I once held liberal and socialist views and beliefs. It took me a long time to understand why I held these views, but once I understood the underlying reason, I quickly realized the error of my judgement and changed my course. It seems to me that people are drawn to liberalism and socialism for a variety of reasons: hedonism, relativism, and altruism being chief among them. When I look back upon my own experience, it was a combination of all three, but it took me many years to understand what it was that had propelled me toward accepting liberalism and socialism as my core beliefs.
Dosoevsky understood the origin of liberal and socialist sentiments and beliefs and he captures it perfectly in his novel The Brothers Karamozov through the character of Alyosha who ponders the question early on in the book:
"In the same way, if he had decided that God and immortality did not exist, he would at once have become an atheist and a socialist. For socialism is not merely the labour question, it is before all things the atheistic question, the question of the form taken by atheism to-day, the question of the Tower of Babel built without God, not to mount to heaven from earth but to set up heaven on earth."
Is this not the absolute essence of modern liberalism and what inspires most to adopt progressive and liberal attitudes and beliefs? Though they have abandoned God, most people strive to be good people who do good things. They want to make the world a better place, to literally bring Heaven down to Earth. Essentially, liberals are nothing more than atheists with good intentions. Unfortunately, roads paved with nothing but good intentions tend to lead to one place and one place only. Dostoevsky understood this perfectly. I have only begun to understand this recently. Most will never understand this at all.
Dosoevsky understood the origin of liberal and socialist sentiments and beliefs and he captures it perfectly in his novel The Brothers Karamozov through the character of Alyosha who ponders the question early on in the book:
"In the same way, if he had decided that God and immortality did not exist, he would at once have become an atheist and a socialist. For socialism is not merely the labour question, it is before all things the atheistic question, the question of the form taken by atheism to-day, the question of the Tower of Babel built without God, not to mount to heaven from earth but to set up heaven on earth."
Is this not the absolute essence of modern liberalism and what inspires most to adopt progressive and liberal attitudes and beliefs? Though they have abandoned God, most people strive to be good people who do good things. They want to make the world a better place, to literally bring Heaven down to Earth. Essentially, liberals are nothing more than atheists with good intentions. Unfortunately, roads paved with nothing but good intentions tend to lead to one place and one place only. Dostoevsky understood this perfectly. I have only begun to understand this recently. Most will never understand this at all.
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