/lit/ - Literature

>>10875258
>the leftist is motivated less by distress at society’s ills than by the need to satisfy his drive for power by imposing his solutions on society

>30. We certainly do not claim that leftists, even of the oversocialized type, NEVER rebel against the fundamental values of our society. Clearly they sometimes do. Some oversocialized leftists have gone so far as to rebel against one of modern society’s most important principles by engaging in physical violence. By their own account, violence is for them a form of “liberation.” In other words, by committing violence they break through the psychological restraints that have been trained into them.

I think it is safe to say that Ted was a leftist to some extent at some point in his life (maybe not blatantly, like a BLM advocate for example, but perhaps on a more subconscious level); he lived in society for 25 years. He followed societal rules and expectations: went to school, obeyed the law, became a white-collar professor.

To some extent, his writings on leftism could be attributed to his own experience as a leftist himself, along with his self-saturation in leftist society by the mere fact that he lived in leftist society his entire adolescent and young adult life. We cannot ignore the fact that it is easier to achieve insight into matters when you've been entrenched in them yourself, as Ted seems to have been in leftist society.

Ted realized the error of his and society's ways and "broke through the psychological restraints that had been trained into him" (see (30) above) by leaving the grid and making the decision to assemble bombs. He was oversocialized, but no more.

Furthermore, there is a distinction between the type of power that the unenlightened leftist seeks (through collectivism) and the type of power that Ted seeks (individual or small communal autonomy [which is in fact, what his entire essay is about]). The leftist imposes his solutions on society to feel better about himself without realizing that his efforts are insufficient and will never bring him happiness. They will never bring him a true idea of what it means to feel "powerful." The leftist's impositions make people weaker, and in fact, push them further away from autonomy by making them reliant on the system (welfare, civil rights, reliance on technology, making the black man conform to white standards). Contrarily, Ted believes that a return to nature DOES satisfy the need for power. HIS impositions therefore lead to true power, the autonomy of the individual (self-reliability) in the long run.

So perhaps Ted isn't being hypocritical here OP.

>>10713190
because literature usually discusses the human condition, usually for the worst, so it's natural for people that suffer from it to talk about it.

>calls himself well-read
>has never read Watchmen