History as DNA
One of the aspects of the thinking, or non-thinking, on the political Left is their obsession with the past.
The Left, since Hegel, are people of history. The Dialectic shapes our lives. (Hegel thought the battle was one of ideas, Marx thought it of economics.) The present is the inevitable product of the past. Perhaps this is the reason the Left is so preoccupied with the past.
Each dialectic strand collides and combines with its opponent strand to create a new strand, like DNA, which moves on to the present, in search of a new opponent. That makes the present--rather than a solution of the past--a new strand soiled by one element of the past. The revolution is never enough; the past must be purified. So an American immigrant of Polish ancestry finds himself the modern personification of ancient English slaveholding planters, a second generation American of Irish grandparents becomes a representative of the Spanish Inquisition.
For this reason, the revolutionary Marxist does not defeat his opponent, he is obligated to deracinate him, to kill his family, friends and associates.
One of the aspects of the thinking, or non-thinking, on the political Left is their obsession with the past.
The Left, since Hegel, are people of history. The Dialectic shapes our lives. (Hegel thought the battle was one of ideas, Marx thought it of economics.) The present is the inevitable product of the past. Perhaps this is the reason the Left is so preoccupied with the past.
Each dialectic strand collides and combines with its opponent strand to create a new strand, like DNA, which moves on to the present, in search of a new opponent. That makes the present--rather than a solution of the past--a new strand soiled by one element of the past. The revolution is never enough; the past must be purified. So an American immigrant of Polish ancestry finds himself the modern personification of ancient English slaveholding planters, a second generation American of Irish grandparents becomes a representative of the Spanish Inquisition.
For this reason, the revolutionary Marxist does not defeat his opponent, he is obligated to deracinate him, to kill his family, friends and associates.
Theirs is not a war of ideas, it is a war against the Past. And, as such, they can never be successful. Or appeased.
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