A new fascism is on the rise in the West.

A pluralistic framework will not create a pluralistic social and political order. As we have written before, social and political pluralism rests on the nonpluralistic foundation of Judeo-Christian Theism. In other words, because of Judeo-Christian influence, people are free to have their own ideas, speak their own minds, and challenge other’s ideas. It is the Judeo-Christian, nonpluralistic worldview that launched freedom of religion, freedom to assemble, freedom of the press, etc.

There is a relationship between truth and freedom. Jesus makes the point in John 8:31-32, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Truth is something to be pursued and lived. Living in truth leads to freedom.

In the Judeo-Christian framework, tolerance means accepting individuals even if we disagree with their ideas. In the postmodern framework, void of moral or metaphysical absolutes, all ideas are equally valid. All, that is, except the idea of absolutes. Those who affirm absolutes are not to be tolerated.

It was the Judeo-Christian framework that inspired tolerance toward others you disagree with. Such a dynamic promoted civil discourse and a vigorous pursuit of truth. This led to the first clause in the US Bill of Rights—“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”—and guaranteed comprehensive freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and the petition of the government.

A society founded on philosophic pluralism has no north star; every man is for himself. It accepts all ideas, even bad ideas, as valid. It tolerates, and even promotes, evil. This produces a state in which an individual cannot disagree with or critique anyone else’s position. Free speech, freedom of conscience, of religion, and ultimately of assembly are prohibited.

Fascism is about power

In such a system, power, not truth, determines who wins. As Mao Zedong so famously stated and practiced, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” An estimated 65 million Chinese died in Mao’s tyrannical attempt to produce a socialist paradise.

Arbitrary absolutes are the name of the game. As Stephen Hicks points out, “There is a common pattern here: Subjectivism and relativism in one breath, dogmatic absolutism in the next.”[1] Postmoderns speak in terms of moral and cultural relativism, but in the end employ arbitrary absolutes.

Because the postmodern denies both reason and reality, there is no attempt to resolve this contradiction. In fact, this contradiction is a strategy postmoderns use to empower social and political change. Hicks illustrates the contradiction between relativism on one hand and absolutism on the other.

• On the one hand, all truth is relative; on the other hand, postmodernism tells it like it really is.
• On the one hand, all cultures are equally deserving of respect; on the other, Western culture is uniquely destructive and bad.
• Values are subjective—but sexism and racism are really evil.
• Technology is bad and destructive—and it is unfair that some people have more technology than others.
• Tolerance is good and dominance is bad—but when postmodernists come to power, political correctness follows.

Donald Kagan, a historian at Yale University, cuts through the postmodern subterfuge:

“[A] vulgar form of Nihilism has a remarkable influence in our educational system through our universities. The consequences of the victory of such ideas would be enormous. If both religion and reason are removed, all that remains is will and power, where the only law is that of tooth and claw.”

Fascism increasingly prevalent in Western universities

Alan Dershowitz, the great Harvard constitutional scholar and civil libertarian, likewise clears the air on what is happening in the seats of academic power in American universities today. He says that “the fog of fascism … [is] descending quickly over many American universities.”

As I write in Emancipating the World, the planet is involved in a two-front war with fascism. On the one hand are the fundamentalist atheists in the West and on the other are the radical Islamists from the East. They both rely on deception and power to achieve their victories.

Dr. Tawfik Hamid is an Egyptian who was raised in a secular home as a free thinker. He was considered as Al-fikr kufr, “one becomes an infidel (kufr) by thinking critically (fikr).”

At one point in his youth Hamid joined a militant Islamic group and was taught that to enlist in jihad one had to abandon reason. “Ultimately … one cannot become a jihadist if reason and objectivity aren’t thoroughly crushed. … The suppression of my critical thinking was the most important factor that trapped me in the path of Jihadism. All other techniques of indoctrination are dependent upon it.”

This is exactly what postmodernism is doing. We are seeing this in Western universities. Reason and objectivity are squashed. There is no pursuit of truth, only a hunt for safe spaces to protect students from free thinkers.

Fascism straddles politics

Fascism knows no political bounds. Fascists on the Left include anarchists like Antifa, and Communists. On the Right are the alt-right and neo-Nazis. While we think of these two sides as opposite, at their core they have at least three common traits.

First, they tend to be obsessed with race. They demand special status for particular racial groups. Fascists on the Left advocate special rights for blacks and Hispanics, those on the Right for whites.

Second, both are lawless. They abhor the moral God of the Christians and the Jews and refuse to be bound by any moral law.

Third, they disdain the individual and revere group identity. Right-leaning fascists celebrate people with white European ancestry. Fascists on the Left celebrate oppressed minorities, including homosexuals, the transgendered, women, blacks and Hispanics.

Both groups suspend reason and reality. Enslaved to their emotions, they abandon thought and follow the crowd.

• Darrow Miller

[1] Hicks, Stephen R. C.. Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Expanded Edition) (Kindle Location 3976). Ockham’s Razor. Kindle Edition.

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