The idea that change and progress can be potentially destructive and represent decline and decadence goes back to Plato. In essence and applied to our time, outlined mostly in his dialogue 'Timaios,' the underpinning thought is that social and political evolution must always be tempered and corrected by the ideal ontological concepts of man and the various manifestations of his coexistence.
The ancients also made us aware that a democratic republic is in constant danger of perishing due to the inability to deal responsibly with the core element of its political system - liberty. They showed us clearly that once a democracy transforms itself into an OCHLOCRACY, the reign of the mob, it is on its best way to coming apart.
When the mob of a society floods the streets, negates the laws and the order their elected representatives have stipulated for that very society, the state of political affairs has reached the eleventh hour. When the proletariat attempts to intimidate the government and openly threatens to overthrow it, the social community is about to descend into chaos and ungovernability. What awaits is tyranny!
This development is precisely the reason why so many commentators speak of an imminent civil war in the U.S. I felt compelled to point out that more than a year ago when the country faced the hatred and nasty obstructionism of the left in the wake of their loss in the presidential elections (https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2017/07/a-sick-republic-yeah-dude-im-talking.html).
As I pointed out, the stunning fact in the U.S.' case is that the societal mob does not only consist of disgruntled blue-collar workers or angry hordes of jobless people but rather recruits from all strata of society. It is made up and even led and represented by elected officials of the Democratic Party, supported by many neoconservatives and so-called Never-Trumpers and a considerable portion of the mainstream media and exponents of academia the world of arts and culture.
Examples of the rants of renowned people who have apparently lost their minds and probably never had morals are aplenty. They prove how unhinged and utterly unacceptable the discourse on the political left has become:
- Democrat Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who encouraged violent harassment of Trump supporters and White House Staff.
- Republican Senator Jeff Flake, Trump back-stabber and open-border advocate.
- HBO show host Bill Maher wished the economy to crash and the country to fail to get rid of Trump.
- Hollywood actor Robert de Niro, talking in front of high school kids of the elected president as a 'soulless, amoral, abusive, con-artist SOB.'
A significant part of the electorate shows disrespect for political institutions, offices, and regulations. Even worse, many elected representatives of both parties in executive and legislature at federal and regional levels do the same. They negate one of the prime features of democratic republics: that governing regimes alternate due to periodic electoral decisions. Without a doubt, ill-education and wrong morality have penetrated all strata of society.
I gave an account of how immoral the political dialogue has become shortly after President Trump took office. Once the desperation of the far-Left had shown its real fascist face (https://edwinseditorial.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-tyranny-of-left.html), I made clear what brought about this sheer ubiquitous political illiteracy. I blamed the lack of classical art instruction as the primary cause for the utter lack of philosophical depth and wisdom in many areas of US-American politics.
Let's make no mistake. Despite rapid technological advancements and the globalized connectedness of nations and peoples, only against the backdrop of a century-old and even millennia-old can the core elements of our civilizational social and political arrangements be understood appropriately. The condition of the human being per se – aside from driving cars, using smartphones, and moving in airplanes from continent to continent – has not changed.
We avail over the same faculties. We face identical physical and emotional needs. Besides a more substantial oeuvre of historical experience and scientific knowledge, human reasoning and the capacity for moral judgment have not improved. The hubris of progressivism is not only unwarranted but dangerous if developing unfettered and immune to the eternal wisdom of human efforts generated in philosophy, religion, and the fine arts.
The most recent and still ongoing proof to that effect is the widespread ignorance regarding open borders and the bias in extending constitutional citizen rights onto not only foreigners who come to visit or temporarily work here but even onto individuals who entered and remain in the country illegally. It culminates in calls for abolishing ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, as the new battle-cry of the radical left.
In their desperation over Trump being president and, in several policy areas relevant to people, quite successful at it, the progressives move ever further to the left. But as we know, in these times of deranged minds and hearts, hateful obstructionism, and fabricated false news and accusation, there is no limit as to how far the left can go. And the further the left moves leftwards, the more space is being built for blaming even the most reasonable political stances as far-right.
While the lunacy of the radical left seems to know no bounds, quite a few people recovered their senses and fled the Democratic Party. New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn went public and told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in an open letter that he will support President Trump and Republicans until "sanity and honesty to the Democratic Party" have been restored. Hikind accuses Schumer of launching "hard-right attacks" in a recent mailer while ignoring President Trump's "multiple policy victories." Hikind particularly mentions the unemployment at its lowest in decades and economic confidence at a 17-year high, including a record low for minorities.
But these encouraging signs cannot deceive over the fact that for the left – including the neo-liberals and large cohorts of the neo-conservatives – the political struggle has become genuinely existential. As they are looking at the wreckage of their failed policies - pernicious globalist imperialism of interventions and regime-change operations in international relations; deconstruction of Christian values and weakening of the Westphalia Nation-State System domestically - they become ever more desperate. By the way, their policies' apparent failure was the actual reason why Donald Trump and conservative political administrations in Europe got elected.
The left claims that they occupy the moral and intellectual high ground in politics. In reality, they are only moralizing without having morals. Life's reality denies their social and political theories the only real proof for any intellectual concept's correctness – validation by success and improvement of human living conditions continuously at any level of coexistence.
But the left's minds and hearts are neither troubled by the constant falsification of their theories by the chaos they create in real life, nor are they disturbed by the moral depravity of their positions. If it suits their goals, they disparage the sensible as reprehensible, the good as bad, and the American (or civilized) as un-American (or uncivilized). Their existential instinct to survive at all costs makes them relentless in their pursuit to bring down political opponents and whoever and whatever else might stand in their way. It also hinders them from acknowledging the deprivation their progressive policies have brought over the U.S. and the entire Western civilization.
Indeed, Plato was right when he envisioned that progress must not be confused with improvement and betterment. If progress is pushed at all cost and develops unrestrained, without constructive criticism, and without being gauged against the backdrop of the timeless notions of justice and morality, it becomes a destructive and evil force. We have witnessed this development in recent years, if not decades, but it has accelerated to unsavory dimensions ever since Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential elections.
At least intuitively, the silent majority of Americans and people who live in western countries seem to be mindful of the wicked ways of the left and the damage caused to our societies' fabric. They voted accordingly and will continue to do so. But the struggle reached existential significance as to the future of our civilizational development – in this country and beyond.
