Idols for Destruction

...Perhaps the road taken has no turning, no exit...

...The millions of this horrify- paper money backed by the most in- Hegel, Marx, Lenin and others, asks us the gross national product seized by the ing century who have died and suffered substantial thing in the world (i.e., a to perceive in history laws that govern state "must" continue to rise, the huge at the hands of utopianist totalitarians politician's promise)--these are matters history itself, a perception which is, bureaucracy of the "welfare" state attest to that reality...

...Herbert Schlossberg's contention is that the dominant elite in America today (in the media, in academia, in politics, in the arts) does indeed serve "other gods," and that these gods are gods of demonstrable inferiority, gods which upon examination are seen to be empty idols...

...By the end of the it's the fastest, easiest, most painless way l documents the sheer irrationality and legitimacy of such desires may be I course ou'll be learnin and s eak n- en to learn Spanish, return it and we'll refund 9 impossibility of a "planned" judged in part by our ability to satisfy t;r~h...

...One thing might be said: Leaders of the organized church who so act "in the name of religion" are morally no better than those nightmare figures of the past (the Inquisition, et al...

...Perhaps for that reason, in recognition of an inherent trait in mankind to worship something, the God of the ancient Hebrews made as his first and foremost commandment: "Thou shalt have none other gods but me...

...character, gifts and faculties, as well as I your own pace...

...Perhaps a drastic change of national direction has already begun and is now occurring...

...Department of State has spent your name and address, and a check or I not covet thy neighbor's wife, or the realities it encounters...

...The percentage of on earth...

...The cure is simple--we must stop exWhat does it take...

...In any event, Idols for Destruction is no naive fundamentalist exercise...

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...Far from being an ingenuous tome of "'good old-time religion," Idols for Destruction is a sophisticated, stringently reasoned, and sharply written work...

...On matters of profound social change it is very difficult to have perspective...

...And serves.., and serves.., and serves...

...The quality (or authenticity) of the God or gods that are worshiped determines everything--the quality of an individual life, the art of a culture or an era, the rise and fall of civilization itself...

...believes he himself does not have...

...aroused, inspired, encouraged as a mat- 1 like a diP lomatw~ ! Much contemporary political ter of policy and philosophy] any more 9 = discourse can of course be seen as simi VVhat sort of people need to learn a foreign The FSl's Programmatic Spanish Course...

...Schlossberg sees contemby and based on other false gods...

...I Schlossberg draws a distinction be-The course consists of a series of cas- The Foreign Service Institute's Spanish mere material possessions...

...k, g P g " every penny you paid Order todayl 9 economy--the idols of Mammon--them...

...Pretension to scientific or rational immunity to such practices is mocked by recent history...

...Central to this work is the view that THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1985 rate god capable only of creating a hell and serfdom...

...It is an oft-turned back...

...Why such stubborn There is an equivalent...

...All true needs--such as food, I9 .,,s . course...

...What can one say of such moral squalor and dismal confusion...

...Or are his views and assumptions essentially arbitrary in character and beyond proof of any kind...

...It's inflation...

...Such a pected from those prostrate at the feet character, to be sure, does not care a of Mammon...

...Pantheism...does not place high value on community or on economic life, or on anything that seeks to assuage desires...

...Many of our leading pathologies whose very being requires sible...

...And yet the assumption of history...

...the keystone of private sense materialism is the opium of the property opposed to political control people...

...An all over the world and brought nothing example is his usage of the concept of but oppression, poverty, inequality, and ressentiment, which both Nietzsche and misery to those who have tried it, in a Max Scheler took from the French-- direct relationship to the degree of the no word in either German or English effort...

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...The liberal humanist merely has another religion, the ~acred core of which is a worship of man himself...

...The result is hatred and the Pain, from which we all shrink, is an impulse to spite...

...It is a viewpoint to be exly admired) target, the rich...

...Leaving the doctrines of Christianity to the side, all human beings have an agglomeration of values, conscious and unconscious, by which they live--a range of attitude from enshrined, formal law to unexamined but strong assumption, without which social existence and daily life itself are inconceivable...

...It has brought whole nations I to ruin...

...will not health of this nation if not to that of in such a fever...

...Volume I1: Intermediate...

...The fact that most educated Americans would consider the question silly suggests an answer to it, if one accepts the thesis of Herbert Schlossberg's study of idolatry in our society, Idols for Destruction...

...darter and who glow inwardly at TV commented upon in alarm, notably by A real love of nature, true sight of documentaries lovingly showing a Robert Nisbet, as the product of a the beauty and wonder of trees and snake swallowing some small animal social movement dangerous to the mountains, meadow and stream, is lost ("It is the balance of nature...

...Don't make any long-term plans: The end is near, barring a drastic change of national direction...

...8 cassettes Now you can learn to speak Spanish (12 hr...

...begins with perceived injury that may Seen in such a light, socialism is a have a basis in fact, but more often is spiritual disease...

...BOOK REVIEWS 6g.l.Joes~ God intend to destroy America...

...and N.Y...

...These doctors What does inflation feed on...

...of "historical necessity" remains alive god used to justify horrendous social another as objects of worship...

...iparadise), if ressentiment were taken respected, no limitation that will be every situation...

...specialize in treating it...

...Greed, have a wide range of prescriptions-- envy, laziness, resentment--all the same reduce the money supply, raise interest things which made us ask government to rates, cut taxes, index depreciation protect this industry, support that groul3, scheauies...

...12 cassettes (17anything to say (beyond promises of There is no fence that will ever be they must be able to converse fluently in hr...

...If you're not convinced listening and repeating...

...Maybe Jimmy Swaggart is right!--or at least, more right than he's wrong...

...From where did Solzhenitsyn, Grigorenko, and many other known and unknown heroes of our time find the courage and the strength to stand against overTHE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1985...

...Seldom cited is the vast heroism of believers in God who stood virtually alone against Hitler, Stalin, and other destroying monsters of this century...

...Marx, Lenin, with which Schlossberg is very familiar...

...Room E16 I ~IE-~ III 9the symbiotic relationship of the free vy, greed--are insatiable...

...from the repression of emotions that paradise, which would rule out all pain are not acceptable when openly ex-and with it all hope of spiritual growth...

...about the Naturism rampant in our porary "environmentalism" as a The Idol of Nature is also trampled world today, especially among the well- throwback to barbaric Animism, as a cruelly by Schlossberg...

...manual, and 614-p...

...than cancer can be...

...Schlossberg maintains that all moral overlooks are and must be based on unprovable assumptions and thereby are and must be of a religious nature...

...Troeltsch, observing its impact on German Protestantism, concluded that its propensity to mysticism had the effect of destroying community and fellowship...

...Often they're successful...

...IDOLS FOR DESTRUCTION Herbert Schlossberg/Thomas Nelson/S14.95 Calder Willingham placed something at its apex, and whatever that is is the god he serves...

...the insanity of phony The Idol of History, erected by and well in our day...

...manual, and 464-p...

...the poor are in- vy cannot be assuaged [once it is cidental to his aims...

...It finds its rewards, rather, in quietism, in surrender and union with the all-pervasive divinity that permeates nature...

...In that 9 ~ ~ ~ Guilford, CT06437 I~ ~llllL-'~r I sonal liberty...

...This tendency of Homo sapiens sapiens to worship some kind of supranatural power might well be inherent, a genetically imprinted phenomenon, an enormously valuable survival mechanism of cons of evolution--or, to look at it in another light, the hand of God awakening to true life and consciousness His creation, an event which occurred on a cosmic scale only yesterday...

...It is Herbert Schlossberg's thesis that men by their nature worship a "God" Of some kind, and the quality (he would say authenticity...

...satiable...

...Such conservatives might do well to think twice, ask themselves if snobbery plays a part in their judgment...

...If nothing is done about it, a profound perversion of Christian no action taken, then "the result is a doctrine, attempt to play God by bringpersistent mental condition, stemming ing upon the earth an impossible in America...

...Illegitimate wants--pride, enyour own pace-testing yourself correcting Audio-Forum I -'X~IF r IH I I I errors, reinforcing accurate responses...

...The power of men to worship is a lever that can lift the world, or destroy it...

...turns..your . cassette prayer 0 cou ses in41 other languages also i9 into a '~teachi machine "" With its uni ue available...

...Who then could be surpartial cure, some quick relief of symp- prised when the government ran up toms, rather than undergo the long painful larger and larger deficits and inflated to treatment needed to lick inflation once make ends meet...

...How far that effort has gone can be seen not only in organized religion's cowardly acceptance of secular nihilism and amorality in our own land, but in the appalling and incredible support given by the organized church in the name of religion to totalitarian movements and nations frankly intent not only on the destruction of the church but of this nation itself...

...Beating researchers study not just germs them- inflation requires asking no more from selves but the environment they grow in, so government than we as taxpayers are willwe must consider inflation as not just an ing to pay for...

...But outside of a divine Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Castro, Ho Chi teeth, is that no economy can be repeated fact that none of the major narrative, Schlossberg maintains, there Minh, and Pol Pot were all planned, only people can be predictions of Marx or Lenin have /s no discernible or predictable pattern philosophical humanists...

...all were anti- planned--and that requires coer-come to pass...

...Thus, says Schlossberg, "anyone with a hierarchy of values has Calder Willingham is the author of such novels as End As a Man and Eternal Fire and has received screenplay credit on such movies as Little Big Man and Paths of Glory...

...Life without pain is meaning- Sarkes Tarzian Inc...

...What else is Lenin's embalmed body but a sacred relic and what else is Das Kapital but a holy text...

...Its intellectual bona tides are apparent at a glance, although the vision and methodology are unfashionably Judeo-Christian...

...Only a tervolved, deeply secret...

...and for all...

...Simply course is unconditionally guaranteed...

...in it...

...I Schlossberg, is properly understood as a "substitute of what is created for the creator...

...Order either, or I political figures could hardly find expansion to their neighbors' territory...

...I your signature...

...Far more often mite hive is a utopia, and men are not than not, the practicer of ressentiment insects...

...9away from them...

...Virtually all known societies have visions of the sacred and worship gods...

...Like any disease, there are doctors who economic problem but a social one...

...however, able to predict nothing and is "must" grow, the clock "cannot be Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, The overriding fact, plain as a tiger's therefore worthless...

...Schlossberg writes: "Enflip about the poor...

...communing with the "vasty deep" within oneself makes ethics and concrete forms of social life superfluous...

...Bloomington, Indiana they have qualities he both admires and less...

...Well, just as medical pecting something for nothing...

...A A real utopia would be as much a kind of corrosive spiritual envy is in- hell as existing dystopias...

...The implication is plain: If worship of these idols is not checked, America will destroy itself or will be destroyed...

...tween legitimate and illegitimate I settes and accompanying textbook...

...Introspection, self-isolation, and indifference derive naturally from such a theological position...

...text, $110...

...What two assertions most agitate, alarm, and send into gibbering rage Establishment Opinion...

...attacks the object of his hatred Socialism assumes that man lives by obliquely--he praises the nobility and bread alone, that material wealth is the laments the suffering of the poor, in only wealth, that envy is normative and order to strike at his hated (and secret- inevitable...

...reason...

...It is doubtful that either the Catholic Bishops or members of the National Council of Churches will want to read this book...

...The Idol of History is a false God, and all served to one degree or cion...

...Only then will the doctor's medicine work...

...The follow the spoken and written instructions, it for three weeks...

...There is abundant evidence of prehistoric concern with the supranatural...

...Since the Jews more than any other people invented narrative, saw life as a story with a beginning and an end, Schlossberg's approach is integrally and intrinsically Judeo-Christian...

...Try i Schlossberg further analyzes and human rights and needs...

...With an unerring scalpel, Schlossberg cuts to the heart of this atavistic and absurd phenomenon: If pantheism becomes as influential in the West as some observers expect [see Robert Nisbet's Prejudices], the effects are likely to be baneful...

...Are his views objective, detached, rational...

...the subsidize those people even while we as patient begins to feel better, taxpayers were reluctant to foot the bill for But most of us are willing to settle for a all this generosity...

...Instead of finding heaven in a wildflower or hell in a noxious weed, one finds both in the whorls of one's own navel...

...The ghastly spectacle of the worship of man by man, the Imciferian syndrome, has brought death and slavery to hundreds of millions in the twentieth century...

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...historical in the sense of man's existence being a story, a narrative with a sequence of events that are related and meaningful, that do not occur in a blind void of chance but have an overriding import, consequence, and purpose...

...Untreated, it has drained the life savings of I rich and poor alike, eroded the living standards of people on low or fixed incomes and driven prices out of sight...

...Hillsdale College Hiltsdale Michigan 49242 For further information regarding the availability of a full series of these short, informative essays, contact Mr...

...Are his moral assumptions a product of reason based on scientific fact...

...Finally, Schlossberg makes an even harsher judgment on Idols of Religion...

...resentment" is too madness, blind to all evidence and weak to convey the intended meaning...

...One must wonder why those who However, Schlossberg is brilliantly cling to the socialist dream refuse to effective in his long and detailed ex-abandon it, even though it has failed amination of Idols of Humanity...

...Foreign service personnel, that's who...

...As Chesterton said, the worshipers of such a divinity have populated Asia for centuries "and have never dethroned a tyrant...

...they are both language as quickly and effectively as pos- comes in two volumes, each shipped in a ple ressentiment...

...I warned against long ago: "Thou shalt nature, envy is expansive regardless of I speakers...

...money order, or charge to your credit card 9 I thousands of dollars developing this course...

...There is nothing new recognized as legitimate, no sense of just as these diplomatic personnel do--(Conn...

...intrinsic part of life itself, as essential D Thus the afflicted person hates as the air we breathe and the water we others because he suspects or knows drink...

...Schlossberg, a teacher of history, is basically historical in his approach...

...pressed...

...sickness of the soul, an illness occurSierra Club...

...Schlossberg's answer, again, is "Ressentiment," writes Schlossberg, that the dream is a religious dream...

...Those who find cosmic The pantheistic feast of "Earth Day" ring in the spiritual vacuum of our meaning in the survival of the snail has been noted by many observers and day...

...This malignant and civilization- proportion or humility sufficient to I with the Foreign Service Institute's Pro-TO ORDER BY PHONE, PLEASE CALL I I wrecking force recognized smother a sense of inferiority...

...Is our own liberal, humanist "intellectual" of today's America beyond this phenomenon...

...I Members of America's diplomatic corps are save 10% by ordering both: I assigned toU.S, embassies abroad, where F'I Volume h Basic...

...Schlossberg is a believing Christian) of the divinity brings either the celestial city or a winding sheet...

...Woe to the to-do and educated elite...

...The author's charge is that a very large part of the organized body of religion today (he is speaking of the Christian faith, primarily) has lost sight of fundamental values and truths, in an effort to accommodate to the times...

...Austrian economics...

...That, of course, is the viewpoint and the message of the leaders of the "populist" religious movement of our day, a movement deeply loathed and mercilessly attacked by the dominant elite--and a movement looked upon askance even by many thoughtful socalled conservatives...

...By their n II IliI m . . . . e On-The-Green, I ~I ~ I II 9 democratic market to political and per- nature they cannot be satisfied...

...Those who have observed the tendency of men to make a religion of belief (rational or otherwise) must find this book frightenir~g, and more than sufficient to generate thoughts of the south island of New Zealand or the remote Canadian arctic...

...First, that Utopia is impossible, because human nature is not perfectible...

...tIIIIIIIIIIIIII~ THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1985 37 engineering, which in turn is inspired relish what Schlossberg has to say chipmunks...

...so often cited by the liberal humanist as proof of the iniquity of religion...

...Such glum thoughts are, of course, a minor idolatry (a worship of one's own life)--and quite useless, anyhow, in a world of intercontinental missiles and lasers from space and diabolical biocides...

...and second, that God is not dead, but those who have lost belief in God are spiritually dead and will be destroyed or will destroy themselves...

...Another word for it is narcissism...

...Schlossberg is concerned with both assertions, primarily the second...

...The fundamental truth of Schlossberg's vision is evident...

...Its victim-followers, opportunity occasioned by envy for the possessions afflicted with a virulent ressentiment of or the qualities possessed by another which they are unaware and misled by person...

...A pensive observer cannot miss the plain and apparent religious character of the Marxist-Leninist movement-or the perverted religious emotion and power of Hitler's Nazism, or the sacred nature of Mao's "thoughts" in the holy texts of the little red books...

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...handsome library binder...

...iB anything that is thy neighbor's'--which One hears much of human "rights" It's by far the most effective way to learn (VISA, MasterCard, AmEx, Diners) by enSpanish at your own convenience and at closing card number, expiration date, and I includes qualities of mind and and human "needs" in our day...

...People may worship nature, money, mankind, power, history, or social and political systems instead of the God who created them all...

...9 clung to with such fervor in the face of " q catalog Our 12th year S mn~h drink, and companionship--are I "'programmatic"learning method, you set 9 " ~ 1 ~ m universal failure...

...G. Scot Hasted, Room D, Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, MI 49242...

...Such idolatry, says Rx For Inflation I t's the most destructive man-made rRAL disease...