, she was vary shaken up, and I accompanied her to report this crime. Linda did not show any concern.

Julie later told me, "Nina was very appreciative of your support, and was surprised that Linda was totally disinterested."

Well, Linda herself was flashing, with the way she dressed and held herself. She was breaking the walls of sexual promiscuity by sleeping with multiple partners of both sexes, and bragging about it; she was a revolutionary, not exactly trying to make other people feel comfortable. And it led her to not even care when her friend suffered because she was flashed by a man.

I had known her in high school, I saw her transformation. The purpose of her mode of dress and promiscuity were to kill her feelings, and kill the senses of others also, regarding sexual boundaries ie modesty. Oh such a mode of thought could even accuse the so called "patriarchy" of inventing modesty in order to "control women" and the like.

Why the bragging? She bragged about hurting a man because sexual promiscuity causes pain to the soul. Her bragging was a way to release that pain: by making someone else feel it - the cuckold. 

She also would tell people about her bisexual non-marital promiscuity in order to offend them and break societal norms. She was causing discomfort via social interactions, again, as a dumping ground for the pain her soul was in.

I saw this dynamic elsewhere too - Julie bragged that a former boyfriend bumped into her and said to Julie, in front of his new girlfriend, how much he would like to see her again, Julie then bragged to me about how this former boyfriend still likes her and how his new girlfriend was hurt by this - I retorted, finally, "I can understand how she would be hurt." and Julie just went stiff, no regrets, no sensitivity.

I saw the transformation of kind young women into braggarts that like to hurt others. Because that is where they dumped their inner feeling that something is deeply wrong with sex outside marriage.

 If they had preserved their boundaries, none of these bitter and cynical actions and attitudes ever would have happened.

If you have crossed your own sexual boundaries, it is never too late, you can reclaim them.

All you have to do is practice safe sex: within a commitment, and being ready to parent.

(names have been changed)

 

 

 

Relativism does not admit what it is

 We did not know we were relativists, we did not know we were individualists. 

Every so often, mom would return home full of astonishment about an issue.

You cannot cavort with individualist relativists and expect them to morph into a supportive community when you need them.

The social contract was modern individualist relativism.

The tragedy was that we did not even know what we were in, we had no perspective on it, relativism was the air we breathed.

By not being able to get a perspective on it, we were trapped.

You can wait, and you can parent.

 We did not know how to abstain.

We were taught that to be a good parent you had to be "ready",  have a career, money and already know how to parent.

Then I met Christians, then orthodox Jews, then religious Muslims.

Here is how you abstain from sex before you are ready to parent:

 1 - Curb your sexual frustration:

- Do not date until you are ready to marry.

- Avoid socializing in mixed-gender situations.

 - Do not listen to suggestive music.

- Do not watch suggestive media. 

- Do not attend parties in which boys and girls are mixing freely, and definitely not at night, and definitely not if there is drinking, dancing, and suggestive music.

 - Do not imagine you can just sex play without intercourse.

 You may be even a bit unfriendly at times. That is fine. 

Lee, a Chinese American high school student, was remarkably cool to me. He came for one day to Middlebury College, 1986, to visit my freshman roommate and have a tour to see if he would like to apply. I asked afterwards what I had done wrong that Lee was so unfriendly. My roomate replied, "oh, he does not talk to girls, he refuses to date until he graduates college. He says that college is a crucial time when you are building yourself. After he gets his engineering degree, then he will date."

I was stunned. 

Then, later, I agreed.

2 - Be around chaste people:  if you are secular, tell religious people, "I need religious friends. I need to socialize with you and be around you because you are modest. But please do not preach to me." You WILL find acceptance. (Thank you, Kim, Nadia, and Miriam, for your acceptance back when I was secular.)

3 - Wait until you are able to parent before you have heterosexual sex.

- Do not imagine that birth control always works. If your are in a mature relationship and feel ready to parent, but you wish to wait before having kids, use the rhythm method coupled with a barrier method, or some such combination. Double up! But remember, you may get pregnant.

Parenting:

You do not need money. You do not need to be perfect. You just need the basic stable routines that everyone needs, that you benefit from already. All you have to be is a good example. Lecturing does not work. The best way to parent is: be what you want to be, and what you would like others to be. 

Children are natural geniuses. They can sense what parents need. From a small age, they can actually be like a little pal. You are mistaken if you think you need reams of money and tons of wisdom to parent.

You can wait, and you can parent.

 My personal conversion was when I realized that you need to wait until you are in a committed relationship and ready to parent before engaging in heterosexual sex. This was a conversion, and not just changing my mind, because it was a serious departure from the liberal-left ideology I grew up with in the 1970's and 80's, Brookline Massachusetts, and Middlebury college VT: the liberal-left wants  you to feel stuck. True sexual liberation is being in control of your sexual desires, not controlled by them.

"It's No Big Deal" - the modern leftist deception

 Human beings crave intellectual honesty.

You will find a trend in the liberal/left that defies intellectual honesty, and it runs like this: "here is a social revolution, actually it is No Big Deal."

Wait, how can you have a social revolution that is No Big Deal?

Here are some examples:

The 1960's heralded the sexual revolution. People could be affectionate outside the shackles of marriage. Freedom! This led to broken hearts, unwanted pregnancies, and an inability to nurture devoted and committed relationships, but that was not foreseen by the liberators. 

Then people claimed that, not to worry, sex is No Big Deal.

Roe v Wade declared abortion rights for women in the USA, actually if you read the wording, those rights depend on the personhood of the unborn, and technology now shows that personhood begins rather early, but, back in 1974, Roe v Wade won.

Then people who support "choice" declared, the unborn is not alive, it is No Big Deal. And the feminist who took the abortion pill on air in early 2022 to make that point, in defiance of even other feminists who hold that the decision to abort should at least be made gravely, underscored this aspect of the shaky intellectual ground of - let's have a revolution, actually it is No Big Deal.

The group that calls itself Women of the Wall say that they are fighting for prayer equality at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. They also say, in the very same breath, that the Western Wall has no sanctity.

So they are fighting for equality and at the same time saying that the area has no sanctity, so this is all No Big Deal.

I believe that those who are in homosexual relationships should of course have full civil rights and be allowed to adopt children. I also have found some inconsistencies in the argument that homosexuality is constitutional and inherent, but, fine, that has nothing to do with civil rights.

But if I challenge a liberal when they say, "Being gay is just fine because they are born that way," by retorting that perhaps sexuality can be influenced, they quickly get intellectually fuzzy and say, "well it really is No Big Deal."

Took me a while to identify the intellectual quagmire of the modern leftist liberal. From revolution to - ah this is No Big Deal. 

Which means they really did not seek revolution after all.

Human-centered language may be needed in order to raise awareness in the issue of abortion

We do not need rules for everything.

Christians may misunderstand Jewish legalism, which is merely human-centered language.

This came to a head in our history regarding the relationship between Jewish and ancient Greek thought. The world benefited from many things Greek including discourse, mathematics, astrology, etc.

But the Greeks scoffed at the Rabbis of the Talmud for declaring that the circumference divided by the diameter of a circle is 3. A round number, merely 3, is something we can comprehend.

The Greeks say the circumference divided by the diameter of a circle is pi, that is, 3.1415....a number that reaches until infinity, to perfection.

How silly of those Rabbis, thought the Greeks, they should have known what pi is! Well the Rabbis did know, they simply phrased things in human-centered terms, whereas the Greeks defined down to the sub atomic scale, which is beyond human comprehension.

It may be more useful to think that the mathematics of a circle is 3 rather than a number we cannot comprehend.

If you emphasize the wrongness of a subset of actions, you can succeed in sensitizing people to the wrongness of actions that are connected to that subset.

Regarding reproduction, Jewish law weighs in on two fronts: contraception is only allowed in  some circumstances, some forms are considered to be immoral, and at forty days after conception, the unborn is a full human being. That is five weeks and five days.  Sex outside of marriage is forbidden.

Before 40 days, the unborn is considered to be "like water." 

On the surface this challenges those who hold that life begins at conception, but think for a minute: human beings cannot comprehend either the size of the universe or that of an atom. Tell people that it is a baby at conception, thus abortion must be forbidden even from conception - people cannot comprehend that, so they will dismiss the pro life argument entirely.

But, if you express concepts in human-centered terms, meaning, "see this picture of an embryo at six weeks? You can comprehend that this is a human baby, albeit tiny. To remove it from the womb can only be done in severe, life-threatening cases." That is comprehensible.

If, likewise, you live in a community in which women have their first baby on average a year after they marry, as happens in orthodox Jewish communities, due to restrictions on birth control usage, you see that babies are a normal part of life. 

Put the two together, and you have a language and culture concerning reproduction in which people become sensitized to the sanctity of life on an ongoing basis, then, abortion becomes unthinkable even immediately upon conception.

Ultra-orthodox young women attend seminaries after high school, usually a teacher's college paired with another major, and they often marry say one year into college, and start bearing children.  These colleges are used to accommodating the young mother. 

This is an example of a pro-life society: babies are part of life, so colleges must accommodate.

Sometimes you need to use language that is human-centered in order to raise awareness and sensitize people, getting them to a higher ground.

So, if laws allow abortion only up to the detection of the heartbeat, which is, interestingly enough, at about 6 weeks, (about 40 days - maybe those Rabbis were not so silly, eh?) this WILL lead to saving all babies, because you have sensitized, using human-centered language.

Btw - "like water" connotes flexibility and high-speed change. There is a tradition that this is the best time to pray for the health of the child. This never meant that the unborn, before 40 days, is not living. How could that be, when both sperm and egg are living and must be respected, leading to restrictions on birth control.

The orthodox make no move to render illegal forms of birth control that they hold are immoral. This may be due to their reticence to get involved in the wider world, or just the idea that once people are sensitized, laws on the books are not so necessary. 

Another example of no-need-for-a-rule is the social pressure to complete high school before meeting a matchmaker to set up a meeting for the possibility of marriage. There is no law against marrying at say 16 in our community, but it is so discouraged, via social pressure, that it is quite rare. 

You do not need rules for everything. You do need enough social sensitization that abortion, even if legal until 6 weeks, would be unthinkable.