"It's already here"

Ilion (who we are privileged to have as a commentor on this blog) has a great post on his blog, Iliocentrism, regarding gay marriage and the encroaching acceptance of polygamy.

He invokes insightful comments by Vox Day and Lydia McGrew, and notes:

People who like to think themselves 'conservative' need to get this into their minds: the leftists are intent to destroy all vestage of our historical societies -- they intend to destroy us -- and the "liberals" ... and the libertarians ... are their allies-and-stooges in this war to the death.Further, if *you* who call yourself 'conservative' do not actively work to identify and eliminate from your thinking the false leftist premises planted there during your incarceration in the public-indoctrination centers, along with your constant immersion in "popular culture", then you, too, will end up functioning as a stooge, and ultimately a corpse, to leftism.

I agree. We live in a culture infested with implicit (but often not explicit) leftist/materialist ideology. It is a form of soft totalitarianism. You see it perhaps most clearly in "political correctness", which is a form of lefty censorship that punishes deviation from group-think. It is quite vicious, and more pervasive than you might imagine at first glance. The ideology of the left is the water in which our culture swims (or floats), and we often don't even notice it because are immersed in it.

Leftist infiltration of our language and culture is so pervasive in fact that even conservatives routinely pay homage to it. For example we speak of "compassionate conservatism" as a euphemism for a bit less socialism-- but only a bit less-- than our leftist opponents would impose. Why would we assume that conservatism isn't compassionate to start with?

I have always wondered why leftists are able to take control of institutions they target-- public education, universities, unions, media, philanthropic organizations, mainstream Christian churches, etc-- with such ease. As you can see quite clearly (e.g. in the combox on this blog), leftists certainly didn't prevail by intellectual acumen or by the manifest vindication of their ideas. Why have these misanthropic dolts had such an easy march through the institutions?

Ilion's view explains it quite clearly: leftists in these organizations change the in-house language spoken in these institutions, constantly exerting pressure to conform not so much to explicit leftist policies (that comes later), but to conform to a vocabulary in which policies are discussed. They take the language first. The rest follows, easily.

This perspective also offers an explanation for another observation that has always fascinated me: the astonishing success of conservative talk radio, and the corresponding abject failure of liberal talk radio. Conservative talk radio works, and liberal talk radio fails, because lefty speech codes cannot withstand free exchange of ideas. Speech codes, to be really effective in a democracy, need to be concealed. Their purpose is to curtail speech, and compel acquiescence. That works in university faculty lounges. It does not work on public AM radio.

You will notice also the abject fury the left hurls at violators of its speech codes. There is a good reason for this. Implicit speech codes-- the remolding of the language-- are all the left has. They have no logic or evidence to support their agendas.

And their worst nightmare is when people tell them to shove their speech codes, and then begin to speak honestly and courageously. The left has no defense against honesty and courage, and they work demonically to extinguish even the smallest flame of candor.

Please visit Ilion's blog. He has much of importance to say.