Don't Let the Pendulum Hit You on the Way Back

 

It is clear the world is descending into chaos. No truth, no morality, no beauty. Nevertheless, I remain optimistic. 

Not because of any faith in God. Why would God save us from our folly, any more than he saved Sodom and Gomorrah? How can we assume we’re the good guys?

Because of faith in history. 

We have seen cultures go mad in the past, and things did straighten out. They might not if there were some near outsider culture to take over; but I don’t see one on the horizon. The whole world is going mad together. 

The Romantic period, paired with the French Revolution, similarly threw out morality, any sense of abiding reality, and just about any tradition they could get by the throat. Yet it stabilized into the long optimistic peace of the Victorian Era. 

Then there was another time of tumult in the Edwardian period, aka the Jazz age, with art nouveau, then dada, women trying to look like men, Josephine Baker dancing nude, an “eat, drink, and be merry” doomed gaiety. But that settled down into the grim and culturally conservative thirties, forties, and fifties—except for the weird tumorous growth of Nazism and Fascism in parts of Europe, at once a violation of all cultural norms, of notions of truth and morality, and yet imposing social conformity and a rigid code of conduct. But Nazism too was self-limiting.

Back further, the Elizabethan Age in England was riotous; with the ancient verities of Catholicism challenged. Then the Puritans descended and shut things down. 

Then the Restoration was riotous again.

The pendulum swings. 

We can see it swinging already, and some people, like Bud Light, are getting caught out. More will.

My fear now is that it may swing too far the other way. We may get another hybrid tumor like the Nazis; or the Puritans; in reaction and revulsion. 

How safe is it that so much money and power and trust is becoming concentrated in the hands of one man, Elon Musk? He has the money to defy everyone. He has his hands on all the latest technology and technology trends. He may soon be in total control of the public square, if everyone migrates to X. He seems to be a good man; but he is a man. It is well to remember Lord Acton’s axiom. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Or can we really trust Donald Trump? He says good things, and we naturally want to support him in the face of obvious persecution. But how deep is his commitment to anything but power? What is he in this for?

It is dangerous to put so much of our hopes and our trust on one man.

Let’s keep our heads, if we can. 

Bravery Is Now Required to Be on the Left

 

Signs of the great turning proliferate. I mean a victory in the “culture wars.” I mean the cultural pendulum swinging right. For example, friend Xerxes, left-wing columnist of my acquaintance, has stopped running political columns. Now he sticks to topics like memories and growing old. He seems no longer to want to be identified as leftist, or to defend leftist beliefs. 

I rarely see leftist screeds on Facebook any longer. They used to be a relentless drumbeat. Of course, this may have to do with leftist friends “unfriending” me on Facebook when they realized I was not on the bandwagon. On the other hand, one of the bitterest of them, I now hear third hand, has been asking whether she should read Ayn Rand. I suspect she requested that the question be forwarded to me.

Another sign of the times is this rare Facebook rant by another leftist friend, who does not know my politics.

What the hell did you expect me to do?

You told me to love my neighbors, to model the life of Jesus. To be kind and considerate, and to stand up for the bullied.

You told me to love people, consider others as more important than myself. "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight." We sang it together, pressing the volume pedal and leaning our hearts into the chorus.

You told me to love my enemies, to even do good to those who wish for bad things. You told me to never "hate" anyone and to always find ways to encourage people.

You told me it's better to give than receive, to be last instead of first.

You told me that Jesus looks at what I do for the least-of-these as the true depth of my faith. You told me to focus on my own sin and not to judge. You told me to be accepting and forgiving.

I payed attention.

I took every lesson.

And I did what you told me.

But now, you call me a libtard. A queer-lover.

You call me "woke." A backslider.

You call me a heretic. A child of the devil. 

You call me soft. A snowflake. A socialist.

What the hell did you expect me to do?

I thought you were serious, apparently not.

We were once friends. But now, the lines have been drawn. You hate nearly all the people I love. You stand against nearly all the things I stand for. I'm trying to see a way forward, but it's hard when I survey all the hurt, harm, and darkness that comes in the wake of your beliefs and presence.

What the hell did you expect me to do?

I believed it all the way.

I'm still believing it all the way.

Which leaves me wondering, what happened to you?

Grace is brave. Be brave.

-Chris Katzer

This is not another new demand, as we had come to expect, in order to built “hope and change” and a leftist future. Like demands that we use his preferred pronouns, or that some statue be torn down or street renamed, or that someone be silenced. The tone has changed. This sounds defensive.

Whoever the “you” here spoken to is, the opinion of this “you” seems more important to the speaker than the speaker’s own opinion. The speaker insists they have always been obedient and compliant to this “you.” That is a concession that the left has lost the argument. It sounds like a convicted felon pleading for a lighter sentence.

Instead of condemning “conventional morality” and “Christian nationalism,” this most recent effusion tries to claim that the left were the real Christians all along. This is a major concession. After loudly rejecting all moral standards as “social constructs,” they now want to appeal to some common set of values. They want to come to the negotiating table. They know they are losing.

The author (my friend was quoting this) says he learned to sing: "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight." So far, so good. But he carefully prefaces this with “You told me to consider others as more important than myself.”

This is not what Christianity teaches. Christianity teaches “love thy neighbour as thyself,” not “love thy neighbour more than thyself.” This straw man looks like a tacit admission that the left have been racist; while admitting that Christianity demands human equality.

 “You told me to love my enemies, to even do good to those who wish for bad things. You told me to never ‘hate’ anyone and to always find ways to encourage people.”

That the word “hate” is put in quotation marks seems another backhanded admission of wrongdoing, that the left has altered the meaning of the word “hate.” Christianity does not tell us to “do good to those who wish for bad things,” and certainly not to encourage those who have sinned, but to wish the best for everyone. This looks like a belated admission that the left has been endorsing and encouraging sin. Of course they have: but now they seem to admit that sin is a real thing.

The author interprets “woke” is an insult. That is perhaps the most significant sea change. The term of course comes from the left, as a boast: they were “enlightened.” Now they do not want to be associated with it--that’s conceding the whole game. Only a few years ago, in the days of the Bernie bros, they were proud of being socialists. Now they find the term offensive.

They are unrepentant, yes, but they know they have lost the argument.

A Half-Woke Essay

 

Originally appearing in the New York Times.

"What If We're the Baddies?"

People are slowly wake up, including members of the professional elite. 

The Times Are A-Changing

 

Times are changing. To begin with, the turmoil that began in early 2020 is continuing. 

Next up, famine. Credible sources say that crop yields will be poor this summer across the Northern Hemisphere, due to a shortage of fertilizer. Add this to the supply chain problem and the high cost of fuel.

Inflation will accordingly also get worse.

And Biden, Trudeau, and the left will get the blame.

There is a good chance that, in the turmoil, some governments and regimes may fall. Putin looks vulnerable. So does Xi. So does Boris Johnson. So does Justin Trudeau; people are assuming he’s safe until 2025 because of his coalition with the NDP, but actually, the NDP can pull out at any time, and it is in their best interests to do so as soon as possible—as soon as they think they can afford an election. If they keep supporting an increasingly unpopular government until the next election, they will be obliterated. 

Biden seems secure, due to the difficulty of removing a president, but will probably be presiding after November over Republican majorities in both houses. It could be a different world in a year.

Netflix went anti-woke recently. CNN has warned it will fire its partisan personalities. Twitter is going anti-woke under Musk. The solidarity of the left has broken. The Hunter Biden scandal is exposing Joe Biden. The Durham report is exposing Hillary Clinton. The Depp trial has exposed the Me Too movement. Black Lives Matter is being exposed as a scam. Zoom classes have exposed Critical Theory in the schools. Trudeau’s declaration of the Emergency Act is being exposed as illegitimate. Jeff Bezos has rounded on Joe Biden. The legacy media are being exposed on brief after brief: Depp, Rittenhouse, Covington, COVID, the Wuhan lab, the Russia hoax.

The dominoes have begun to fall. As with the First and Second Estates joining the Third at the outset of the French Revolution, this can all shift swiftly. Most of the madness we have lived with from the left is held together with intimidation. We are getting close to the point where people will no longer feel intimidated. Then the Bastille goes down.