“Evil is turned into Good, and Good into Evil”
Written almost 300 years ago, Thomas Gordon warned us about political parties being little more than cults that promise to protect your country – while really killing it.
It was so prophetic that it sounds like it was written today.
THE INVERSION
Writing in 1744, Gordon observed that when people dedicate themselves to political parties, the meaning of right and wrong gets destroyed.
“It is with Measures as with Men; they are praised, or condemned, not because they are Right or Wrong, Beneficial or Hurtful, but because they come from this Party, or the other.”
It doesn’t matter what you do or say. It only matters what team you’re on.
“The best Actions are decried as the worst, if they arise from one Quarter; the worst Actions adored as the best, if from the other.”
Opposing tyrants becomes evil, and rebellion to the constitution becomes good.
“The Resisting of lawless Tyrants, is, at one time, Rebellion and Damnation: To rebel against the most lawful Authority, is, at another time, Duty and Glory.”
It doesn’t matter how evil a person might be. That’s no problem, as long as they’re loyal to the “right” team. And it doesn’t matter how good a person might be, if they’re on the “other” team.
“He who is a good Party-Man, is a good Man, let his Conduct be ever so vile, his Actions ever so wicked. On the contrary, let a Man be ever so unblameable, his Behaviour ever so righteous and worthy; all this Merit shall not avail him; nay, with all this Merit, it is odds but he is reviled, ridiculed, and scorned.”
The priority is always the party. Everything else takes a back seat.
“Party Principles are therefore substituted for moral Principles; the sure way to destroy all Morality, and to confound the Characters of Men, and even those of Good and Evil.”
The result? Morality: good, evil, truth, lies. They’re all inverted. Flipped upside down.
“Evil is turned into Good, and Good into Evil: Truth passes for Falshood; Falshood is dressed up in the Guise of Truth.”
THE AUTHOR
Before getting to how people fall into the trap of so mindlessly defending and supporting a party, right or wrong – you might be wondering: who is this Thomas Gordon guy?
He was co-author, with John Trenchard, of Cato’s Letters, written in the 1720’s. It’s hard to overstate how influential these essays were on the American Revolutionaries.
As historian Clinton Rossiter once put it, “no one can spend any time on the newspapers, library inventories, and pamphlets of colonial America without realizing that Cato’s Letters rather than John Locke’s Civil Government was the most popular, quotable, esteemed source for political ideas in the colonial period.”
Gordon’s commentaries on political parties are drawn from his 1744 book, The Works of Sallust, where he translated the great historian of the Roman Republic. Sallust was so important, he is sometimes called the “Roman Thucydides.”
Sallust wrote the history of a republic that destroyed itself from within – through faction. Gordon translated it while watching the same disease spread through British politics – and the American Revolutionaries read about all of it.
CULT MENTALITY
So how does an otherwise reasonable person end up a party man?
The kind of blind party loyalty Gordon observed is built on dishonesty, so it defies common sense. And that creates its own dangerous cycle, because the less common sense people have, the more devoted they are to the party.
“Sense and Honesty are not required, nor anything else but Zeal; and such Zeal being generally blind, the less Sense, the more Zeal; and Zeal is an Atonement for the want of Morality, and every good Quality.”
Zeal like that requires something else to survive and thrive: ignorance.
“In the midst of the Heats, and Zeal, and Divisions, into which they are drawn, for This Man against That, are they ever thoroughly apprised of the Merits and Source of the Dispute? Are they Masters of the real Facts, sufficient for accusing one, or for applauding another? Scarce ever.”
So instead of worrying about facts, they take as Gospel whatever “truth” professional liars feed them.
“What Information they have, they have generally from interested Men, at best, quite partial and disguised, often utterly false and forged.”
When you get down to it, other than being a broken clock, they really don’t have any facts at all: just slogans they regurgitate.
“But the Truth is, they have generally no Information at all; but only a few Cant Words, such as will always serve to animate a Mob; ‘I am for John: He is our Friend, and very honest. I am against Thomas: He is our worst Enemy, and very wicked, and deserves to be punished.’”
Most of the time, these partisan hacks can’t even explain why they hate their opponents!
“It is extremely strange, and a great Reflection upon rational Beings, that the Majority in Parties seldom know the Reason why they thus hate and mortify one another. By-words, and Sounds, Names, Persons, Modes, and Colours, controul and incense them.”
Like wild animals, it always boils down to a pack mentality: my team good, your team bad.
“They love John: Why? Because he hates Thomas; and they do not love Thomas, because he does not love John. Ask them, Why they thus love and hate these Men, more than other Men? the Answer is, That they are very good, or very bad Men.”
The real reason they do this? They’re mindless puppets who think whatever they’re told to think.
“Ask them, How do they know? They will tell you, That they have been told so. Who told them? Their Leader, or his Creatures; that is, such who study to deceive them. Thus both Sides reason, and seldom can reason better.”
PARTISAN WITCHCRAFT
Making things even worse, their ignorance is easily manipulated by those in power. Gordon saw this as a kind of sorcery that takes hold of the people.
“There is a sort of Witchcraft in Party, and in Party Cries, strangely wild and irresistible. One Name charms and composes; another Name, not better nor worse, fires and alarms.”
The predator class, the politicians, exploit this ignorance and willingness to fall for lies. One of their favorite tricks is to twist the meaning of the Bible to build religious support for their political goals.
“To support such Extremes, to reconcile such wild Contradictions, the Divine Word is boldly called in and misapplied.”
Here’s how it’s done. Depending on the day and the issue at hand, the same text will suddenly have different meanings.
“One Scripture is made to justify one extravagant Proposition to Day: To-morrow the same Scripture, or another Scripture, is forced to defend an opposite Proposition, and to destroy the former; and the Supreme Being is always supposed angry or pleased, just as Factions are, adopting the foolish Passions and Partialities of Parties, and shifting his Passions, as Parties shift theirs.”
But Gordon put the real blame on the people who fall for it. Politicians may spread the lies, but the people choose to swallow them.
“What I blame, is, their swallowing current Lyes, believing Misrepresentations, and false Characters, and thence bearing Ill-will to some, who deserve it not; or entertaining extravagant Fondness for others, who deserve it as little.”
Each side also paints the most grotesque caricature of the other.
“All Parties have their Follies, and weak Places: But the Character of one Party is rarely to be learned from the other. They make odious Pictures of each other, in their Anger (for Parties imply mutual Wrath); and both Sides are Monsters, in the Opinion of each.”
The best defense? Never trust what politicians say about each other. Ever.
“There is no Reliance upon what Parties say of one another, to the Praise of their Friends, or in Detraction from their Rivals; it is all Satire, or all Praise. This is enough to show that it deserves no Credit.”
THE MAN
Because so many people fall for all this, the worst tyrants are generally cheered on by the people, while the good guys are attacked as evil.
“In most Countries, they who blind and enslave the People, are popular, and reverenced; they who would enlighten and free them, hated and persecuted.”
But the party itself isn’t always where the devotion stops. Things get even worse when that loyalty centers on a single person. Gordon described it in vivid, and what should be quite familiar, detail.
“How many Dunces, how many Drunkards, Fellows of dirty Morals, and no Understanding, without Address, or common Breeding, or one good Quality, but with a Thousand ill ones, are to be seen of notable Weight and Esteem, for no earthly Consideration, but that of their Bigotry to their Party, and of their Party to them.”
From this, you get an almost clinical response. It brings to mind borderline personality disorder and a phenomenon sometimes seen with it called idealizing transference. This is where a person projects highly positive qualities such as perfection, omnipotence, or great wisdom onto someone else, whether they have those qualities or not. This is a psychological defense mechanism people use so they don’t have to face the painful reality of supporting someone who violates their own values.
“When we have taken a Fancy to a Man, and chuse or consider him as our Chief and Leader, we are disposed to see all Excellency and no Fault in him, to think him every way able to serve and support us, and quite incapable of betraying or hurting us, or of ill serving us.”
From there, it keeps getting worse. They paint him as a mirror of themselves and trust him because they believe he shares their views. It never occurs to them that he’s lying to manipulate them and he’s really just in it for his own gain.
“We represent him to ourselves, just like ourselves, full of warm Zeal for Us and our Cause, without any Views to himself, or any Motives that are personal; though it is possible, that from such Motives only he became very zealous for us, and very angry at others. Thus we court, thus paint, and trust, and admire the Man who joins with us, and who espouses our Resentments and Disgusts, or seems to espouse them.”
Now flip it around. The opposite happens to the guy on the other team, who the party loyalists believe can do nothing right, no matter what.
“To the Man, on the contrary, who is not of our Party, but of the opposite Party, we hardly allow one good Quality, but are ready to impute every ill one. Every thing that he does, is bad and malicious, and all his Intentions are wicked; and though he be charged with doing a World of Mischief, it is odds but he is reckoned void of Parts, and a very silly Fellow.”
Then the hatred spreads outward. It’s never just about the men at the top. It’s about the people who follow them: friends, family, neighbors, strangers. Anyone and everyone becomes a target for the same contempt.
“For those who follow, or are supposed to follow him, we have just the same want of common Charity and Complaisance. As all our own Friends and Champions are virtuous, and able, and amiable; all on the other Side are guilty, weak, and hateful. And, just in the same Style, those of the other Side speak and judge of us, from the same Prejudices.”
THE RESULT
Did you catch that last part? The other side does it right back. And that’s what leads to the worst of the worst – the deadly cycle.
“Thus a Country comes to be rent into Factions; thus Factions hate one another implicitly, and shun one another like Plagues; find Nick-names for one another, then love or detest these Nick-names, and all that bear them; herd in Cabals, there chiefly to extol their own Side, and abuse the other; to adore their own Chiefs as Demigods, to revile the opposite as Demons.”
At that point, peace and cooperation are virtually impossible.
“Now, where are the Hopes of Union or Reconciliation, when the Rent is thus wide, and the Rancour thus implacable? Each Party think themselves innocent as Angels, and the other Party as black as Devils.”
Once it comes to this, there’s almost no hope of coming back.
“Will Angels ever condescend to treat with Devils, or confederate cordially with them even for a Day? The Breach therefore, instead of healing, widens.”
By then, both sides rightly expect unfair treatment from the other – so both start fighting dirty while pretending it’s all for our own good.
“and, neither Side expecting from the other fair Usage or Humanity, both betake themselves to Frauds and Cruelty: Both pretend the public Good, both obstruct it, and rend the Public between them.”
Once that cycle starts, nothing is more important for the party loyalists than punishing the other side – even to the destruction of themselves and their own country.
“One Party will risk all, sacrifice the State, and themselves with it, rather than miss Revenge upon the other.”
Finally, the gloves come off. Anything and everything to beat the enemy.
“They consider the different Party as determined Enemies, then abhor and curse them as such. For it is natural to grow Enemies to our Enemies; and, against an Enemy, every thing is lawful, all sorts of Falshood, Calumny, and Violence.”
This road, this cycle: it all leads to one terrible place.
“Mutual Fury and Fierceness are increased by mutual Lyes and Invectives; Reason is lost in Rage; Justice is swallowed up in Revenge, a High-way is raised to Blood and Massacre.”
To destroy the other team, each side will make a dangerous choice they can’t undo.
“For one Party, in order to depress and vanquish the other, for the most part, raise their Chief so high, and invest him with so much Power, that he is Master of them, before they (or rather he) can master the other.”
Here’s the part they never think about. The power they give someone to destroy their enemy today ends up being a power used to destroy themselves tomorrow.
“They sell themselves to Slavery, that the others may be Slaves: The lower he lays his Enemies, the more Power he has over his Friends; and for having well revenged their Quarrel, founded too often on mere Chimera, or Folly, naturally becomes their Tyrant.”
History is the proof. Only the tyrants ended up as winners.
Everyone else under them? They lost.
“Thus Cæsar enslaved his own Party, as well as that of Pompey; just what Pompey would have done, with equal Power and Success. Under the Reigns of the following Cæsars, did there any Distinction continue between the Party of Cæsar and that of Pompey? No: All were Slaves.”
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