The Mystery of the Left

The mystery of the Left can be summarized in two questions: Why is the Left statist? Why is the Left anti-capitalist? Or, to combine them: Why isn’t anarcho-capitalism at least the moral ideal, the utopia, of the Left? Why do those who imagine themselves the friends of human emancipation hate freedom and love the all-powerful state? Why do those who claim to love freedom of thought and expression suppress both, whenever they acquire the power to do so?

Three hopeful tendencies, or at least possibilities, both originating in the horrified reaction of the Left to the Christian Right: (1) a movement away from the “natural relativism of the Left.” It is enticing to think that the truth is created by those in power, but when one’s hold on power begins to slip, and one’s opponents (disingenuously as it may be) use relativist rhetoric to claim a place at the table, its attractions fade. (2) the sustained rejection of scientific rationality carried out by the Christian Right in its campaign against the theory of evolution and, in general, against the pedagogical authority of science, may be leading persons on the Left to reconsider its cavalier anti-scientific stance. This might lead to a reconsideration of the false, anti-evolutionary, “blank slate,” conceptions of human nature to which many Leftists have long been committed being, a reconsideration that might lead (3) to a realization of the underlying similarity of evolutionary thinking in biology and free market thinking in economics. (See Mark Helprin, “Herd Animals,” Claremont Review of Books, 19 October 2005). One further hypothesis is that the postmodern denial of reality came into vogue concurrent with reality’s decisive refutation of Marxism, just as the neo-Marxism of the Frankfurt School, “critical theory” Left came about when the “masses” rejected Marx.

For many, being on the Left is the only possibility; being a conservative is unthinkable, morally, intellectually, and-perhaps above all-aesthetically. If the Left triumphs in its long struggle against Western civilization it will be because it has so successfully turned a political orientation into a matter of style, of belonging to the better strata of society. For many Americans, particularly if they are upper middle class or aspire to be, a generic commitment to the Left is simply a matter of good taste, of being civilized, or for the young (and perhaps not so young) of being cool. Fashion has replaced theory. Such things, of course, are impervious to rational argument and immune to refutation by mere empirical fact. Thus, as has been clear in the first year of the Obama regime, the only response the Left can make to those who object is ridicule, the contempt those in the know heap upon those guilty of a fashion faux pas. The near-pathological hatred of those who dare to resist the imposition of paternalistic statism by their social “betters”–the derision of the “teabaggers” and the treatment of Sarah Palin, and later the maniacal detestation of Trump and the "deplorables" who support him, are the salient examples–suggests that the Left’s fashion mavens are not all that secure in their sense of superiority to the rest of us. That is fitting for a self-image lacking a grounding in reality. Beyond this, the true genius of the Left lies in offering a great many persons who are neither particularly intelligent (though superficially educated) nor particularly morally virtuous (though well-intentioned) a cost-free way to regard themselves as smarter and better than others, simply by holding the correct set of political opinions. Indeed, now that this is the default orientation of the guardians of fashion, it is costly not to give at least rhetorical assent to the views and values of the Left.

I hypothesize that the Left, insofar as it is more than fashion, is best understood as reactionary, a negative response to modernity and a rejection of the limitations it imposes on the use of power against human beings. The paradigm political ideology of modernity is classical liberalism, which holds as ideal the liberal state which acts merely as a referee, maintaining a neutral framework within which individuals (and voluntary groups of individuals) can peacefully pursue the good however they conceive it. The polity of the United States approximates to this classical liberal ideal and as such is the enemy of those who reject modernity. At the root of this hostility lies the inveterate human disposition to force other human beings to do what one thinks they ought to do, Some of us cannot feel secure and be content while others pursue aims of which we disapprove. They long for the pre-modern world where it was taken as a given that the role of the state was to force people to pursue the good

I imagine the soliloquy:

"I am a non-conformist, a rebel; I think for myself. I speak truth to power. Fortunately, I am not utterly alone in this; I have allies, for example, the entirety of the legacy media, its television networks, newspapers, and magazines, the Democratic party, the entire Federal bureaucracy, the publishing industry, the entertainment industry, the educational establishment at every level, the mainstream churches, and those who control what can be said on social media. This makes it a bit easier to be a lonely voice for all that's good, right, and intelligent. At my elite university I learned to despise privilege and that speech is violence, something the Nazi racist deplorables who populate flyover country cannot grasp. I am fortunate that the hedge fund I work for is not unsympathetic to my stand for socialism."