One of the basic tent-pegs holding up my world view is the notion developed by Crane Brinton in The Anatomy of Revolution. The idea is that there comes a time in every revolution where the revolutionaries get desperate. Despite the glorious prophecy, the New Age has not dawned.
Why? It's got to be the reactionaries, the kulaks, the saboteurs and wreckers. In our day, of course, it's the racist-sexist-homophobes. Did you know that it is xenophobic to refer to the Chinese Flu instead of the WHO approved COVID-19?
What to do? The answer is always the same: pedal to the metal. Push the movement's agenda to the utmost. Stop compromising with the other side. Push them out of the way.
In the French Revolution it was the Reign of Terror and Virtue. In the Bolshevik Revolution it was Death to the Kulaks. In Maoist China it was the Great Leap Forward followed by the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Now I believe that in the United States we are seeing the failure of the progressive agenda. I think we are seeing that the big government adminisrative state doesn't work. I think we are seeing that the Sexual Revolution doesn't work. I think we are seeing that the regulatory state doesn't work. I think we are seeing that "I am woman, hear me roar" doesn't work.
That is why the left is accusing everyone of being a racist-sexist-homophobe.
And so our wokerati friends are overreaching. In California they are trying to kill the "gig" economy -- meaning especially Uber and Lyft -- with the so-called AB5 act -- and are demolishing the arts, including writers and musicians. In Oregon they are so determined to save the climate that they are steamrollering a cap-and-trade policy past a desperate GOP opposition and the Democratic governor is now implementing the policy by executive action. Here in Washington State the Democrats are pushing a cap-and-trade bill. What is cap and trade?
Because there is no time to be lost! The climate deniers, funded by eevil oil and gas interests, are going to kill us. Unless we act now.
And the Democrats in Washington have been running a three-year campaign to hinder and humiliate President Trump in every way possible. Including a special prosecutor investigation and an impeachment effort. Now, according to reports, House Democrats are trying to put abortion policy into emergency legislation to help deal with the Hunan Virus Epidemic.
Yeah, you might say. What is wrong with these people? What happened to bipartisan compromise and both sides working together?
What is wrong is that the world promised by the prophets is not working out for them. All the things their prophets told their supporters are turning out false. And so they are getting desperate; they are turning up the volume.
Well, here's my Prophecy. It's all going to collapse, the whole lefty world view. Because? Because the progressive agenda is a conceit of the educated Gentry that does nothing for ordinary Commoners. It is an excuse for the educated Gentry to puff itself up with Important Issues and activisme and peaceful protests and Goals and Timetables. But it does nothing for ordinary people.
And, I would argue, it devastates the Clients, the Subordinates, the grateful serfs that suck on the tit of the admninstrative state and its entitlement programs. But that is another story.
So our lefty friends are desperately lunging for the finish line. One last WWI-style Big Push. One last ideological purge to clear the world of deplorables and haters.
The argument of Anatomy of Revolution is that the Reign of Terror is followed by a Thermidorean Reaction that ends up as Napoleon.
In our day, if you like, the Sixties Kids were followed by the Nixon Reaction of the Silent Majority and the Reagan era.
And the "fundamental transformation" of Barack Obama was followed by the Trump Reaction of the bitter clingers and deplorables.
Notice the common denominator of the Nixon and the Trump Reaction? Both Reactions were really revolts of the Commoners. Or, as Nietzsche might have said if he were writing today, revolts against the hoity-toity Gentry secular "priests" that were teaching us to hate ourselves.
But maybe I am wrong. Maybe this time really is the Millennium of the Wokerati. Maybe.
What's that? You are looking for a bridge to buy?
Why? It's got to be the reactionaries, the kulaks, the saboteurs and wreckers. In our day, of course, it's the racist-sexist-homophobes. Did you know that it is xenophobic to refer to the Chinese Flu instead of the WHO approved COVID-19?
What to do? The answer is always the same: pedal to the metal. Push the movement's agenda to the utmost. Stop compromising with the other side. Push them out of the way.
In the French Revolution it was the Reign of Terror and Virtue. In the Bolshevik Revolution it was Death to the Kulaks. In Maoist China it was the Great Leap Forward followed by the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Now I believe that in the United States we are seeing the failure of the progressive agenda. I think we are seeing that the big government adminisrative state doesn't work. I think we are seeing that the Sexual Revolution doesn't work. I think we are seeing that the regulatory state doesn't work. I think we are seeing that "I am woman, hear me roar" doesn't work.
That is why the left is accusing everyone of being a racist-sexist-homophobe.
And so our wokerati friends are overreaching. In California they are trying to kill the "gig" economy -- meaning especially Uber and Lyft -- with the so-called AB5 act -- and are demolishing the arts, including writers and musicians. In Oregon they are so determined to save the climate that they are steamrollering a cap-and-trade policy past a desperate GOP opposition and the Democratic governor is now implementing the policy by executive action. Here in Washington State the Democrats are pushing a cap-and-trade bill. What is cap and trade?
a system for controlling carbon emissions and other forms of atmospheric pollution by which an upper limit is set on the amount a given business or other organization may produce but which allows further capacity to be bought from other organizations that have not used their full allowanceSee? Another "system," beloved of bureaucrats and ideologists.
Because there is no time to be lost! The climate deniers, funded by eevil oil and gas interests, are going to kill us. Unless we act now.
And the Democrats in Washington have been running a three-year campaign to hinder and humiliate President Trump in every way possible. Including a special prosecutor investigation and an impeachment effort. Now, according to reports, House Democrats are trying to put abortion policy into emergency legislation to help deal with the Hunan Virus Epidemic.
Yeah, you might say. What is wrong with these people? What happened to bipartisan compromise and both sides working together?
What is wrong is that the world promised by the prophets is not working out for them. All the things their prophets told their supporters are turning out false. And so they are getting desperate; they are turning up the volume.
Well, here's my Prophecy. It's all going to collapse, the whole lefty world view. Because? Because the progressive agenda is a conceit of the educated Gentry that does nothing for ordinary Commoners. It is an excuse for the educated Gentry to puff itself up with Important Issues and activisme and peaceful protests and Goals and Timetables. But it does nothing for ordinary people.
And, I would argue, it devastates the Clients, the Subordinates, the grateful serfs that suck on the tit of the admninstrative state and its entitlement programs. But that is another story.
So our lefty friends are desperately lunging for the finish line. One last WWI-style Big Push. One last ideological purge to clear the world of deplorables and haters.
The argument of Anatomy of Revolution is that the Reign of Terror is followed by a Thermidorean Reaction that ends up as Napoleon.
The Thermidorian Reaction was a liberal-conservative counter-revolution that followed the toppling of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794. It wound back the Reign of Terror, purged the government of Jacobin influence and attempted to restore some of the political, social and economic values of 1789.Brinton argued that the ideological frenzy of revolution cannot be sustained. Eventually, people demand to return to ordinary life.
In our day, if you like, the Sixties Kids were followed by the Nixon Reaction of the Silent Majority and the Reagan era.
And the "fundamental transformation" of Barack Obama was followed by the Trump Reaction of the bitter clingers and deplorables.
Notice the common denominator of the Nixon and the Trump Reaction? Both Reactions were really revolts of the Commoners. Or, as Nietzsche might have said if he were writing today, revolts against the hoity-toity Gentry secular "priests" that were teaching us to hate ourselves.
But maybe I am wrong. Maybe this time really is the Millennium of the Wokerati. Maybe.
What's that? You are looking for a bridge to buy?
No comments:
Post a Comment