The Corrupted Moral Evolution of our Educated Era

and a vision of the promised land

Reading the Zman today he says in “Liberal Intolerance” that we just take for granted that “things like religious inclusiveness, individual freedom, and constitutional government are in of themselves good things and signs of progress.”

Yes, but whatabout “religious inclusiveness?” Says Zman,

Instead of being bound together by kinship or force, as we see with most of the world, what holds Western people into political entitles is a common morality.

Our religion these days is liberalism, and there is only one religion allowed.

The reason that Western societies now function like secular theocracies is liberalism has evolved into a religion. It has crowded out Christianity from the public square because no society can have more than one moral framework.

He certainly has a point: any more than one religion around and pretty soon there is going to be trouble, right here in River City, I mean Gaza.

But he set me to thinking. Let us not be limited by the idea of one “liberalism” and one moral framework. Liberalism has evolved. Like so.

Liberalism. The moral code of the educated elite that shoved the kings and nobility out of power, because freedom and human rights.

Socialism. The moral code of the educated elite that proposes to run everything, including the economy.

Liberal Democracy. The moral code of the educated elite that is doing it all for the working class, to be paid for by the rich and the middle class.

Civil-rights Democracy. The moral code of the educated elite that is doing it all for the civil rights of blacks, to be paid for with the jobs and opportunities of middle-class and working-class whites.

Our Democracy. The moral code of the educated elite that says it is doing it all for “our communities” — various ethnic and gender minorities — but in fact lives off the fat of the land and generous contributions from the special interests while the middle class struggles and “our communities” descend into social and moral chaos.

OK, now let’s strike out west to the territory and think up just one more moral code.

Populist Nationalism. The moral code of the ordinary middle class that lives for a decent job or career, marriage and children, a house in the suburbs and an gas-powered SUV in the garage. It believes in keeping government on a short leash, the educated class on a very short leash, and building a wall of separation between government and business.

So really, on my understanding, populist nationalism is just a beneficent evolution from the cramped and corrupt liberalism of old towards a new Promised Land of middle class liberation.

This is not that hard.