Ah, Reverie! – Fairy Tale, Myth, Fantasy, And The Remains Of The Left's Day

Arthur Longstreet knew absolutely, positively, that the world would be a better place.  Despite the discouraging historical record, there were reasons to hope.  Life was better now for the black man than ever before, gay and lesbian Americans were enjoying a free, uninhibited, open life, and the harshness of laissez-faire economics and the untamed era of the Robber Barons were things of the past, all thanks to the liberalism of Debs, Lafollette, Brandeis, and Gompers and their modern day inheritors. 

Arthur in fact was not just a lifelong progressive, optimist, and believer in the ultimate righteousness of the American people.  The canon of progressivism, the high calling of social reform, and the belief in progress were part of his soul.  He had dedicated his whole life to making the world a better place.  There was nothing else.  Friendships, family, religion were all within the context of progressivism - the parts were nothing without the whole. 

Which is why Arthur was unsettled and uncomfortable in these conservative days.  Although it was unconscionable to conceive of the world that Donald Trump and his shills envisaged, there it was, and the reforms that Arthur and his colleagues had achieved were not only being challenged but ridiculed.  

This was not political opposition, it was apostasy.  The progressive canon was more than policy, it was an ordained truth, an irrevocable, universal, and permanent code of behavior.  It was - with all due respect accorded - no different than the Ten Commandments, absolute principles of right action that have been the foundations of morality ever since Moses received them from God on Mt. Ararat. 

Arthur smiled at this reference, for he was no religious fundamentalist.  The myths, heroic stories, marvelously spun tales of bowers of bliss, resurrection, and eternal peace were man's creation as a temporary salve for life's unpleasantness.  In time they would be dismissed in the New Utopia, a world of secularism, social justice, and community.  Yet the parallel - the metaphor - was apt, and when he went on the circuit, he found that it was just the elision needed to bring doubters to bear. 

So given this certainty, this profound belief in the absolute righteousness of progressive principles, how could so many Americans reject it?  There could be only one conclusion - the profound ignorance, and genetic stupidity of these backwoods crackers born with half a double helix - or at the very least their buggering brutishness obviated any rational thought. 

The facts were there, indisputable and irrefutable.  The black man represented the highest and best expression of human society.  A natural man with highly attuned sensitivities to forest, environment, and native wizardry, a highly evolved creature of special intelligence, wisdom, and insight.  The gay man represented the final evolution of the human race out of the bonds and chattels of heterosexuality.  Communitarianism was the world's native society and individualism but a crude, raw obstacle to commonwealth and polity. 

Arthur felt like blessing himself - an old habit that dies hard for a former Catholic.  He was reminded of the Stations of the Cross, the Via Dolorosa, the path of Jesus to Jerusalem and crucifixion and the wisdom of his words pronounced with calm and equanimity even though he knew the horrific torture to follow.  The progressive canon was no different from the gospels, the words of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John transcribing the thoughts of Our Lord. 

 

Again Arthur hesitated.  He still had work to do to expunge these nettling traces of Catholicism.  He could let nothing of such fanciful notions interfere with his mission. La Lucha Continua he shouted to no one in particular.  

Arthur was a dreamer, a man whose whole being had been subsumed within a fairy tale, an impossible reverie of notional hopes and ideals.  Even one cursory look at history belied his progressive beliefs.  The world was not becoming a better place, for despite the cosmetics, human nature was as defiantly aggressive, territorial, self-interested, self-protective, and murderous as it always had been.  The wars that have persisted throughout history are constant reminders of this innate hardwiring.  The Twentieth Century with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot was one of history's most violent, and the Twenty-First is getting off to a good start.

 

The lionization of the black man has been vaporous and thinly disguised hagiography.  Neither in Africa nor the diaspora has he come anywhere near the top of the human pyramid as progressives have predicted.  The touted sexual revolution, the post-heterosexual generation has been nothing less than a circus freak show; and the redistribution of wealth has been as sorry and ineffective an idea since the Soviets gave it a try in 1917.  The grab bag of identity and diversity has only detracted from concepts of individual worth and human premium - a superficial, face-value focused idealism with no foundation in fact. 

'We are one', said Arthur to a group of devotees in a Dupont Circle apartment, progressives like himself who although now scattered and at sixes and sevens because of the Trump juggernaut had not lost the faith in the future.  In an ironic to that old colonialist Winston Churchill, Arthur said, 'We will never give up, never, never never' to which everyone stood up and cheered and raised their fists in a salute. 

But these little cabalistic sessions were now few and far between and discussions had become more like readings of Gilgamesh and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight than any serious policy colloquy.  The progressive movement had become untethered from economic and social reality and become a loose-shunted, directionless fairy tale of hopeless optimism.  

Arthur shuddered when he saw Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Elizabeth Warren holding court in a joint celebration of diversity in Cleveland. How did these old, sagging hags ever make it up onto the dais?  Progressivism had taken enough licks since the Trump election without Americans being reminded of these tired cunts.  And on another platform not far away were Kamala Harris and AOC, younger cunts but no less irrelevant.  Unable to make sense, howling and shouting about 'their time' with no clue how to mount a counter-revolution, they were immediately supernumerary, they should have been hooked off stage like an unfunny vaudevillian. 

They were trying to reach for something other than childish, notional fantasy, and make policy; but neither the fabulists nor the gobbling, cackling women made any sense whatsoever. 

This was an existential moment, thought Arthur, the beginning of the end; and for him to admit this was tantamount to striking the set. If a man with his passion, lifelong commitment, and doctrinal purity could even entertain such an idea, there must be something to it. 

Meanwhile, the Trump juggernaut keeps rolling, picking up steam and supporters with all signs pointing to years of conservative governance.  Arthur would like to believe otherwise, but he alone amongst his true believer colleagues, sees the handwriting on the wall.  'That's all, folks', said Bugs Bunny at the end of cartoon, and those words exactly expressed the depressive but accurate state of affairs in Washington.