UTOPIAS AND IDEOLOGIESnby Erik von Kuehnelt-LeddihnnPeople who “think ahead,” like Prometheus, have alwaysnconstructed Utopias which are the outflow of theirnreflections and ideas — in other words, of their ideologies.nOn the other hand, most Americans who call themselvesn”conservatives” manifest a hostility towards ideologies andneven more towards Utopias.n”Ideology” as a term was invented by Count Destutt denTracy, used ironically by Napoleon, stuck by Marx onton”bourgeois” thinkers and, finally, applied by Lenin to allnsystems of political, social, economic, and cultural thought.nThe Germans, before 1945, called it Weltanschauung, butnNational Socialism made it an “unword.” It disappearednfrom almost everywhere, to be replaced by Ideologie,nideologia, ideology. Many people will tell you that ideologiesnhave caused untold harm and been responsible for millionsnof human deaths. This, unfortunately, is equally true ofnreligions. But there are religions that eff^ectively preach love,nothers that preach love but don’t practice it, and stillnothers—like that of the Shiite “assassins”—that preachnsanctified violence. Ideologies also can be totalitarian,nbellicose and repressive, or have tolerance and freedom builtninto them.nA relative uniformity of thought exists in the Englishspeakingnnations. This consensus is based largely on ancommon frame of reference that is lacking in the OldnWorld. Yet North America and Britain are not much givennto general ideas. The burning genius of Burke does not hidenfrom us his disgust for abstractions: “I even hate the soundnof the words which express them.” Even so, it would be ancolossal error to believe that “Anglo-Saxonry” is strictlynunideological. Man is an ideological creature who createsneither streamlined, logically foolproof and consistent ideologies,nor sloppily constructed ones with inner contradictions.n”American liberalism” is a classic example of the secondnkind.nIn many cases what we might call “Americanism” is anmixture of varying beliefs which almost, but not quite, formnan organic whole—a belief in progress, human equality,ndemocracy, a certain anti-elitism and an afl&rmation ofnfreedom. More often than not, “American ideology” willnblend in religion, hardly aware that the Bible contains a solidnmessage of human inequality and that equality and libertynare irreconcilable. When William Dean Howells observednthat “Inequality and Freedom” are the basic Americannideals, he obviously had in mind sentiments and not annideological program. Human beings are not equal, least ofnall in the eyes of God. If Judas Iscariot is equal to St. Johnnthe Baptist, Christianity can close shop.nAll this has to do with the American Tragedy. To beginnwith, there never was an American Revolution in 1776, onlyna War of Independence. Unfortunately, there later came theninfluence of the French Revolution—1828 marks a realnErik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn is the Europeanncorrespondent for National Review.nwatershed in American history, as Henry Adams noted.nCharles Beard told us in so many words that the FoundingnFathers hated democracy more than Original Sin. Jefferson’snremark that we are “created equal” is, unfortunately, thenwords of a slave-owner who merely wanted to point out thatn”our British brethren” are not superior to Americans andnhave no right to rule over them. And the continuation of thenAmerican Tragedy has to be found in this century, whennAmerica is engaged in jihads to make the world safe for anFrench ideology!nWhittaker Chambers denied that he was a conservative (anterm, in America, embracing everyone from cryptomonarchistsnto anarchists) and called himself a rightist. AllannBloom, in his Closing of the American Mind, insists that allngreat Europeans (starting with Socrates) were men of thenright. He should have added that this was equally true of thengreat Americans from Cotton Mather to Orestes Brownsonnto Henry Adams and Irving Babbitt. Goethe said thatnlegislators and revolutionaries promising equality togethernwith liberty are dreamers or frauds.nLooking at the efforts to realize the Marxist utopia in thenUSSR, one must admit that for the people born in thisngodless monastery it is a complete failure. For the West, onnthe other hand, this “vision” remains a blood-chillingn.^’lArli^Mx^V-in’l It’ . » Â¥ ^••ffii ^ 3 Jni-f–nnnU> .J*’nDECEMBER 1988/21n