I have finally been able to summarize the project of the Left in a single word that captures its essence, both in what they are trying to accomplish and what the inevitable result is. Leftists will agree with the first part of this analysis, but not with the second.

The project of the Left

In order to understand the Left one must understand the Right, or rather what the Left perceives as the Right. The terms “left wing” and “right wing” stem from the French parliament during the Enlightenment. Those on the right side of the Parliament leader supported the ancien régime, the old system of feudal monarchy, whereas those on the left side were radicals who opposed the king and wanted to uproot the ancién regime and replace it with something completely new.

Originally the Left consisted of the highly diverse group of anarchists, classical liberals and socialists. Although they differ greatly in worldview and ideology their analysis of the Right overlapped in many respects. Common for them all is that they loathed the ancien régime and what it represented: group warfare. When left to their own devices people tend to coalesce into groups: families, cliques, genders, classes, races, nations. By the very nature of such groups some people are closer to others, which leads to very different behavior towards group members and outsiders. Generally speaking one is more caring, understanding, sympathetic and respectful towards the group members than towards the stranger. Because of this it is easier for a group to turn to violence, coercion and oppression of other groups. In short, this group dynamics leads to unfair treatment and ultimately slavery, oppression, imperialism and warfare.

Now, the classical liberals were individualists and detested collectivism as such, and their solution was therefore to form a government based on the rule of law and whose only legitimate function was to protect peaceful individuals from coercion and violence. But both the anarchists and the classical liberals were marginalized and eventually ousted from the Left, leaving only the collectivist socialists as sole owner of the Left. Their solution was radically different from that of the classical liberals.

The paradox is that socialists recognize the destructive nature of collectivism, even if they are collectivists themselves. They understand that different types of collectives will clash into warfare and some will be stronger than the others and form class hierarchies or castes as they are called in India. So how do the collectivist socialists solve this problem? Integration.

Their solution is to destroy the walls between groups and force them to merge so that they become part of the same collective. If only one group exists then there can be no class warfare and oppression because everyone belongs to the same class where all are brothers and sisters, equals that are bound together by love and unity.

So the basic worldview of the collectivistic left is that a) differences are evil because they lead to different group formations which in turn lead to group warfare and ultimately a feudal caste system, and b) their solution to this is to destroy all significant differences that lead people to form different groups and thereby blend them together to create one big group where all is equal. This basic worldview entirely explains why the Left has embraced socialism, feminism, anti-racism, subjectivism, relativism, multiculturalism, internationalism and environmentalism.

The purpose of socialism is not merely to redistribute wealth so that the poor also gets a good life. No, its purpose is to hide the fact that some people are smarter and more productive than others. In a socialistic society the goal is to make it impossible to judge someone’s abilities based on their wealth. Socialism strives to become ability-blind.

The purpose of feminism is not merely to make gender neutral laws. No, its purpose is to hide the fact that there are some gender differences. In a feministic society the goal is to make it impossible to judge whether someone is a woman or a man. Feminism strives to become gender-blind.

Anti-racism is not merely about making race neutral laws and to make people judge people as individuals. No, its purpose is to hide the fact that there are some statistical race differences. In an anti-racist society the goal is to destroy all statistical differences through affirmative action. Anti-racism strives to become color-blind.

The purpose of subjectivism is not merely to point out that some things are personal opinions and not facts. The purpose is to destroy the notion of fact altogether. Subjectivism strives to become truth-blind.

The explicit purpose of relativism is to destroy all significant differences between cultures so that no-one judges one culture to be better than another. Relativism strives to become culture-blind. Similarly the purpose of multiculturalism is not merely the peaceful co-existence of people of different cultural background, but to blend together and integrate all cultures into one big culture.

The purpose of internationalism is not merely to promote world peace and cooperation. No, its purpose is to destroy the boundaries and distinctions between the nation states, and shift power towards a world government under the United Nations.

The purpose of environmentalism is not merely to have a clean environment and a sustainable society. No, its purpose is ultimately to give equal rights to nature as to humans, to blend the two into one big happy family, where dogs, rocks, mosquitos and trees enjoy the same rights as humans.

In short, wherever there is a conflict of interest between groups, the solution of the Left is to merge, to blend, to mix and destroy all differences. Notice that the Left always start with legitimate concerns such as racial oppression, sexual preference oppression, gender oppression, nationalism and pollution, but due to the fact that they are collectivists they only have the same wrong solution to all these concerns. They call it integration, but this is a bad word that fails to capture their efforts not only to integrate but to destroy all differences. There does, however, exist a word that perfectly captures their solution: confusion.

Confusion

The word “confuse” comes from latin and literally translates as “fuse with” or “blend together.” But in medieval Europe “confusion” primarily came to mean “disorder,” “shame” or “chaos.” Picture a sandcastle where the individual sand grains have been neatly organized and grouped into structures and generated order. Then someone runs it over with a bulldozer and blends all the sand grains together into an evenly distributed, flat pile of sand. That’s pretty much what they meant by con-fusion – to blend together and create chaos where there previously was order – and this pretty much sums up the project of the Left. Whenever they see group differences and structures forming their knee jerk reaction is to bring out the bulldozer and raze the structures flat, to confuse all groups into one giant group with no internal structure.

Sometimes razing bad power structures, like apartheid, slavery or feudal castes, to the ground is legitimate. The major problem with the Left’s solution is that it not only destroys bad power structures, it attempts to destroy any difference that is perceived as significant. By destroying distinctions in reality and in people’s minds they are severing the link between mind and reality. Mind becomes helpless and blind, unable to navigate in reality. The result is chaos – confusion. People of the Left have a confused worldview, and are confusers whose goal is to confuse the world – in both senses of the word: blend together and create chaos. Confusion is therefore the single most descriptive word to capture the essence of the Left ever since the collectivists took hold.

True Integration: The One in the Many

I started out by saying that the classical liberals, the socialists and the anarchists shared much of their analysis of the Right, but that their philosophy is very different and therefore their conclusions about how to deal with group warfare are very different. Socialists are collectivists and are unable to imagine any other solution than a collective one, hence their solution is confusion. Classical liberals are individualists and their solution to group warfare is true integration.

The individualistic understanding of integration originated with Aristotle who saw essences as “the one in the many.” In modern times Aristotle’s understanding was significantly improved upon by Ayn Rand, who saw essentials not as existents in their own right, but as abstractions – objects of the conceptual mind.

Ayn Rand’s understanding of conceptual integration of many concretes into conceptual oneness (“the one in the many”) is that whenever we form a concept we should not fuse the constituents of the group. Even if we lump them together we should keep the individuals that make up the group distinct. Hence, Rand’s integration may be thought of as social: bringing individuals together into a unity, yet at the same time keeping them separate and distinct as individuals, respecting their boundaries. Togetherness and separateness at the same time: the one in the many. In contrast the Left only wants togetherness because they believe that separateness between different groups is the only alternative.

Let us now apply this notion of “one in the many” to politics. Individualistic integration in society means living together, yet maintaining boundaries, which means respecting each other’s life, liberty and property. “No man is an island,” says the Leftist and aims to confuse all men into a giant island. “Yes, every man is an island,” the Individualist replies, “but part of an archipelago of other islands: together, yet separate and distinct.”

Social integration also applies to concept formation, including statistical concepts such as gender and race. Genders are physiologically distinct, but there is great variation within the genders in the properties such as height, weight and psychological make-up. Because of this it is impossible to know from someone’s gender alone how tall they are, what their psychological make-up is etc. These properties therefore need to be inspected in every individual. Thus, we cannot simply substitute the individual and replace it with its gender. This gives very inaccurate information. We must retain the many, even if we form a concept that unites them all into one gender.

However, gender is statistically a very useful concept, something any clothes producer may attest to. Women and men come in all shapes and sizes, but some features dominate. Men tend to be taller and bigger than women, women tend to have smaller waists and broader hips than men etc. Clothes producers exploit these statistical differences and dominances when they design clothes.

Similarly, men and women differ slightly in intelligence. On average, men are ever so slightly more intelligent than women, but men also have a greater variation than women. Or put bluntly: there are far more geniuses among men than among women, but there are also more idiots. The variation in intelligence is, however, so great within both genders that you cannot from gender alone infer the intelligence of an individual.

The statistical distribution of intelligence in the genders can however be useful, such as in detecting gender discrimination. Suppose we know that in order to get a PhD in physics one needs to have an IQ greater than 130. If we know the IQ distribution of both men and women we can predict the men to women ratio of Physics PhDs. Suppose that there are 3 times more men than women that have an IQ above 130. From this we should expect the men to women ratio to be 3:1 – three male Physics PhDs for every female PhD. But if we observe, say, ten male Physics PhDs for every female PhD, then this could indicate that women are being discriminated against.

Race, unlike gender, is a purely statistical concept. There are no uniquely distinct physiological differences between races as there are between species or genders. The proper biological definition of race is therefore “a group of mildly inbred and highly genetically diffused individuals.” So, for instance, to be “white” (or Caucasian) is to be someone whose ancestors primarily lived in Europe, some 40.000 years ago.

Again the variation within a race in personal characteristics is so great that they cannot be inferred from race alone. One must inspect them and evaluate them in every individual. Once again, it is necessary to retain the many so not to lose information. However, the concept of race can also be useful. For instance, one should not be surprised if East-Africans dominate in long distance running sports, and West-Africans dominate sprint. Similarly one should not be surprised that so many Jews turn out to be so distinguished in intellectually demanding fields such as physics, chemistry, literature, philosophy and economics. Just like statistical gender differences can be used to detect possible gender bias in various fields, statistical racial differences can be used to detect possible racism.

The reason I brought up gender and race as examples of how to integrate a diverse group into one without losing sight of the many constituents is to show that it is possible to form useful concepts of gender and race without resorting to sexism or racism, but to do so requires a firm understanding of true integration.

This is the great Achilles heel of the Left. They are unable to form concepts without wiping out the individuals that make them up. Therefore, to them forming the concept of race is synonymous with racism, forming the concept of gender is synonymous with sexism, and forming a society which allows social differences to exist is hatred of the poor. To a properly integrated mind it is not problematic to live respectfully together with other people who have more or less wealth than themselves, or to live with people of other races or genders, but to the confused mind this is impossible. In order to cure this great confusion we need to start by educating people about how to properly form concepts. Bringing proper social order to the world does not start with political action, but with clarity of mind.

Disclosure: This article was in part inspired by the second novel in Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle trilogy called “The Confusion.”