Gnostic EducationBy Thomas E. BrewtonWhy are today's students often taught to hate the United States?Phyllis Schlafly sketches the aims of too many teachers' colleges who  train our teachers (Teaching "Social Justice" in Schools).http://townhall.com/columnists/PhyllisSchlafly/2008/11/04/ teaching_social_justice_in_schools?page=full&comments=trueThose aims are the ones notoriously espoused by Bill Ayers and  Bernadine Dohrn,http://www.thomasbrewton.com/index.php/weblog/ obama_and_ayers_pushed_radicalism_on_schools/Senator Obama's friends and co-workers in the Chicago schools project  funded by the Annenberg Foundation.Social justice is a doctrine of the secular religion of socialism.   And as Eric Voegelin demonstrated, socialism is a variety of modern- day gnosticism.Voegelin in his 1959 "Science, Politics & Gnosticism" describes the  salient characteristics of gnosticism, all of which apply to the  doctrines of American liberalism and the concept of social justice as  attainment of atheistic social perfection.  These gnostic  characteristics correspond closely to the attitudes described in  Phyllis Schlafly's article.They also are the underlying foundation of Senator Obama's appeal to  dissatisfaction with American society and his message that he is the  one possessed of special knowledge that can bring us together and  create a near perfect world.First, the gnostic liberal is dissatisfied with the world as he finds  it.  He rejects the evidence of history that there always will be  strife, wars, inequalities in ability and station, and some degree of  poverty.  And he is confident that he has the knowledge (gnosis) to  make things perfect, which he defines as equality in all things.Second, the gnostic-liberal attributes the problems of human life to  poor organization of the economic and political realms.  Evil and  hardship must therefore arise from some identifiable source  (capitalism? ownership of private property?) that deforms the proper  structure of society.Third, the gnostic-liberal has a deep faith that earthly salvation  from the world's tribulations is attainable, a trait markedly evident  in the theoretical models of Soviet Russia and Franklin Roosevelt's  New Deal, as well as in the campaign rhetoric of Senator Obama.Fourth, the gnostic-liberal believes that this salvation is  attainable through the process of history (which , of course, he  uniquely understands).  Auguste Comte's 1820s gnosis was his  discovery of the "immutable law of history," according to which there  are three ages of human social development, the third stage in the  19th century being the new scientific, socialistic age into which  only knowledgeable intellectuals could lead the masses.The same three-phase philosophy of history reappears in Hegel and  Marx.  Note that Hitler's National Socialism was consciously called  the Third Reich to identify it with the gnostic millennium of earthly  harmony and peace.Note also that the nature of gnosis is that its secret knowledge is  available and comprehensible only to a select few.  This has always  implied in socialism a vulnerability to dictatorial concentration of  power in the collectivized state.  In Italy and Germany of the 1920s  and 1930s it was expressed as the Leader Principle – Il Duce and Der  Fuhrer.  Senator Obama is notoriously self-identified as The One in  whom human hopes and aspirations are to be realized.Fifth, the gnostic-liberal believes that, having discovered the  secret meaning of history, he can implement and control the process  of history by political and economic means, i. e., via socialism.And, finally, the gnostic-liberal's core belief is that salvation,  the perfection of social relations and human conduct, is attainable  via human action, here on earth.  This is the source of Lenin's  mystical concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat that would  bring peace and harmony to the people and would lead to a gradual  withering away of formal government, leaving the Soviet people living  in a modern Garden of Eden – from each according to ability, to each  according to need.We see the manifestation of this mystical, gnostic vision every day  in liberal politicians' belief that individuals are incapable of  fending for themselves, that only the national political state can do  the job.  There is always something wrong with society and always a  politician confident that one more set of regulations or one more  welfare-state program will make everything OK.People want to believe that a body of secret knowledge will free them  from Christianity's stern admonitions to work hard, save for a rainy  day, abjure hedonism, and recognize that perfection of human life is  impossible in the earthly realm.  It's so much easier to eat, drink,  be merry, and let the government take care of us.Thomas E. Brewton is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc.  The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of  writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets.