QUOTE
People develop certain basic patterns in their thought processes, [and] those patterns become wired into the structure of the brain in the way Satinover (see The Quantum Brain) discusses, with the result that it becomes a quasi-automatic thing to think in certain ways, and almost impossible to think in any other way. Now if anything characterizes modern ideological, left-wing thinking, it is a deep-down subjectivism, a fundamental unwillingness to relate to the presence of a reality outside the self. Eventually, I would imagine, this has got to affect the way the brain processes information from the outside—i.e., information provided by the senses. The normal intellect receives sensory information and, by a process not entirely understood, finds and abstracts from the sensory information the intelligible forms of things. Of course, this involves more than just the brain, it involves the immaterial soul, but presumably it has a biological aspect. That being the case, it seems plausible that in people deeply committed to subjectivistic ideologies, the brain may be so wired as to render no longer possible the kind of processing of sensory information which is central to the act of knowing, and thus to make it impossible for the intellect working with such a brain to get at the intelligible forms of reality. In that case, what starts out as a voluntary refusal to deal with the trans-subjective world eventually turns into an inability to do so. C.S. Lewis describes this quite accurately when he characterizes one of the more obnoxious ideologues who populate his novel, That Hideous Strength:
What had been in his far-off youth a merely aesthetic repugnance to realities that were crude or vulgar, had deepened and darkened, year after year, into a fixed refusal of everything that was in any degree other than himself. He had passed from Hegel into Hume, thence through Pragmatism, and thence through logical positivism, and out at last into the complete void. The indicative mood now corresponded to no thought that his mind could entertain. He had willed with his whole heart that there should be no reality and no truth, and now even the imminence of his own ruin could not wake him. The last scene of Dr. Faustus where the man raves and implores on the edge of Hell is, perhaps, stage fire. The last moments before damnation are not often so dramatic. Often the man knows with perfect clarity that some still possible action of his own will could yet save him. But he cannot make this knowledge real to himself.
This helps us to understand better the apparent imperviousness of today’s liberals (undoubtedly now the most powerful and dangerous of the subjectivists plaguing our world) to rational argument and to evidence. It helps us to understand these formally well-educated people who seem able to believe that [anyone in their favor] is innocent of serious wrong-doing in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary—they can just "blow off" the evidence because their brains are no longer equipped to deal with evidence coming from the external world. …What it comes down to is that liberalism causes brain damage. Liberals are not just unwilling to engage in rational thought, they are, after just so long, incapable of it. Of course, young liberals sometimes recover—in youth, the development of the brain is still a flexible process and bad mental habits can still be unlearned, something I, as a recovered liberal, am in a position to know. But it has been my observation that middle-aged and elderly liberals are pretty much lost causes—the brain damage is probably irreversible (maybe neurosurgeons will come up with some kind of procedure for it, though).
Of course, it doesn’t stop at the level of the individual brain—this process metastasizes to the population, through the media and the educational system. Psychologists have long suspected that when a child’s mind is not stimulated early in life, or not stimulated in the right ways, the child’s brain simply does not develop as it should. Yet our liberal-dominated schools today do very little to develop in children habits of clear, rational, analytic thought while the equally liberal-dominated media do a great deal to inculcate habits of seeking immediate gratification, forming opinions on the basis of feelings rather than reason, etc. For many years now liberal educators have laughed at the idea that certain kinds of educational disciplines, things like formal logic and Latin grammar, could in effect exercise the brain, but now the science of neurology is telling us that this is probably exactly what happens.
This dumbing-down does not just result in adults who are ignorant but might somehow be educated. It leads to adults with brain damage. It is in fact quite likely that, of the roughly 70% of the population who approve of, say, Bill Clinton, a substantial portion are in fact borderline mentally retarded as a result of liberal influence on the schools and the media. And that situation is incompatible with the existence of a republic. We are in deep trouble.
What had been in his far-off youth a merely aesthetic repugnance to realities that were crude or vulgar, had deepened and darkened, year after year, into a fixed refusal of everything that was in any degree other than himself. He had passed from Hegel into Hume, thence through Pragmatism, and thence through logical positivism, and out at last into the complete void. The indicative mood now corresponded to no thought that his mind could entertain. He had willed with his whole heart that there should be no reality and no truth, and now even the imminence of his own ruin could not wake him. The last scene of Dr. Faustus where the man raves and implores on the edge of Hell is, perhaps, stage fire. The last moments before damnation are not often so dramatic. Often the man knows with perfect clarity that some still possible action of his own will could yet save him. But he cannot make this knowledge real to himself.
This helps us to understand better the apparent imperviousness of today’s liberals (undoubtedly now the most powerful and dangerous of the subjectivists plaguing our world) to rational argument and to evidence. It helps us to understand these formally well-educated people who seem able to believe that [anyone in their favor] is innocent of serious wrong-doing in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary—they can just "blow off" the evidence because their brains are no longer equipped to deal with evidence coming from the external world. …What it comes down to is that liberalism causes brain damage. Liberals are not just unwilling to engage in rational thought, they are, after just so long, incapable of it. Of course, young liberals sometimes recover—in youth, the development of the brain is still a flexible process and bad mental habits can still be unlearned, something I, as a recovered liberal, am in a position to know. But it has been my observation that middle-aged and elderly liberals are pretty much lost causes—the brain damage is probably irreversible (maybe neurosurgeons will come up with some kind of procedure for it, though).
Of course, it doesn’t stop at the level of the individual brain—this process metastasizes to the population, through the media and the educational system. Psychologists have long suspected that when a child’s mind is not stimulated early in life, or not stimulated in the right ways, the child’s brain simply does not develop as it should. Yet our liberal-dominated schools today do very little to develop in children habits of clear, rational, analytic thought while the equally liberal-dominated media do a great deal to inculcate habits of seeking immediate gratification, forming opinions on the basis of feelings rather than reason, etc. For many years now liberal educators have laughed at the idea that certain kinds of educational disciplines, things like formal logic and Latin grammar, could in effect exercise the brain, but now the science of neurology is telling us that this is probably exactly what happens.
This dumbing-down does not just result in adults who are ignorant but might somehow be educated. It leads to adults with brain damage. It is in fact quite likely that, of the roughly 70% of the population who approve of, say, Bill Clinton, a substantial portion are in fact borderline mentally retarded as a result of liberal influence on the schools and the media. And that situation is incompatible with the existence of a republic. We are in deep trouble.
