Last week in the United States Senate we were privileged to experience a United States Senator, protected and privileged by the full power of the most powerful nation state the world has ever seen, likening himself to a 1st century BC Thracian slave, leader of a failed slave revolt: Spartacus.
Hey, How come a Jewish kid, Kirk Douglas, got to play Spartacus in the movie? Couldn't they find a Thracian to do the job?
This event excited me, because it puts the capstone on my "Activism Culture" concept.
My idea is that if you want to understand the left, and why every well-born good little girl from college wants to get into "activism," you need to understand the basic game that the left is playing.
We start with the warrant for government: It is to protect our people from the invaders. That is the warrant for any state. We must defend the borders from invaders that would come and steal our grain, kill our men, and ravish our women. If there is no such threat, then there is no warrant for government.
So if you are a well-born rich kid, with an urge to make a name for yourself, what do you do? What do you do when you live in a society that is basically at peace and where there is no threat from the Huns or the Mongols? Moreover, in the modern state, we have separations of power, checks and balances, strict rules limiting the powers of the government that protect people from the power and pride of the ruling class. How is a rich kid to make a name for himself?
It was the genius of Marx and Engels to figure this out. You advocate for people outside the system that are not represented in the councils of government. Suppose you are a Captain Swing rioter, a landless agricultural laborer in Sussex in 1820 facing oblivion as you observe the farmers buying the new threshing machines that are going to put you out of a job and out of a livelihood. Do you go and talk to your local Member of Parliament? Hardly, because you don't have the vote. So your only option is the option of the cornered rat. You lash out, and smash the threshing machines, because the alternative is just to curl up and die.
In 1848, when Marx and Engels issued their Communist Manifesto, the workers did not have the vote. So the coolest thing that the son of a prominent lawyer and the son of a prominent textile manufacturer could do with their lives was to say: Yeah! We support the workers! Justice for the workers! And imagine themselves leading the workers through bloody revolution to the Happy Isles of emancipation and justice.
But as I keep saying, the rising bourgeoisie of the time, that was beginning to be the dominant political class, was not that interested in power. They were perfectly happy, with a bit of prodding, to give the workers the vote, and even submit to the workers' legislative agenda which would do nothing for good middle-class responsible citizens except raise their taxes.
Do you see the problem for the Marxes and the Engels? If the workers had got the vote, and thus their political views were getting a hearing, then there was no need for young rich-kid activists to lead them to revolution and death or glory at the barricades.
That's when we come to Leftism, Phase 2, courtesy of the rich kids of the Frankfurt School in the 1920s. They came up with the cool idea that activist rich kids should lead women and minorities, who were then without the vote and civil rights and were oppressed and exploited, to revolution and liberation and emancipation. Revolution Baby, was the cry of the lefty rich-kid followers of rich-kid Frankfurt School alum. Herbert Marcuse in the fabled Sixties.
But Oh No! The bourgeoisie led by noble liberals gave women the vote, and civil rights to non-whites, so just about everybody was not within the system, and could get the ear of politicians and the Man and didn't need to riot in the streets to get the attention of the ruling class. Now what?
Perfectly simple. Gays! It was monstrous that gays didn't have the right to marry just like heterosexual homophobes. But then gays got their gay marriage. So now what?
I know! The only people outside the system are now illegal immigrants and Muslims. So let's advocate for them and break down the barriers of hate and xenophobia and fill the streets with AntiFa and women's marches and cut the haters and the extremists off from social media!
Do you see the point? If there is no oppressed group outside the system there is no warrant for the clunking fist of government and no need for well-born rich-kid activists to mount the barricades for Justice!
And that would mean that well-born rich kids would have to get a job. Or do something much more difficult than the "activism" of spending other peoples money on politics: like doing the Peter Thiel thing of Zero to One. In other words the real hard thing to do is to find something that nobody has thought of and make it into a successful business, creating jobs for ordinary Joes and Janes and some fantastic new product for the masses.
But really! What well-born rich kid wants to do something that difficult? It's much easier -- and much more fun -- to get into politics and find something that needs the application of force, because you are fighting some existential peril. Something like climate change, refugee kids, or bike lanes, or plastic straws.
The point is that behind all these busy attempts to find something that justifies a political movement is the moral and ethical problem of being a well-born rich kid. How can you justify your lust for political power?
Even being a rich kid advocating for the underprivileged is a bit of a hokey thing. Charles Dickens could see it over a century ago with his Mrs. Jellyby who was all worked up about the plight of natives in Africa while neglecting her kids and the natives right there in London were shivering and going hungry.
So it is not surprising that the well-born rich kids reimagine themselves. They are not haughty Lady Bountifuls spreading charity among the poor and the homeless. Oh no. In reality they are fearless slaves challenging The Man: "I am Spartacus."
Only, of course, the well-born rich-kid activists are lying to themselves, lost in a Spartacus Illusion. Because They are The Man.
As any racist sexist homophobe deplorable can tell you.
Hey, How come a Jewish kid, Kirk Douglas, got to play Spartacus in the movie? Couldn't they find a Thracian to do the job?
This event excited me, because it puts the capstone on my "Activism Culture" concept.
My idea is that if you want to understand the left, and why every well-born good little girl from college wants to get into "activism," you need to understand the basic game that the left is playing.
We start with the warrant for government: It is to protect our people from the invaders. That is the warrant for any state. We must defend the borders from invaders that would come and steal our grain, kill our men, and ravish our women. If there is no such threat, then there is no warrant for government.
So if you are a well-born rich kid, with an urge to make a name for yourself, what do you do? What do you do when you live in a society that is basically at peace and where there is no threat from the Huns or the Mongols? Moreover, in the modern state, we have separations of power, checks and balances, strict rules limiting the powers of the government that protect people from the power and pride of the ruling class. How is a rich kid to make a name for himself?
It was the genius of Marx and Engels to figure this out. You advocate for people outside the system that are not represented in the councils of government. Suppose you are a Captain Swing rioter, a landless agricultural laborer in Sussex in 1820 facing oblivion as you observe the farmers buying the new threshing machines that are going to put you out of a job and out of a livelihood. Do you go and talk to your local Member of Parliament? Hardly, because you don't have the vote. So your only option is the option of the cornered rat. You lash out, and smash the threshing machines, because the alternative is just to curl up and die.
In 1848, when Marx and Engels issued their Communist Manifesto, the workers did not have the vote. So the coolest thing that the son of a prominent lawyer and the son of a prominent textile manufacturer could do with their lives was to say: Yeah! We support the workers! Justice for the workers! And imagine themselves leading the workers through bloody revolution to the Happy Isles of emancipation and justice.
But as I keep saying, the rising bourgeoisie of the time, that was beginning to be the dominant political class, was not that interested in power. They were perfectly happy, with a bit of prodding, to give the workers the vote, and even submit to the workers' legislative agenda which would do nothing for good middle-class responsible citizens except raise their taxes.
Do you see the problem for the Marxes and the Engels? If the workers had got the vote, and thus their political views were getting a hearing, then there was no need for young rich-kid activists to lead them to revolution and death or glory at the barricades.
That's when we come to Leftism, Phase 2, courtesy of the rich kids of the Frankfurt School in the 1920s. They came up with the cool idea that activist rich kids should lead women and minorities, who were then without the vote and civil rights and were oppressed and exploited, to revolution and liberation and emancipation. Revolution Baby, was the cry of the lefty rich-kid followers of rich-kid Frankfurt School alum. Herbert Marcuse in the fabled Sixties.
But Oh No! The bourgeoisie led by noble liberals gave women the vote, and civil rights to non-whites, so just about everybody was not within the system, and could get the ear of politicians and the Man and didn't need to riot in the streets to get the attention of the ruling class. Now what?
Perfectly simple. Gays! It was monstrous that gays didn't have the right to marry just like heterosexual homophobes. But then gays got their gay marriage. So now what?
I know! The only people outside the system are now illegal immigrants and Muslims. So let's advocate for them and break down the barriers of hate and xenophobia and fill the streets with AntiFa and women's marches and cut the haters and the extremists off from social media!
Do you see the point? If there is no oppressed group outside the system there is no warrant for the clunking fist of government and no need for well-born rich-kid activists to mount the barricades for Justice!
And that would mean that well-born rich kids would have to get a job. Or do something much more difficult than the "activism" of spending other peoples money on politics: like doing the Peter Thiel thing of Zero to One. In other words the real hard thing to do is to find something that nobody has thought of and make it into a successful business, creating jobs for ordinary Joes and Janes and some fantastic new product for the masses.
But really! What well-born rich kid wants to do something that difficult? It's much easier -- and much more fun -- to get into politics and find something that needs the application of force, because you are fighting some existential peril. Something like climate change, refugee kids, or bike lanes, or plastic straws.
The point is that behind all these busy attempts to find something that justifies a political movement is the moral and ethical problem of being a well-born rich kid. How can you justify your lust for political power?
Even being a rich kid advocating for the underprivileged is a bit of a hokey thing. Charles Dickens could see it over a century ago with his Mrs. Jellyby who was all worked up about the plight of natives in Africa while neglecting her kids and the natives right there in London were shivering and going hungry.
So it is not surprising that the well-born rich kids reimagine themselves. They are not haughty Lady Bountifuls spreading charity among the poor and the homeless. Oh no. In reality they are fearless slaves challenging The Man: "I am Spartacus."
Only, of course, the well-born rich-kid activists are lying to themselves, lost in a Spartacus Illusion. Because They are The Man.
As any racist sexist homophobe deplorable can tell you.
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