"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce" (
Karl Marx)
I will readily grant you the excesses of American imperialism, the blatantly insincere nature of its proclaimed values, and its glorification of horrible violence as national myth. I further grant that to hear Americans speak of things proper is galling beyond all measure, their insincerity extending to an ever-forgiving moral amnesia that makes all national farts smell of roses, placing all above reproach on a throne of false moral superiority.
But that is true of every nation and tribe on Earth, and it has always been so. By their own words and plain reading, religious texts are particularly partisan and blind in this manner, confessing to horrors while posturing as saints. Americans occupy the Chief ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ chair right now, that is all.
I do not wish to excuse; rather, to take a moment to reflect that the
other, more invisible and insidious danger we all face in times of tyranny is the rash adoption of some apparent ideological salvation. Marx is a perfect example. His analysis is spot on; his recommendations are silly and ignorant of human nature, forgivable perhaps by the appeal to noble cause.
Or not. It is the appeal to ideals, to a clear and shining path toward the best of intentions, that can give a near-murderous impulse toward whatever is felt to be an opposite direction to what is rejected. This is what possesses the political and religious right today, and really, always. It is the road to hell.
It is a dangerous time for proponents of precisely tweaked and regulated markets, of deliberative and informed democracy requiring deference to expertise and to matters of demonstrable fact, of carefully balancing the contrasting forces governing the creation and use of wealth, of relying on a largely unspoken social contract that, in the past, was grounded on a shared frame of reference.
No one wants to hear that the answer to a complex world is also complex, that solutions are only partial and provisional, and that feeling our way forward as a species successfully requires a light step, a keen eye, and caution. Yet, the prophets of our day, religious and political, are empty fools spouting broken recipes.
Here comes disaster. It may be from Trump, or from some bold solution to him.
My hope? In simple terms, let the rich pay, and pay well, let their hands be removed from the levers of power, but let not the wish for social justice call for a political or economic system that simply does not work. The rich, like the poor, will be with us always. Capitalism, properly restrained by truly enforced business charters, understood as deadly serious contracts with society, is the way forward, together with strongly regulated campaign finance and lobbying laws.
The concentration of wealth and political power in single hands, be it by the Right or Left, is the enemy of freedom, and takes many forms. Let's make sure we know to identify and fight the right enemy.
