A War Against History
The Left has always been at a disadvantage in its attacks on America: The country was created out of the philosophical belief in the equality of men and, in two hundred years became wildly successful. Historically the Left has gone through many--sometimes contorted--ways to dismiss America. First Marxism and the "alienation from work" thesis, then the inevitable poverty thesis. When it was clear that America and its workers were more successful and more content than anyone in history, the Left agreed but said it was the function of a world-destroying engine run on petroleum which had to be dismantled. That did not catch on. Recently the idea that America disdained financial equality--a notion that is actually historically true--emerged but financial equality itself was a mushy concept and leading men out of inequality required a hierarchy that everyone saw, so that failed.
Their new tact might work. Their new tact is an attack on history. They have chosen the Civil War period. As with all spiritual ideas, it is a hard sell but it has promise. The idea is that we modern people can hold the rebels morally responsible for treasonous revolution and connect that revolt to slave-holding. This greatly simplifies the Civil War, of course; every high school student in the nation has sweated over that mandatory essay at some point in his academic career. But there is certainly guilt by association here.
The problem is its profound demands upon unreality: Slavery was the product of war and greed, not bigotry, and was a time honored institution. And the people involved must be seen as prototypes, as pure elements rather than the complex amalgams they are. After all, if you want to burn a witch, she must be all witch, not a mother or sister or a daughter and a witch. She must be all witch. So the South must be held morally responsible for a legal act that, at the time, was virtually institutionalized throughout the world. More, every southerner must be seen solely as a representative of that outrage without any redeeming value. That done, we can now attack statues, works of art and Civil War paraphernalia with a righteous fury. The end point will be an attack on the founders of the country who certainly show imperfections. Once revealed, they may be able to invalidate their revolutionary creation.
This is a bold gamble but not without risk. What if feminists start examining Marx' personal life? What would happen if their opponents dragged up the old Progressive fascination with eugenics? What if Woodrow Wilson's racial beliefs became well known?
But this pales before the risk to Roosevelt, a man high in the Left hagiography, whose outrageous internment of American citizens of Japanese background violated most of our social and political mores, then and now.
Demanding purity and homogeneity creates a heavy burden. Ask Robespierre.
The Left has always been at a disadvantage in its attacks on America: The country was created out of the philosophical belief in the equality of men and, in two hundred years became wildly successful. Historically the Left has gone through many--sometimes contorted--ways to dismiss America. First Marxism and the "alienation from work" thesis, then the inevitable poverty thesis. When it was clear that America and its workers were more successful and more content than anyone in history, the Left agreed but said it was the function of a world-destroying engine run on petroleum which had to be dismantled. That did not catch on. Recently the idea that America disdained financial equality--a notion that is actually historically true--emerged but financial equality itself was a mushy concept and leading men out of inequality required a hierarchy that everyone saw, so that failed.
Their new tact might work. Their new tact is an attack on history. They have chosen the Civil War period. As with all spiritual ideas, it is a hard sell but it has promise. The idea is that we modern people can hold the rebels morally responsible for treasonous revolution and connect that revolt to slave-holding. This greatly simplifies the Civil War, of course; every high school student in the nation has sweated over that mandatory essay at some point in his academic career. But there is certainly guilt by association here.
The problem is its profound demands upon unreality: Slavery was the product of war and greed, not bigotry, and was a time honored institution. And the people involved must be seen as prototypes, as pure elements rather than the complex amalgams they are. After all, if you want to burn a witch, she must be all witch, not a mother or sister or a daughter and a witch. She must be all witch. So the South must be held morally responsible for a legal act that, at the time, was virtually institutionalized throughout the world. More, every southerner must be seen solely as a representative of that outrage without any redeeming value. That done, we can now attack statues, works of art and Civil War paraphernalia with a righteous fury. The end point will be an attack on the founders of the country who certainly show imperfections. Once revealed, they may be able to invalidate their revolutionary creation.
This is a bold gamble but not without risk. What if feminists start examining Marx' personal life? What would happen if their opponents dragged up the old Progressive fascination with eugenics? What if Woodrow Wilson's racial beliefs became well known?
But this pales before the risk to Roosevelt, a man high in the Left hagiography, whose outrageous internment of American citizens of Japanese background violated most of our social and political mores, then and now.
Demanding purity and homogeneity creates a heavy burden. Ask Robespierre.
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