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REASONED DEBATE PLEASE
NOT ARMCHAIR PSYCHOANALYSIS

By: Red Phillips

Recently Lawrence Auster wrote an article for Front Page Magazine entitled "The Antiwar Right’s Bent View of the World." It has received much comment on internet sites such as Freerepublic.com, lewrockwell.com and Antiwar.com. In fact, Antiwar.com was one of the websites the article skewered. Mr. Auster it seems has hit a nerve. Of course the reaction has been as expected, praise from the pro-war neocons and outrage from the antiwar right.

The problem is not that Mr. Auster is belligerently pro-war. He is not. It is that he has tried playing armchair psychoanalyst and questioned the psychological balance of the antiwar right activist.

For the record, I went to Mr. Auster’s blog and found at least some things to recommend him. He seems genuinely skeptical of intervention, and he is restrictionist on immigration. Likewise, Front Page Magazine has taken a strong stance against political correctness and affirmative action. However, Front Page Magazine proved itself to be on the wrong side of the great debate when it and its editor, David Horowitz, prominently sided with the tyrant Lincoln, in the ongoing Lincoln idolaters vs. Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo (The Real Lincoln) feud. Frontpage has also been unequivocally pro-war.

Mr. Auster is being extremely hypocritical here. He begins by questioning the tendency of the left to frequently impugn the psychological motivation of those on the right. The left asserts that the right is reacting to fear or anger or resentment. Mr. Auster is absolutely correct to question this tactic. This strategy of the left reached its height with the publication of The Authoritarian Personality by Theodore Adorno, et. al. in 1950. This pseudoscientific hatchet job basically asserted that anybody who wasn’t a dyed-in-the-wool leftist was a closeted fascist. Of course the Soviet Union perfected the practice of detaining resistors and critics under the auspices of mental health.

Based on this long and sorry history, this is an incredibly dangerous road to travel down, and I’m disappointed Mr. Auster has chosen to do so. It is certainly true that individual members of any large group will have some psychological baggage. It is also inevitable that individuals will make observations about others mental health. Propriety dictates, however, that these observations should be kept to one’s self. It is grossly inappropriate to make blanket, scurrilous psychological accusations about a whole group of people.

The trouble with this form of attack is that it is usually done by people who aren’t trained in psychology, it is painting with a broad brush, and worst of all, it is not falsifiable. Mr. Auster states "…at bottom many antiwar critics were not motivated by a love of country or a belief in truth, but by resentment." That is bad enough, but then he throws gasoline on the fire by adding, "It was exactly the kind of resentment normally associated with the left, the impotent fury at a traitorous father figure or a supposed "oppressor"…" This is gutter ball stuff and Mr. Auster knows it. How is someone on the antiwar right supposed to respond to this kind of accusation? "No I don’t resent my father." Of course the obvious response is, "You are in denial." Hence, as I stated above, this is not falsifiable and therefore, not at all useful. It inflames the debate, it doesn’t advance it. It also likely results in counter accusations such as Justin Raimondo’s comments that Mr. Auster is part of the "racialist" right (whatever that means) that appeared on Antiwar.com soon after the publication of Mr. Auster’s article. That response was certainly not helpful either.

Can’t we all just act like adults, here? Since one of Mr. Auster’s primary concerns seems to be the questioning of the Cold War, then if he believes US intervention was necessary during the Cold War to prevent the spread of Communism, then so argue. If Mr. Raimondo and other antiwar rightist believe that Communism was economically unsustainable and would have inevitability collapsed under its own economic dead weight, then so argue. Making accusations about "traitorous fathers" is schoolyard and unproductive. Unless, of course, the product you are seeking is to intimidate people into silence. That is the aim of many on the left. I will give Mr. Auster the benefit of the doubt and assume that is not his motivation.

Mr. Auster has promised to write more on this subject. Please spare us. The enemy of freedom in this country is not the antiwar right. It is the left and the leftist masquerading as mainstream conservatives, some of whom write for Front Page Magazine. Why not direct your attacks at them?



Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."

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Red Phillips is a physician from Georgia.  He is a new columnist for Ether Zone.

Red Phillips may be contacted at: redphillipsmd@yahoo.com

Published in the December 21, 2004 issue of  Ether Zone
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