Review
The New Man-Molders
The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies
by Ryszard Legutko
reviewed by Arthur W. Hunt III
The dust was still settling in Europe in the aftermath of World War II when C. S. Lewis wrote, "The man-moulders of the new age will be armed with the powers of an omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique." In The Abolition of Man he warned of the new "Conditioners," who would "cut out all posterity in what shape they pleased." In 1947 Lewis did not identify whether the levers of this controlling materialism would come from the Soviet East or the Free West; instead he seemed to be looking toward a rising shadow on the wall of modernity, one that had dismissed any notions of the Tao, that is, of traditional morality.
Growing up in Soviet-occupied Poland, Ryszard Legutko knew full well what man-molders could do to a people, and he was therefore bewildered when he recognized that the behaviors he associated with communism were now being matched by those who were waving the banner of democracy. Elected to a front-row seat within the European Parliament, the scholar of ancient philosophy and political theory watched as diehard communists shape-shifted into devotees of liberal democracy without missing a beat. Perhaps democratic liberals "intuitively sensed they had a deeper bond, no matter how unclear, with the communists than with the anticommunists" he writes in The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies. After all, he says, they never really were antagonistic toward communism anyway.
Parallels
The links between the Soviet-style communism and the maturated contours of Western liberal democracy are to be found in their common tendencies and ideals. Foremost among these is the recognition that both are projects of modernity. Both are "progressive" in the fullest sense and seek to change traditional institutions to achieve their goals.
Both embrace the cult of technology (technê) toward social engineering. In The Abolition of Man Lewis lists the technologies of mass media, contraception, and genetic engineering as examples of humanity's newfound power over nature. While these still loom over us, Legutko shows how the Conditioners' magical bag of charms has grown larger today, affecting our notions of freedom, language, matrimony, and gender.
Both systems are deterministic, believing history is on their side. Communism and liberal-democracy (the dash here indicating its recent -delineations) are end-of-the-road systems that do not entertain alternatives and that participate in a kind of politically imposed historical amnesia; take, for example, Europe's current lack of regard for its Christian heritage. Legutko says that those who clamored for the wall to come down in Eastern Europe wanted to throw off the suppression of the church as well as the social engineering of communism, but an alternative interpretation of their motives got about until "people started to believe that the real opposition that had defeated the communist regime was a pro-EU one."
Both communism and liberal-democracy are totalizing systems that suppress dissenters. As students of Soviet history well know, Lenin's way was a one-way street. Anyone dissenting from the party line was marked out as an enemy of the state. Legutko believes that today's political correctness is nothing more than the great collective enterprise of liberal-democracy insisting on cooperation. Terms like "dialogue" and "all--inclusiveness" conceal the actual maxim: "right is might."
Both systems are on a never-ending quest to make things "equal." Radical egalitarianism fills a meaning-vacuum for God-starved souls. Feminists belong to a sisterhood, and crusading homosexuals see themselves as a band of brothers. Any opposition that stands in the way of newly perceived "rights" under the new regime is quickly dismissed as anti-progressive, hateful, or medieval. Legutko reminds his readers that while the communist version of egalitarianism provided a rationale for action, history has shown it is always joined at the hip with a twin brother, and his name is despotism.
Democracy, Huxley & Orwell
Arthur W. Hunt III is a former professor of public speaking at the University of Tennesse at Martin. He is now preparing to transition to ministry-related service and lives in the greater Memphis area.
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26.1—Jan/Feb 2013
The Alternate & Alternative Worlds of H. P. Lovecraft & C. S. Lewis by C. R. Wiley
28.3—May/June 2015
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