Leftist Psychology: Tabula Rasa

You can find the other essays in this series here: Equality, Oversocialization, Neoteny, Status, Science

In my first essay on leftist psychology, I looked at how the concept of equality must be understood from a dual perspective, where its meaning changes depending on who engages with it. I explained how equality becomes a weapon in the hands of the resentful and the inferior, who use it as a cover for attacking and degrading those they hate. In this essay, we will look at the concept of tabula rasa and what role it serves in leftist psychology.

Tabula rasa – Latin for “blank slate” – is the concept that all of what makes us distinct in character and capacity is a result of environmental influences. It is at the extreme end of the nature-nurture spectrum of thinking in regards to human behavior, and posits that behavior is acquired through experience rather than being inborn. It is a central tenet of modern leftism, stemming in part from Marxist dialectical materialism and in part from the language games of Postmodernism and Critical Theory. Through the former, the leftist conceives of history and human relations as being moved primarily by material or economic conditions, and that differences between peoples, cultures and civilizations are a result of these. Through the latter, it adopts a doctrine of social constructionism, where there is no inherent (linguistic) meaning in terms like “black” or “woman” and that it is only through power relations that these categories acquire meaning. The result is a worldview in which people are indistinguishable and fungible economic units which interact in an oppressor-oppressed dynamic driven by socioeconomic forces. Any difference between distinct groups must therefore be explained by the left as being a construct born out of oppression, and that only by scouring these differences away (“deconstructing” them) can the oppressed find liberation and return to the natural state of fungible equality.

When trying to understand the basis of various belief systems, it is always fruitful to ask not just what is believed, but why anyone would believe it. People do not hold their beliefs for rational reasons, but because their beliefs fulfill some kind of will, urge, desire or need. This is not to suggest that all beliefs are therefore inherently empty or false, but rather that to believe in the truth you must be psychologically ready to believe in it. Beliefs serve a purpose – that is why they are believed. So what purpose does the belief in tabula rasa serve? Here we return to the previous discussion on resentment and inferiority.

Every hierarchy premiates certain qualities over others, and will therefore see individuals occupy different positions in accordance with what they are and how their qualities are valued. This is true both for inherent qualities and for developed ones – indeed, all qualities are both inherent and developed to some extent. Power struggles within hierarchies are often the result of different types of people trying to assert their superiority over others. Those groups who fail to assert themselves take the position of the inferiors, and are acutely aware of themselves as such. Whether their position is justly or unjustly received, whether they are truly inferior or only believe themselves to be so, whether their belief in their inferiority is conscious or unconscious, they still view the world through the lens of their own perceived inferiority. This colors every part of their conscious mind, and they develop a burning self-hatred and a seething resentment for those who are their perceived superiors. In some, this is only a minor trait which reveals itself in a kind of sullen pettiness; in others, it develops into a total gnostic hatred for life and a yearning to escape the bonds of their own nature.

Here we arrive at the purpose of tabula rasa. By denying that they have any inherent nature, they deny the very thing which imprisons them. Tabula rasa means control – it means the hope that they can scour away the things that define them and come to a state where they are wholly freed from having to be what they are. Where equality was a weapon, tabula rasa is a defense, and allows these people to feel as if their inferiority does not actually exist. We can see in this a double doctrine within the left. Race does not exist yet whites are inherently evil; gender is a social construct yet men are uniquely oppressive. This double doctrine serves as the unifying point for the doctrine of equality and of tabula rasa: on the one hand, the left can attack the hated superior, thereby fulfilling their need for revenge; on the other hand, they can deny the reality of their inferiority, thereby satisfying their need for control.

There is a sinister aspect to this belief in tabula rasa. It arises out of the fact that it is an inherently false doctrine. People – indeed, all living things – have certain inherent natures and qualities that make them what they are. Because of this, any attempts at making unequal things equal, or dissimilar things identical, will lead to failure. If a hierarchy values certain qualities over others, and individuals without these qualities are placed in positions of dominance within the hierarchy, the result is not that the individuals are suddenly endowed with the valued qualities. Likewise, simply changing the “social construct” of a thing does not mean that its inherent nature changes. And lastly, the existence of group disparities does not necessarily imply that they arise out of oppression – they may arise out of differences in inherent qualities. So for example, simply calling a male athlete a woman does not mean he will be competing on an even keel with women. He will still retain the superior physical abilities of a man. Likewise, explaining racial disparities in income with systematic racism becomes impossible when Asians out-earn both whites and blacks in a society supposedly steeped in white supremacy. In short, inherent qualities will always manifest themselves and can therefore not be ignored.

But remember that the leftist believes in tabula rasa because he must in order to cope with his feelings of inferiority. This is where things become sinister. When the world reveals to the leftist again and again that his inferior qualities are real, he is forced to confront them. He loses the control that tabula rasa gives him, and to gain it back he must prove to himself and to others that his inherent qualities are not real. The only way to do so is to scour them away, in himself and in others. And the leftist who does this will find that he is in fact right, in a certain deranged kind of way. It is possible to remove people’s inherent qualities – but to do so disfigures them. To prove his point to himself he must maim.

Here we find an explanation for the hatred of beauty so typical of the left. What is beautiful is so because it manifests what it is fully and perfectly – without being something, and being that thing perfectly, it would not be beautiful. Beauty therefore undermines the belief in the destructibility of the inherent, and the left must maim and disfigure what is beautiful in order to cope with their inferiority. This love of ugliness reaches its utmost apex in the glorification of sexual reassignment surgery, where surgical scars and mutilations become symbols of utmost liberation – a basking in the destruction of what one is.

There is a further sinister element to tabula rasa. The oppression narratives of the left always aim at a reordering of the hierarchy in favor of the inferior. In this sense also the left is correct, in a way. The mere existence of a hierarchy does not imply the absolute inferiority of those who hold the lesser positions, nor the absolute superiority of those who hold the greater. As the nobility of all ages have known, a man does not become noble merely because he holds a title. It is therefore completely possible – and sometimes justified – to reorder an existing hierarchy to favor others than those currently on top. But as we concluded earlier, the mere shifting around of positions does not change the inherent qualities of the individuals who hold them. Since the feeling of inferiority is tied to the inherent qualities, this means that it does not disappear simply because the inferior has attained a higher position. And from this follows that neither the feelings of resentment nor the need for revenge disappear either, meaning that giving the left what it wants does not cool the vindictive hatred it feels against those who have slighted it. This explains why the leftists become more fanatic as they achieve more of their goals – never escaping their inferiority, they continue to look for slights to punish, even going so far as to invent them if none can be found. Here the sinister tragedy of the left reveals itself. With no respite from their self-hatred, they drown a whole world in unresolved malice.