Tom Naughton

My goodness.  For months now, I’ve written about a variety of hot-button issues — global warming, health-care reform, media bias, taxes — and gotten a handful of replies.  Last week I compared the vegan nutjobs who attacked Lierre Keith to the True Believers described by Eric Hoffer, then closed with one paragraph saying most True Believers in modern times have ended up on the radical left and BANG! — a roiling debate ensues.  I suppose if I’d really wanted to generate some heat, I could’ve just written one line:  Resolved, liberals are loonier than conservatives. 

Well, I happen to like roiling debates, so I’m going to stick my hand in the hornet’s nest again and explain why I believe more True Believers have ended up on the radical left.  It comes down to a matter of intellectual heritage, which I’ll get to in a moment.

But first, let me explain what I don’t mean by a True Believer:  I’m not talking about anyone with strong beliefs.  Yes, some people are close-minded because they’re swept up in a True Believer movement.  As Hoffer put it:

It is the true believer’s ability to shut his eyes and stop his ears to facts which in his own mind deserve never to be seen nor heard which is the source of his unequalled fortitude and constancy. 

But many people have strong beliefs because they’re well-informed and committed to principles.  I was a liberal as a young man, probably because my parents were.  They still are.  It wasn’t a proud moment for me to fly home and see an Obama sign in their front yard.  Now I’m a libertarian with strong beliefs, which I formed after reading quite a few books on history and economics.  I became a libertarian by opening my mind, not by closing it.  My parents, meanwhile, are still mystified as to how they ended up with three “right wing” libertarian offspring.

But even as a committed libertarian, I’d rather discuss politics with a well-read and committed socialist (and I had an actor friend in California who fit that description) than with a wishy-washy moderate.  I can’t for the life of me understand people who voted for Ronald Reagan, then Bill Clinton, then George W. Bush, then Barack Obama.  The media calls them swing voters or moderates.  I call them people with no flippin’ idea what they actually believe.

Some have mentioned religious fanatics as examples of right-wing True Believers.  If they want to impose their religion on others — if they want to kill the nonbelievers, or convert them all, or pass laws requiring prayer in public schools — then yes, I agree.  But I also have friends who are deeply religious and know I’m not.  Guess what?  They’re still my friends, and they’ve never tried to convert me.  Their faith is personal, and they have no interest in using the power of government to impose it on anyone else, or even in convincing their friends to join the cause.  They believe … but they hardly fit Hoffer’s description of True Believers.

I’m also not talking about people who annoy you because they oppose your politics.  If loud Tea Party protesters bother you because you support health-care “reform” and you really, really wish they’d just shut up and go away, fine.  But that doesn’t make them True Believers of the stripe Hoffer described.  They are not trying to impose their vision on anyone; they are protesting against having a trillion-dollar health-care “reform” package imposed on them.  They’re resisting collectivism, not advocating for it.

If you’re more comfortable with a definition of True Believers that includes more right-wingers, be my guest.  But I’m talking about Hoffer’s definition, not yours.  With that in mind, let’s summarize Eric Hoffer’s description, some of which I mentioned last week.

• They often have low self-esteem and are typically frustrated with their own lives or the world in general.
• Fanaticism appeals to them because it provides a sense of idealism, identity and certainty.
• They value the collective more than the individual and believe individuals should be willing to sacrifice themselves for the collective good.
• They believe that by imposing their beliefs, they can bring about a better future.
• They can ignore or rationalize away all contrary evidence, as well as logical inconsistencies in their own beliefs.
• They consider anyone who doesn’t share their beliefs an enemy and want to silence those who disagree.

To that summary, I’ll also add more quotes from Hoffer himself:

Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity.  (But enough about my decade in Hollywood.)

Their innermost desire is for an end to the “free for all.” They want to eliminate free competition and the ruthless testing to which the individual is continually subjected in a free society.

Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden.

The explosive component in the contemporary scene is not the clamor of the masses but the self-righteous claims of a multitude of graduates from schools and universities. This army of scribes is clamoring for a society in which planning, regulation, and supervision are paramount and the prerogative of the educated

We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.

The real “haves” are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities. On the other hand, the real “have nots” are they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it. They can feel free only by diminishing the freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others, and rich by making others poor.

Doesn’t exactly sound like a left-wing philosopher to me.  But what raised such a ruckus was my opinion that most (not all) True Believers in modern times have ended up on the radical left.  (Please note that modifier “radical.”)  Here’s why I believe that’s true:

I’ll start with most destructive True Believer movements of modern times:  Nazism, Fascism and Communism, which together killed more than 130 million people in the 20th century.  One or two commenters raised Nazism and Fascism as examples of right-wing movements.  Historical revisionists have a done a bang-up job of associating Hitler and Mussolini with some kind of right-wing ideology, but it simply isn’t true.  They both had legions of fans in the U.S. before World War II — nearly all of them members of the “progressive” movement.  FDR and Mussolini exchanged letters of mutual admiration for their economic policies.  Before becoming Il Duce, Mussolini was a socialist agitator and a journalist for a socialist magazine. 

As for Nazism … right wing?  You’ve got to be kidding me.  Hitler’s aha! moment came when he attended a meeting of the German Workers’ Party and listened to a lecture titled How and by What Means Is Capitalism to Be Eliminated?  He grew to despise bourgeois capitalism and declared that “Basically, Nazism and Marxism are the same.”  He only disliked the actual Marxists because too many of them had Jewish names, and because Nazis and communists were competing for supporters among the same groups.

Even culturally, the Nazis were hardly what anyone would consider right-wing today.  Many Nazis were artsy-fartsy types who considered themselves mystics.  Hitler hated Christianity and railed against religion’s restrictions on sex.  He saw nothing wrong with out-of-wedlock birth and encouraged it.  He was a vegetarian, a nature enthusiast, and spoke at length about the wonders of organic foods.  Heinrich Himmler even supported animal rights — kind of like the nut-jobs at PETA.  Take away the racism and the anti-Semitism, and a young Nazi could get together with a Sixties radical and have a real meeting of the minds.

The Nazi party platform proclaimed in 1920 contained, as you’d expect, a lot of demands to rid Germany of non-Germans, Jews, and other undesirables.  But it also contained several other gems, such as:

• We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and a way of life for the citizens.
• We demand abolition of unearned income (rents).
• We demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
• We demand the nationalization of all previous associated industries (trusts).
• We demand a division of profits of heavy industries.
• We demand an expansion on a large scale of old-age welfare.
• The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole education program, to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education.
• The state is to care for the elevating of national health by protecting the mother and child, by outlawing child labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young.

Crazy right-wing stuff, huh?  Those idiots carrying the Bush = Hitler signs a few years back sure knew their history.

I suppose you could call the Nazis and Fascists “right wing” because they were militaristic and nationalistic, but by that definition, the Soviet Union, Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega would all be right-wingers.  Funny how they didn’t have any fans among the American right wing … but they had plenty in Hollywood.

Now, let’s return to Hoffer’s description.  We’ll start with dissatisfied with themselves or the world in general.  I noticed years ago that my libertarian and conservative friends seem happier in general than my liberal friends.  (Yes, I have friends of both varieties.)  Before you protest with tales of all the happy liberals and miserable conservatives you know personally, keep in mind that polls have shown the same thing many times:  self-identified conservatives are happier on average than self-identified liberals.  When I look at what my liberal and conservative friends believe, it isn’t hard to figure out why:

Economic Opportunity
Liberals:  Big corporations are screwing us, markets don’t work, the good jobs are all being outsourced to India, the little guy doesn’t stand a chance anymore, and the rich (be sure to sneer when you use that term) are the “winners of life’s lottery.”
Conservatives:  Work hard, study hard, take risks, be disciplined, and you can become a success because this is a land of opportunity.

Global Warming
Liberals:  We’re approaching runaway global warming.  The ice caps are going to melt and New York will end up underwater.  Millions will be displaced.  Deserts around the world, hurricanes and tornadoes and floods, oh my.
Conservatives:  The earth warms and cools in cycles and always has.  Stop worrying about it.

Health Care
Liberals:  We have one of the worst systems in the world.  Castro provides better health care than we do.   Insurance and drug companies are screwing us.
Conservatives:  We have the most advanced system in the world, and most people can afford a policy.  Get the government out of the health care business, repeal laws barring competition in insurance across state lines, and the cost will come down too.

Now, I’m not asking which world-view is correct.  But pretty please, try to be objective about this question:  which world view is more likely to produce or attract satisfied people?  Which world view is more likely to attract or produce dissatisfied people?  And which world-view is more likely to attract “we must save the world even if it means taking away some freedoms” types?

As for valuing the collective more than the individual … do I even have to debate that one?  Do conservatives write books with titles like It Takes A Village?  Other than the occasional anti-war sentiment, the American left’s primary pitch to the voters for the past 70 years can be summed up in two sentences:  “Vote for us!  We’ll give you a bunch of goodies and make someone else pay the bill!”

Earlier, I said the far left is more prone to a True Believer mindset than the far right because of the differences in intellectual heritage.  In his book Explaining Postmodernism, philosophy professor Stephen Hicks recounts that heritage. 

What was once called “liberalism” but is now called libertarianism or small-government conservatism (not the same as religious conservatism) traces its roots to the Enlightenment thinkers, most of whom were British:  Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes (not British), John Locke and Adam Smith.  Their works emphasized rationalism, objectivism, the scientific method, and individual freedom — most importantly, freedom from government coercion.  (Thomas Jefferson was deeply influenced by Locke.)  As Hicks explains:

Individualism and science are thus consequences of an epistemology of reason.  Individualism applied to politics yields liberal democracy … individualism applied to economics yields free markets and capitalism.

Post-modernism, which inspired much of the modern left’s thinking, began as reaction against the Enlightenment thinkers — ironically, in part to save religious faith from the onslaught on science and rationality.  Immanuel Kant was a major influence, as were a lot of other Germans (surprise):  Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg W.F. Hegel, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (not German), Martin Heidegger, and of course Karl Marx.  They specifically rejected reason and logic in favor of subjectivism.

Simply put, an objectivist thinks this way:  If it’s true, I believe it.  A subjectivist, however, thinks like this:  If I believe it, it’s true.  According to Heidegger, for example, reason tells us nothing important, and logical inconsistencies are not a sign of intellectual failure.

Now, once again, try to be objective (there’s that word again) while answering this question:  who is more resistant to pesky things like logic and reason, an objectivist or a subjectivist?  Who has an easier time ignoring logical inconsistencies in a belief system? 

As Hicks points out, only a subjectivist could believe that:

• All cultures are valid and equally deserving of respect, but Western culture is really bad.
• Values are subjective, but racism and sexism are really, really bad.
• Technology is destructive and bad, but it’s not fair that some people can afford more of it than others.

The post-modernists were also collectivists.  Here are few relevant quotes:

The state ought to have a universal compulsory force to move and arrange each part in the manner best suited to the whole.  – Rousseau

All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the state … this final end has supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be member of the state. – Hegel

A single person, I need hardly say, is something subordinate, and as such he must dedicate himself to the ethical whole. – Hegel

Hegel, by the way, was a big influence on Karl Marx.  I’m pretty sure we can agree Marx was a collectivist extraordinaire, and it’s not even debatable that Marx has far more fans on the political left than on the right.  One of my left-wing college professors even had a poster of Marx on the wall of his office. 

Someone commenting on last week’s post pointed out that “left” and “right” aren’t always accurate labels and suggested I refer to them as collectivist-authoritarian and individualist-libertarian.  Fine, I’m cool with that.  “Left” and “right” don’t always fit.  I once saw William F. Buckley argue against anti-drug laws, which isn’t exactly a right-wing position. 

But at the same time, I don’t know how anyone can deny that leftists tilt towards a collectivist-authoritarian belief system.  In the past year or so, I’ve been treated to these statements while debating liberal friends:

• You only have the rights the government grants you.
• How can you call high taxes legalized theft?!  It’s not just your money!  We let you make the money!  (I’m assuming he meant no one tried to arrest me for selling my software to people who wanted to buy it.)

By contrast, take a look at this quote from a rather famous individualist-libertarian named Thomas Jefferson:

A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.

In the modern era, does that sound like something you’d hear coming from the left or the right?  Is it what the fanatical Obama supporters believe?  Is there any evidence whatsoever Obama believes it himself?

Post-modern leftists also have a different intellectual heritage when it comes to language itself.  Since reason doesn’t tell us anything real, the post-modernists taught that language isn’t a tool for seeking the truth; it’s a weapon to wielded for the purpose of acquiring power.  Don’t like what some objectivist-individualist wrote, but having a hard time disputing it?  No problem.  Declare logic a “white male construct” and apply the principles of Deconstruction … otherwise known as “If you can’t debate your opponent’s ideas, label him a sexist or a racist.”  I see that one in action every time a conservative justice is nominated to the Supreme Court.

If you don’t think Deconstruction as a form of analysis was intended to be political, here’s a quote from Jacques Derrida, the father of Deconstruction:

Deconstruction never had any interest or meaning, at least in my eyes, other than as a radicalization, that is to say, within a tradition of a certain Marxism.

Saul Alinksy, whose Rules for Radicals was the subject of Hillary Clinton’s senior thesis, exhorted his readers to pick a target, attack relentlessly, and make it personal … and it’s okay because the ends justify the means:

Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work.

Gee, that sounds kind of like it would be okay to label your opponents as racists and sexists if it helps you win a political fight.  I can see why some on the left found Alinsky so inspirational.  As professor Hicks writes early on in his book:

A related puzzle is explaining why postmodernists — particularly among those postmodernists most involved with the practical applications of postmodernist ideas, or putting postmodernist ideas into actual practice in their classrooms and in faculty meetings — are the most likely to be hostile to dissent and debate, the most likely to engage in ad hominem argument and name-calling, the most likely to enact politically-correct authoritarian measures, and the most likely to use anger and rage as argumentative tactics. 

Whether it is Stanley Fish calling all opponents of affirmative action bigots and lumping them in with the Ku Klux Klan, or whether it is Andrea Dworkin’s male-bashing in the form of calling all heterosexual males rapists, the rhetoric is very often harsh and bitter.  So the puzzling question is: Why is it that among the far Left — which has traditionally promoted itself as the only true champion of civility, tolerance, and fair play — that we find those habits least practiced and even denounced?

As for who has a greater desire to actually stifle ideas (as opposed to merely labeling them as racist or sexist to avoid debating them), I’m sure that debate could go on forever.  Some of you cited news stories about conservative groups shouting down or even spitting on liberal politicians.  Okay, it happens, and it’s disgusting when it does. 

But I don’t see many left-wing speakers being shouted down on campuses or having pies thrown at them.  I haven’t heard of any cases of liberal college newspapers being shut down or having their entire press runs stolen by hostile students.  I haven’t heard of any liberal college students being brought up on “hate speech” charges for expressing their opinions.  I also don’t read many news stories about violent right-wing protesters, but you can pretty much count on violent left-wing protesters showing up any time there’s an economic summit. 

Maybe that’s my own selection bias.  But as far as who is more likely to be dissatisfied with the world and demand we change it, more likely to reject logic and reason, more likely to believe the collective is more important than individual rights, more likely to fear free competition, more likely to support regulation by an educated elite, more likely to believe they can gain only by taking from others, more likely to want public cures for private ails, and more likely to support using government coercion to impose its preferred way of life on others — in other words, to act like Hoffer’s True Believers — sorry, the radical left wins hands down.

But enough about health-care “reform.”

Earlier this week on the Fat Head blog, I wrote about the attack on Lierre Keith by some vegan nut-jobs who consider her a traitor and a threat.  For those of you who don’t already know, Keith was a dedicated vegan for 20 years but had to rethink her beliefs when her health declined and she realized, after some comical attempts, that she couldn’t grow her own food without killing living creatures.  No longer able to hide behind a simplistic, child-like love for nature, she set out instead to understand it.  The result was The Vegetarian Myth, in which she argues (brilliantly) that agriculture and a plant-based diet will not make us healthy or save the planet.

Nonetheless, her core values remain the same:  she loves animals, she abhors the cruelty of factory farming, and she wants us to feed ourselves in a manner that supports the environment instead of depleting it year after year.  As she writes in her book:  “What separates me from vegetarians isn’t ethics or commitment.  It’s information.”

Ah, but there’s the rub:  it’s the information that has made her a target, not the change in her beliefs. 

When I heard about the attack, my first reaction was to chalk it up to the “vegan rage” Keith writes about in her book.  But after thinking it over, I decided I was confusing a correlation with a cause.  Yes, they’re enraged and they’re vegans, but I don’t think they’re enraged because they’re vegans.  I think it’s more likely they became militant vegans in the first place because they fit the personality type described so eloquently by Eric Hoffer in his book The True Believer.  It was published in 1951, but still rings true today.

First, a little background on the author:  Hoffer was born sometime around 1900 in New York City to Jewish immigrant parents.  His father was cabinet-maker.  When Hoffer was five, his mother fell down a flight of stairs while carrying him.  She never fully recovered and died two years later.  Soon afterwards, Hoffer went blind, perhaps from the emotional trauma.  Amazingly, his sight returned when he was 15.  Afraid he may go blind again someday, Hoffer educated himself by reading as many books as he could. 

After his father died around 1920, Hoffer left for California and worked a series of odd jobs, including a stint as a migrant farm worker, before becoming a longshoreman in San Francisco.  When his books became popular, he was dubbed “The Longshoreman Philosopher.”

Deeply troubled by the horrors of Nazism, Fascism, Stalinism, the Holocaust and World War II, Hoffer thought long and hard about the roots of fanatical movements, then began writing down his insights.  The result was a slim (176 pages) but brilliant book, The True Believer.  If you haven’t read it, I hope you will someday.  But in the meantime, here’s a very short summary:

Fanatical movements attract a particular personality type.  They are typically dissatisfied with their own lives and have low self-esteem.  (Can you say “prone to rage”?)  Fanaticism appeals to them because it provides a sense of identity, the ego-boost of idealism, and the psychological comfort of certainty — thus relieving them of the need to resolve life’s doubts, contradictions, and moral ambiguities for themselves. 

The appeal of a fanatical movement for this personality type lies only partly in the movement’s stated beliefs; the deeper appeal is in the fanaticism itself.  That’s why, as Hoffer noted, fanatical groups often find it easiest to recruit new members from other fanatical groups, even if their beliefs are at odds:  Fanatical communists have become fanatical Christians, fanatical Christians have become fanatical Nazis, fanatical Nazis have become fanatical communists, etc.  (Plenty of fanatical communists became fanatical environmentalists when communism didn’t work out so well.)

Hoffer labeled these people the True Believers.  The need to believe in something — completely, and without question — defines their lives, because fanaticism makes them feel special and important. 

Not surprisingly, then, the biggest threat to their identities is doubt.  All contrary evidence must be stifled or rationalized out of existence.  All logical inconsistencies in their beliefs must be ignored.  Anyone who doesn’t share their beliefs is an enemy, and anyone who raises questions about their beliefs must be silenced. (But enough about Al Gore.)

Now, doesn’t that description sound just a wee bit like a militant vegan?  Ego boost?  Heck yes …  I’m now a morally superior human being because I don’t eat animal products. 

Sense of identity?  Gee, do you think?  I once asked a waitress in a restaurant if the pork chops were any good.  Turning up her nose just a bit, she replied, “I wouldn’t know.  I’m a vegan.”  I’m mildly hard of hearing, so at first I thought she said, “I wouldn’t know.  I’m a virgin.”  After some momentary confusion, mentally rifling through my old catechism lessons looking for a prohibition against virgins eating pork, I figured it out.  Either way, it was more than I cared to know about her.  “I’ve never tried them” would’ve sufficed.

The comfort of certainty, relieved of the need to resolve life’s moral ambiguities?  Most definitely.  It’s easy to just declare that a fly and a pig and human being are all equal.  (I’ll buy that idea when a pig writes a symphony or a good joke.)  It’s a bit tougher to finally admit, as Lierre Keith did, that eating meat enhances your health, then have to deal with the morality of killing to be healthy.  The Dalai Lama eats meat now, so I guess he’s got it figured out.

Years ago, I heard Dennis Prager debating some animal-rights nut.  Prager asked a hypothetical question:  if a boy and a dog are both drowning, who do you save first?  The nut wouldn’t answer.  He weasled out by saying that since he’s a vegan, he’s strong enough to save both of them.  (Then a fly landed on his shoulder, and he fell out of his chair.)

Before anyone gets his or her macramé underwear in a wad, I’m not suggesting all or even a majority of vegans are True Believers.  But the ones who throw blood on women wearing furs or smash a pepper-laced pie into an author’s face definitely fit the profile.  Here are some quotes from Hoffer himself, with my comments on how they apply to the True Believer nut-jobs who attacked Lierre Keith.

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.

Bingo.  Mentally-healthy vegans don’t scream “murderer!” at meat-eaters.  They don’t toss pepper-laced pies at meat-eaters.  They just don’t eat meat.  (Heck, I even knew a vegan who was married to a meat-eater.)  But the True Believer vegans — including the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine — can’t resist minding other people’s business.  And when their meddling turns out to be a disaster, as when CSPI harassed restaurants into switching to hydrogenated vegetable oils for frying, it doesn’t faze them a bit.  They don’t even admit they were wrong; they just keep meddling.

Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents.

Three men in masks attack a 45-year-old woman from behind.  People in the room cheer.  Other people praise the attack online.  A website posts a video of the attack with the Benny Hill music playing for comic effect.  Is that enough unifying hatred for you? 

In order to be effective a doctrine must not be understood, but has to be believed in. We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.

Keith did a bang-up job of pointing this out in her book.  She recounted a suggestion by some scientifically illiterate vegan that animals in nature should be separated by a big fence — the carnivores on one side, the herbivores on the other.  That way, ya see, there wouldn’t be any killing.  Keith then explained, using actual scientific facts, what the result would be:  all the animals would eventually starve to death.  But this unbelievably stupid suggestion drew nothing but applause from other True-Believer vegans.  They were just certain it would work … even the carnivores don’t really have to eat meat, ya see, because dogs and cats sometimes eat grass!  In other words, these goofs could only believe what they believed because they had zero understanding of nature.

The uncompromising attitude is more indicative of an inner uncertainty than a deep conviction.  The implacable stand is directed more against the doubt within than the assailant without.

That’s why anyone who can plant a seed of doubt is such a threat.  Lierre Keith isn’t just any ol’ author promoting an omnivorous diet; she’s a former dedicated vegan.  She knows all the vegan arguments inside and out, and she now disputes them with facts.  She can shake up the beliefs of people whose very identities depend on those beliefs.

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance.

Yup … I’m pretty sure if you’re satisfied with your own life, you don’t feel the need to toss blood or pepper-laced pies at people who don’t share your beliefs about animal rights — especially considering that 99.9% of all people who’ve ever lived also didn’t share those beliefs.

All active mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth or certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation, but from holy writ.

It was experience and observation that caused Lierre Keith to change her mind.  Her health failed.  Her spine degenerated.  She was depressed and fatigued.  A Chinese-medicine doctor she trusted told her what she already knew:  her vegan diet was killing her.  Now she’s sharing those experiences with other vegans, and that’s why the True Believers want to shut her up — her personal story is compelling and some vegans might just believe her.

Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect.  The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.

Militant vegans dream of a world where everyone is a vegetarian, nobody (and no animal) has to kill to eat, and the planet is saved in the process.  If only life could be that pretty.  Now Keith is telling them that farming kills countless animals, and mono-crop agriculture — all those lovely fields of wheat, corn and soybeans — is destroying the environment.  In other words, you can kill some animals on purpose to eat them, or you can kill even more by farming … but you cannot live in your absolute, perfect world because it’s not possible.  She has accepted the compromise — what she refers to as becoming an adult.  The True Believers are children, and they can’t stand hearing what mommy has to say.

It is the true believer’s ability to shut his eyes and stop his ears to facts which in his own mind deserve never to be seen nor heard which is the source of his unequalled fortitude and constancy. He cannot be frightened by danger, nor disheartened by obstacles, nor baffled by contradictions, because he denies their existence.

Vegans insist they don’t kill to eat.  When someone like Lierre Keith points out that farming kills countless creatures per acre (and remember: a pig, a fly and a human are all equal!), plus countless more who die because the mono-crop farms destroy their environments, the vegans still insist they don’t kill to eat.  Well, not really, you see, because … uh … because … well … it’s not really killing because we didn’t do it on purpose!  By that logic, we need to pardon everyone who caused a fatal accident by driving drunk — they didn’t mean for anyone to die, after all.

The excuse makes no sense.  It’s a contradiction.  But the True Believers aren’t baffled by contradictions.  They’ll simply shut their eyes and close their ears.  And if that doesn’t work, they’ll shove a pepper-laced pie into someone’s face.

When I wrote about the attack on the Fat Head blog, one of my readers left this comment:

I am not at all surprised that this happened in the Bay area, although it could have easily happened on a college campus. This is what happens, though, when the extreme leftists among us (let’s call them what they are) get agitated.  Look at the treatment of conservatives on college campuses: That Ann Coulter (love her or hate her) travels with body guards and has nearly been pied is just one more example. There is an element of our society that is all in favor of free speech until they don’t agree with it; then they try to shut it down.

In the modern era, most True Believers have in fact ended up on the radical left.  Why exactly that’s the case will be the topic of next week’s post.

Here’s my cell phone number:  615-497-5933.

No, don’t bother dialing. I cancelled my Sprint service last week and don’t plan to renew.  I could transfer the number to another service, but my wife and I have decided to see how long we can go without owning cell phones at all.  It’s sort of an experiment, our little version of “Man vs. Wild.” Can two middle-class softies survive in the rough and tumble environment of the 1990s?  Stay tuned!

We didn’t set out to conduct an experiment; we set out to cut expenses.  I signed up for a high-minutes plan a couple of years ago, when I was renting a small office with no land-line service.  I actually used my minutes back then.  But I work at home now, and my cell phone sits on my desk for days, gathering dust.

My wife’s cell phone can usually be found in the kitchen, sharing a plastic bowl with some broken pencils, keys that don’t actually open anything, and kids’ scissors that don’t actually cut anything.  I’ve tried calling her cell phone maybe a dozen times in the past six months, usually to inquire where she is, and all I’ve ever learned is that she’s not in the kitchen.

So when I paid my Sprint bill last week, I finally wondered why I’m spending upwards of $120 per month for phones we almost never use.  My wife looked into low-minutes plans and pay-as-you-go plans, but with pretty much all of them, we’d probably end up buying minutes that will go unused and eventually expire. I’ve already paid Sprint for thousands of minutes I never used, and I’d prefer to stop spending money for the privilege of receiving a monthly bill asking for more money.

As I prepared to float the idea of just going without, I was somewhat hesitant — as if I were about to suggest we strip naked and take a walk around the block.  But then to my surprise, my wife floated the idea first.  (Going without cell phones, not the naked thing.)

It occurred to me that I’m married to perhaps the last adult woman left in America who isn’t convinced the only thing standing between her and a tragic death on some unnamed road is a cell phone.  When cell phones first became affordable, that was the excuse offered by every female in my extended family for buying one:  “I won’t really use it very much, but if something happens when I’m on the road …”

As someone born in 1958, I never understood the sudden fear of traveling phoneless.  Nobody I knew even owned a cell phone until around 1995, and even before then, road fatalities that could’ve been prevented by a timely call were extremely rare.  But once cell phones hit the market, everyone suddenly experienced a shared childhood memory of hushed conversations between their parents:

“Hey, what’s going on over at the Smith house?”
“Shhh!  Didn’t you hear?  They stalled on Interstate 40 and were eaten by wolverines while waiting to be rescued.”
“Geez … if only there was some way they could’ve called somebody.”

I didn’t buy a cell phone until my second year in Los Angeles.  They were still a bit of a novelty then and not exactly cheap, so the advertisers were in “create the need” mode.  I recall a radio commercial in which a harried businessman is stuck in traffic but saves the day by taking an important client’s call — get this — in his car!

I wasn’t a harried businessman and didn’t want a phone attached to my belt, but soon after I signed with an agent, he sold me on the idea.  His exact pitch was: “Where the @#$% have you been!  I had a @#$%ing audition lined up for you!  I will not represent you if I can’t @#$%ing reach you when I @#$%ing need to reach you!

So I bought a cell phone, and I’ve had mixed feelings about them ever since.  Sure, they’re convenient, but I dislike them for a number of reasons.  Here’s one of the biggest:  people can reach you when you’re not home.  Before cell phones, I’d sometimes leave my apartment specifically to avoid talking to anyone.  Friends, employers, creditors, and family member could always catch up with me later:

“Where were you?!”
“I was out.”
“Uh … oh.”

Nice and simple.  Nobody’s feelings got hurt.  It’s not quite the same days:

“Where were you?!”
“I was out.”
“Well, why didn’t you take your cell phone?!”
“Because I was afraid you might call.”
“Uh … oh.”

I don’t like it when people expect me to be reachable anytime, anywhere.  Even when I consciously intend to be reachable, my subconscious desires take over.  I’ll leave the house and forget my cell phone.  I’ll shut off the phone at a movie theater, then forget to switch it on for a week.  I’ve never owned a Blackberry, and if I have my way, I never will.

Another reason I don’t like cell phones:  people can reach you when you’re home.  When I was growing up, most families had one phone — usually bolted to a wall in the kitchen.  If you were sleeping upstairs, you stood a fighting chance of missing a call.  But with a cell phone, you can accidentally leave it within earshot — your wife’s, if not yours.  A few months ago, my wife shook me awake at some ungodly hour:

“Honey … HONEY!”
“Wha … what?”
“Your cell phone is ringing downstairs!  Can’t you hear that?”
“No.  That’s why I left it downstairs.”
“Are you going to answer it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to talk to anybody right now.”
“Well, what if it’s an emergency?”
“Sweetheart, I’m not a surgeon, and I’m not carrying the nuclear launch codes.  In all of human history, there’s never been a single emergency where somebody yelled, ‘Oh my god!  Somebody get a comedian on the phone, now!’”

But the biggest reason I dislike cell phones, by far, is this:  other people own them too.  According to my analysis, at least 60 percent of all modern phone conversations are boring, pointless, moronic or embarrassing  — although the talker who should be embarrassed rarely is.  Yes, there were boring, pointless, moronic, embarrassing phone conversations before cell phones, but

1. There weren’t as many, because calling outside your own city was expensive.
2. You could only engage in a boring, pointless, moronic, embarrassing phone conversation in a relatively private place … your home, your hotel room, the nearest phone booth, etc. 

Now you can have a boring, pointless, moronic, embarrassing conversation in a restaurant, on a train, at a ball game, on a park bench, in the grocery store, in a movie theater, or on an airplane the very second it touches down.  Millions of people do — usually two feet away from me, and usually while talking to someone who is apparently hearing impaired.  The more common cell phones have become, the more people seem to be talking on the phone simply because they can … or because it’s less mentally taxing than staring off into space.  So while trying to read a book in an airport,  I get to listen to deep conversations such as:

“Hi.  Nothing, what’re you doing?  Cool.  Yeah?  No, I missed that one.  Huh?  Oh, it’s like nine o’ clock here.  Yeah.  Are you going to work soon?  Cool.  What color shoes are you wearing?  Yeah, those are nice.  Huh?  I can’t understand you; are you eating breakfast?  Yeah?  No, I can’t; they’re bad for my hemorrhoids.”

So rather than buy a product a part of me wishes hadn’t been invented in the first place, I’ll try to go without.  We’ll see how long that lasts.