The history of the left

This is a relatively short recap of Moldbug on the origins of leftism.

Leftists like to trace leftism to the people who sat on the left hand of the French assembly, which traces back the left to its very first pretense to be something other than a religion, and then traces it no further.  The French left, before they were “the left”, were Gallicans, and before they were Gallicans, were adherents of the false Popes of Avignon.

Yet no sooner did they give themselves a secular name, than they proceeded to fight bloody holy wars in the Vendée and in Spain, as though the false popes were still seated in Avignon.

French leftism expired with Napoleon.  Today’s French left is a muppet manufactured by Anglosphere leftism, which originated in Browneism, which became Puritanism.

Today’s state is the left, and the left is the state, as is apparent when one traces the funding of Occupy astroturf to itself.

If we trace back the American left through the years, decades and centuries, we find the roots of today’s distinctly anti Christian and disproportionately Jewish left are nominally Christians, the super protestants of the 1940s, who in turn have plausibly Christian roots – the prohibition movement, the early feminist movement, the movement to raise the age of consent, the movement to give women the vote, and before that, the anti slavery movement:  “Onward Christian soldiers”.

The Anglosphere left, the left of Puritan origin, now dominates the world, all other lefts having expired, and been reduced to muppets of the Anglosphere left.

In Spain, a church was fined two hundred thousand euros for heresy, the heresy being an ad that featured some of the grosser and more self parodying elements of the gay pride parade.

This does not confirm Mencius’ account that Europeans are ruled by muppet governments.  What does confirm Mencius, is that in Spanish “gay pride day” is called “día del Orgullo Gay” – revealing that the theocracy being enforced in Spain is American, is Massachusetts, is Harvard.

Similarly “Pussy Riot”, wherein Russian protesters in Russia wear protest signs written in English.

The French Revolution would be an obscure dusty footnote in the history books, were it not that the Anglosphere left likes to dress itself in foreign clothes to facilitate the rule of foreign nations.

The French left originated in Gallicanism, became atheistic in the same way and for the same reasons that progressives became atheistic two centuries later, and dead ended in Napoleon the First. The modern French left is a creation of, and in substantial part a muppet of, the Anglosphere left, manufactured after Napoleon was defeated. Today’s left has no organizational or institutional continuity with Rousseau’s left. The modern French progressive is influenced by Rousseau’s ideas, and likes to dress himself in Rousseau’s ideas to make himself look less like a US State Department tool ruling over Europe through NGOs with their headquarters in New York and their branch offices in Brussels, but his organization and institution is organizationally and institutionally descended from English Puritans.

Anti colonialism is imperialist, and imperialism was anti colonialist:

Consider the path that Alassane Ouattara took to power: Educated in the US, career in Washington, raised to high position in the IMF. In due course jointly holds high position in the IMF plus high position in the Ivory government, despite the fact that he seldom visits the Ivory coast, briefly flying in from Washington from time to time, Election rigged in his favor in the Ivory Coast by UN troops, large numbers of native thugs imported from neighboring country. Population replacement and ethnic cleansing of the native population. Alassane Quattara then flies in from Washington to take power, despite the fact that he had not bothered to show up to his high Ivorian government job for six years. Clearly, the power that installed him over the Ivory Coast was located in Washington, not the Ivory Coast. Imperialism is still going strong today, and it still spouts anti colonialist rhetoric. Similarly Aristide and Mugabe, installed from without against the wishes of the locals.

The colonialists were piratical, and sometimes, as in the west indies, were indeed deemed pirates, but generally the Imperial approach, as with Clive of India and Raffles, was to disapprove of their piratical acts, and use them as justification for more centralized power, without actually going so far as to call people like Raffles pirates or bandits.

In practice, of course, empire, centralization of power, and the abolition of slavery, does not seem to have been all that popular. The Indian mutiny was in substantial part caused by do-gooder land reform – it was in substantial part a revolt against do-goodism by meddling outsiders far away in London, though it was deemed by London to be a failure of the colonialists, and grounds for even more centralization of power in London and even more unpopular do-gooderism.

When British adventurers first started raiding and trading with distant lands they peaceably purchased spices, and they aggressively stole gold and spices. They attacked ships and seized cargoes because they just plain and simply wanted those cargoes, not out of any economic rationale about enforcing English monopoly. They did not think much about whether attacking ships full of valuable cargoes was good for England. It was good for the East India company, and what is good for the East India company is good for England. The trade rationale was something of an afterthought.

Over time, they tended to transition from mobile bandits to stationary bandits, becoming, without anyone particularly realizing it, governments, governments that enforced a local monopoly over trade in spices, among other things. Many of them became rich, and returned to England to buy respectability, disturbing those who’s wealth came through respectable channels, who called these upstarts “nabobs”.

Eventually, in the nineteenth century, the center, London, belatedly realized that these adventurers had become governments, and set to taking over from these colonialists, on the rationale both of benefiting England through trade monopoly, and the leftist do-gooder rationale of benefiting the natives.

The British empire was not conquered by imperialists, but by eighteenth century merchant adventurers, who mixed honest trade, piracy, conquest, and state formation. The nineteenth century imperialists took it over from the colonialists, and immediately the empire went into decline. In the nineteenth century, Colonialists right wing, Imperialists left wing and anti colonialist.

Today’s anti colonialism is still imperialist, as illustrated by population replacement in the Ivory Coast.

It was in the anti slavery movement that the predecessors of today’s left began to distinctly depart from Christianity:  For the New Testament takes a very tolerant attitude towards slavery:  The New Testament gently suggests that Christians free their own slaves, but does not require it, and clearly prohibits Christians from freeing other people’s slaves, though they are perhaps permitted to close their eyes to other people’s runaway slaves and look the other way.  The civil war conspicuously and spectacularly exceeded not only what the New Testament requires, but also what it permits.

Similarly, with the emancipation of women, they really had to ditch Christianity and started doing so, for while the New Testament is mildly disapproving of slavery, it endorses stern patriarchy in no uncertain terms, and thus, with women’s suffrage, we begin to see the familiar anti Christian modern left, though it was only in the 1940s or so that large numbers of Jews were permitted to join the modern American left.

Tracing the English speaking left all the way back to Browneism, we see continuity of personnel and ideology, the ideology slowly changing from Puritan Christianity to Unitarian Universalism to modern leftism, but changing slowly and continuously without any abrupt change, though over time every detail of the ideology changed, except for the war on Christmas, desecration of marriage, and the emancipation of women, which remained the whole time, even though sometimes justified by the argument that Christmas was too pagan, and at other times justified by the argument that Christmas was not pagan enough, and sometimes, strangely, both arguments simultaneously, while the desecration of marriage never got an explanation, for they never admitted that that was what they were doing, nor did the emancipation of women for as long as they thought themselves Christian, for Paul unambiguously tells the Church to socially enforce male authority over women.

In the long and winding path between Browneism and today’s left, there is one strong unchanging thread.  The left is holier than thou.  They were holier than thou when they were Christian, and they are still holier than thou now that they are anti Christian.