One of the perennial weaknesses in leftist thought is its utopianism. Good old vanilla Marxism is the model here, especially considering how many contemporary ideas about social justice are intellectually derivative of it. The history of all hitherto society is the history of class struggles, you see. All the miseries, the frustrations, the wars, the peregrinations, the tragedies of this great ongoing pageant can be attributed to those struggles. Even its triumphs, too, are tainted by the fact that they were erected on the bent backs of the laboring classes. Injustices and exploitation all the way down. In the Marxist scheme, then, the way to remedy the sad state of human affairs is for workers of the world to unite, enact the Communist revolution, and win the class struggle once and for all. After that, we all know, the new age of peace and prosperity, of each according to his need, will be ushered in. Utopia.
As I said, modern offshoots of that thinking operate within the same utopian frame. Not only in the conviction that we’re on the cusp of a golden future but also in the sense of offering simplistic solutions for how to transition into it. Feminism chases after the phantom of “gender equality” and promises a tomorrow when just as many women will graduate with STEM degrees as men. Their solution? Well, pink legos for one, but more broadly the society-wide dismantling of harmful stereotypes about double-x chromosomes and the generalized affirmation that, yes, girls can too do math. Anti-racism, the LGBT agenda (which seems to be skewing heavily towards the T now that the L, G, and B have succeeded so roundly), multiculturalism—all of these preach that the kingdom of heaven on earth is nigh and that all we need is some tolerance and/or dialogue and/or dismantling of “privilege” to finish manifesting it.
The social affordances of backing such obviously limited solutions have been discussed at length in this here corner of the Right, under the label “signaling.” And the attractions of signaling are real. Yammering on about how you just know in your heart of hearts that a little more love and maybe the courage required for us to own up to our internalized racism is what’s really going to turn this ship around… that marks you as a good person to your peers and in the eyes of our social superiors nationwide. It proves your right-opinion bona fides. Some people like to take this signaling to the next level and are always looking for a way to insinuate that they are prepared to out-tolerate and out-accept even other bonafide progressives, so eager are they to graduate into nirvana. To see one such signaling arms race in action, peruse social justice Tumblr. To see a slightly more sophisticated version, visit an open forum at your nearest college campus.
Something that’s received perhaps less attention than the social affordances of the utopian frame, however, are the psychological affordances of it. The interior benefits, rather than the exterior ones. Take “transgenderism” for example. The whole thing’s a mess. The people who typically identify as transgenders (especially the one’s that truly believe they are in the wrong body) are mental and emotional wrecks. They’ve got neurosis upon neurosis, above and beyond “gender dysphoria.” And it could be for any number of reasons. Bad home life, past sexual abuse, chemical imbalances, whatever. These are miserable people with a blasted hellscape of an inner life, unable to produce a realistic self-appraisal, often fighting suicidal ideation. But what does the conceptual neatness of the official LGBT worldview offer them? It offers them a conceptually neat solution. “There’s nothing wrong with you. The real fault is with all those bigots out there who can’t accept you. If we promote trans-acceptance thoroughly enough, society will embrace you and you’ll finally be able to sleep peacefully at night.”
That’s a lie, of course. It misidentifies the origin of their woes, and it mis-prescribes the cure. But how tantalizing is that prescription? How much would someone in that situation crave such a simple Rx? Faced with the prospect of staring down your own psychological demons, with no clear plan of attack and no clue where to start, how wonderful would it be to have someone come along and say, “This right here is actually all you have to do to be well again”?
An individual facing the, pardon my French, clusterfuck of race relations in twenty-first century America is in those same shoes. An individual appraising the ruin that the last fifty years has wrought on women and their families is in those same shoes. These situations are complex, almost menacingly so. Boiling the solution down to “end racism” or “end misogyny,” though, makes them seem far more tractable. It provides a clear (if primrose) path forward. It allows us to retreat from the complexity of our straits and in part relieves the anxiety associated with them. So that’s one of the psychological appeals of the utopian frame that characterizes so much of leftist thought these days. You can rationalize away the need for wisdom, for prudence, for insight, for perspicacity. You divest yourself of the heavy burden of having to comprehend your labyrinthine predicament and make an informed response to it.
Let’s not pretend, however, that this is a mental temptation that only our esteemed colleagues on the Left fall into. There are plenty of right-wing critiques that broadcast on that same wavelength, at least insofar as they offer ersatz refuge from the complexity of the modern world, insofar as they offer simplistic but psychologically palatable answers. All we have to do is get back to the Constitution! All we have to do is vote Obummer and the Dumbocrats out of office or, ahem, restore monarchy to the West! All we have to do is disband the state and institute voluntaryism! Within even conservative churches and denominations a similar pattern generally obtains. We are instructed with due diligence how to go out into the midst of the world and be as harmless as doves. Because that is a soothing message. We are rarely exhorted with equal enthusiasm to obey the second portion of Christ’s commandment: be ye wise as serpents. Because, well, that’s frequently a much harder row to hoe. At least cognitively speaking.
The fact of the matter, though, is that life is complicated. And it doesn’t seem to be getting any less so. We Americans, for instance, are living in the twilight of a collapsing multiracial empire, supervised by a detached and neurotic elite, infested top to bottom with increasingly dysfunctional bureaucracies, dependent on the uninterrupted operation of a byzantine infrastructure and food supply chain, an empire that’s splitting along any number of fault lines. And it would be nice to survive the oncoming collapse (hard or soft) more or less intact. So there’s too much at stake to devolve into platitude thinking at this point, whether those platitudes be left or right, no matter how much solace they seem to offer. We rightly ridicule social justice warriors for their care bear dreams and magical thinking. Let’s make sure we’re not engaging in wishful-thinking escapism of our own.
We may indeed be on the cusp of a golden age, but not in the sense that Modernists understand it, rather in the sense that the Hindus 5000 years ago understood it. That is, rigid hierarchical and simple living, racism, sexism, warts and all. The left of course thinks this is ‘dystopia’, Mad Max meets Game of Thrones from hell! Get an SJW SWAT team down here now! People’s rights are being violated!
I have been skeptical of the idea on the right that we could just change the system we have currently and force the people of the West to live in a Reactionary way. Even if you could install an absolute monarch by a coup, it just wouldn’t work. The people have to come to think like Reactionaries, and the only way they do that is by suffering. Having institutions of influence is nice, but it’s unlikely to turn the culture in any beneficial direction at large.
Entropic forces are bringing this age to an end. I’d say the best we can do is prepare structures to dominate the blasted landscape it will leave behind, and hope not too many (or preferably maybe no) nuclear weapons go off. The struggle will not be difficult because we have such monumental foes to conquer, but because there are going to be rapid shifts in geopolitics on a scale not before reckoned with, and they are exceedingly hard to predict.
The left dreams of ‘maximum leftism’ or the ‘Modern Singularity’ whereupon his utopia is achieved, however like a centrifuge, he never reaches this societal speed of light, instead his craft begins to break up due to the forces present. Really, it’s just a matter of time.
I wouldn’t dismiss the effects of a king (or a Caesar, or a Franco, or any rightist government) so quickly. As Moldbug said, public opinion is a function of whose army is guarding the television station. Give me control of television and public schools, and within twenty years, a large majority of the public will deeply, sincerely believe *anything* I want them to.
Remember that in Leipzig during the 20th century, in 1913 everybody was a monarchist, in 1927 everybody was a democrat, in 1935 everybody was a Nazi, in 1967 everybody was a Communist, and in 1995 everybody was a democrat again. American occupation soldiers noted that a few years after the war, not only could they not find anybody who had ever been a Nazi, they couldn’t find anybody who had even *known* anybody who had been a Nazi – and the Germans who they talked to seemed to be saying this in all sincerity. The mind is a strange thing… it creates its own reality. “The Nuremberg Rally? Oh, yes, I was there – but I wasn’t a Nazi mind you, I just went out of curiosity.”
A few years after the king returns, you won’t be able to find anybody who even knows anybody who ever supported gay marriage.
We can only hope that is the case, Antidem.
I do think though, in the event of a catastrophe that many predict within this century, what we might call ‘the natural selection of disaster’ will have weeded out many of the most troubling adherents of Liberalism.
I have observed this about modernity (and post-modernity): It wants the idea of being sophisticated, nuanced, complex and free of prejudices and hate, but, for the most, it is anything but. It is not sophisticated. It is not nuanced (insidious would be a much better word). It’s not free of prejudice and hate.
People who snarkily use “the times are changing,” card to those who don’t see the supposed beauty of Utopia built upon a a bastardized sense of “equality” and “justice” seem to not have little regard for the past or future. It is very easy to be a modern day liberal, or a least support the social causes that is triumphed (women’s “rights”, gay “rights”, worker “rights”). Its complexity is not derived from thoughtful philosophical arguments, but by feeling. Unless one is a sociopath, or even an Aspie who has a hard time understanding emotions, it is not hard to understand them. What is hard is to understand why one would operate under such conditions 24/7. There are real life examples: The recent raise of minimum wage (picket signs offer no argument or salient points, just slogans and yelling faces); the tiring narrative that women are paid less because they are women (see: Patricia Arquette’s Oscar speech) and that women are faced with sexism (see: ACLU report on hiring practices in America’s movie industry, various actors & female directors complaining about sexism while offering no concrete examples or names); the emotional appeal to same-sex “marriage” (see: United States, Ireland); false campus rape reports (see: Rolling Stone U. Virginia report, Lena Dunham) to the ridiculous (see: Columbia U. mattress girl); fake “hate crimes” against homosexuals (see: Matt Shephard case, “hate tip” receipt for lesbian waitress); supposed sexism in the video game word (see: Gamer Gate); to the internet social activists (see: tumblr SJWs).
All of what is listed above, when presented by the complainers, are represented in black & white faces, which is ironic because these are the same people who, when asked about life and death – when it’s their turn to become philosophical and existential, turn to sayings, “Life is really complex, ” to “there’s so much greyness – it’s not all black & white like what your mom and pop tells you, or what your church tells you.” They come across as heavily narcissistic and self-involved people. They talk about “strength” and “courage” to be live authentic lives (#BeTrue) yet they get intimidated by so-called micro-aggressions (see: any American college or university).
A little personal story. As my mom and I waited for choir practice to begin, one of the choir members leaned towards me and said, as we waited in silence for the 7PM Polish mass to end, “It’s sad that this will all gone in a generation.” She was talking to the specific mass occurring (apparently it wasn’t a normal mass). A majority of the attendees were older than 40, with only a few (Polish) kids in the pews. There couldn’t have been no more than sixty people attending this particular mass. As I reflected on what she said, I could not help but think that modernism has no respect for tradition; modernism holds tradition in contempt and views it as an archaic, oppressive and meaningless routine. What has modernism left me? Not much, if anything of true substance. What has my heritage given me? Much more than modernism has ever produced. Many of my more conservative friend are getting married and having kids. Many of their more “modern” peers don’t marry and probably have one kid. If you ask my generation today what is their spiritual/religious life like, at best they’ll say “I’m spiritual.” Follow around an L.A. based photographer or anyone established in the entertainment world, and you’d swear that once you meet one “can’t-help-be-myself” type you have met all of them.
Modernism can’t get its story straight either. Do you want to change the system or “let other groups in”? Because when you “let other groups in” and want to psychologically change an opposing group’s idea of “equality” you’re changing it. It is not in its original or previous form. I see this when it comes to supporters o same-sex “marriage.” Some say that they don’t want to change marriage, but to just make those “denied” (in quotes because they were actually never denied) “rights” (in quotes because these “rights” aren’t actually rights) equality under law. Some supporters think that marriage is a meaningless institution and that anyone, regardless of sex and party number, should be granted “marriage.” So we have one group that allowing two people of the same-sex won’t change marriage itself, but make it better and make it richer; another saying that marriage licenses should be given to two people regardless of the sex of their significant other and to more than a party of two.
As mentioned earlier, modernism thinks of itself as truly unique. They have this odd idea of the individual – that they are (the modernists) vanguard of the “true self” against Neanderthals and the “squares.” In short, they want their cake and eat it too. Just don’t say “no” or else they’ll throw a tantrum and cry “Good As You!”