The Dark Passions Of The Left - Thriving On The Fantasy Of Evil And The Coming End Of Days

The issue of whether evil does or does not exist in the world has been the subject of philosophical debate for centuries, with little conclusion.  Previous centuries’ theologians who began with the a priori assumption that God exists had a particularly prickly time justifying the existence of evil. 

The emergence of St. Augustine’s thinking – and one which has dominated the Christian Church ever since – is that there is no such substantive, distinct thing called ‘evil’.  It is just the absence of good.

As a young man, Augustine followed the teachings of a Christian sect known as the Manicheans. At the heart of Manichean theology was the idea of a cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil. This, of course, proposes one possible solution to the problem of evil: all goodness, purity and light comes from God, and the darkness of evil has a different source.

However, Augustine came to regard this cosmic dualism as heretical, since it undermined God's sovereignty. Of course, he wanted to hold on to the absolute goodness of God. But if God is the source of all things, where did evil come from?

Augustine's radical answer to this question is that evil does not actually come from anywhere. Rejecting the idea that evil is a positive force, he argues that it is merely a "name for nothing other than the absence of good".

However, Augustine was aware that everyone ‘knew’ that there was evil in the world.  Whatever they called it, however they conceived of it, people observed the most horrific examples of anti-human behavior – Godless behavior, many thought; and since God was good, then there had to be a devil, somehow set up in his own kingdom as a kind of semi-autonomous state performing the necessary task of challenging ordinary mortals.

Augustine’s account of evil is, of course, metaphysical rather than empirical. He is not saying that our experience of evil is unreal. On the contrary, since a divinely-inspired world is naturally oriented toward the good, any lack of goodness will be felt as painful, wrong and urgently in need of repair.

This explanation has stretched the limits of believability.  There are too many inexplicably, pure diabolical events that occur, say many believers and non-believers, to label them ‘the absence of good’

We may demand a better account of the apparent positivity of evil – of the fact, for example, that holocausts and massacres often involve meticulous planning, technical innovation and creative processes of justification.

So, the world still tends to fall into two camps, one which believes that evil does exist and the other which believes that evil does not exist but is simply an exaggerated expression of the human nature which is in all of us. 

The American Left, as avowedly atheistic as any reformist movement, believes that evil does exist in the world and is resident on earth, although by no means Satanic in origin.  Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler are evil incarnate, progressives say, created by the denominations of history, genetic wiring, the crucible of family, and random exogenous factors. There was no God involved nor any Devil, but the result was the same.  Evil is a real, palpable, definable, and inevitable fact. 

Conservatives believe that there is no such thing as either Satanic evil or an independent, self-sustaining, independent evil force of nature.  Human nature is aggressive, territorial, defensive, self-protective, and violent and there will always be some who have the will, determination, and intelligence to harness their own inherently demanding nature and manipulate those they rule. 

Nietzsche was the most insightful of moral philosophers, contending that there is no such thing as Good or Evil; and the only validation of the individual in a meaningless world is the expression of pure will.  The combination of human nature, existential randomness, and genetic chance produce men capable of incredible force and dominance.  

They are the Supermen who ride over the herd.  Powerful men like Trump, Putin, Xi and the thousands of emperors, shahs, kings, and shoguns of the past have had the emotional wherewithal and the moral relativism to carry out their most ambitious intents. There  is no reason, therefore, to look at any leader as evil.

The columnist, political observer, and lately Democratic shill David Brooks has written about the dark forces extant in the land, largely because of Donald Trump. 

Donald Trump is a man almost entirely motivated by dark passions — hatred, anger, resentment, fear, the urge to dominate — and he stirs those passions to get people to support him.

Not only has the American Left fallen into the trap of believing there is evil in the world; but they have made a political party based on it.  America is led by an evil man, and his evil if not stopped will pervade every aspect of life, will infect every town and city, will spread like a horrific Ebola virus and destroy the country. 

A little history, one would think, would give the Left at least some perspective.  The world since its first Paleolithic settlements has been a brutal place, characterized by war, civil strife, tribalism, religious aggression, and constant, implacable self-centered ambition; and America now is predictably no more violent or 'evil' than at any time in the past - nor any more good. 

Yet progressives persist in holding dearly to the notion that Donald Trump is not simply a political mountebank, a tummler, a no-holds-barred street fighter, a man of the meanest streets in America, and a canny politician, but an evil man, an insurrectionist, a hateful racist, misogynist, fascist bigot. 

From this a priori political conviction, there can be nothing good that can come out of the Trump Administration.  Nothing the President has done - close the borders, reawaken the American energy giant, free the private sector from punitive, anti-productive legislation, reestablish American military might, and restore Jeffersonian originalist principles - can possibly be good.  Anything done by an evil man must be evil.  The Left lives within a vicious circle of hate and febrile fantasy from which it cannot emerge. 

This is a perfect storm. A political movement, progressivism, which categorially believes in the presence of evil, has no historical perspective, no philosophical context, nor any psycho-social understanding cannot but promote a culture of doom.  Ironically for a doggedly secular party, it speaks the language of religious fundamentalism, of saviors, resurrection, redemption, and a heavenly future. 

The hypocrisy of the Left - arrogantly presupposing a grasp of moral fundamentals while speaking vaporous notions of progressive righteousness - is now there for all to see.  They have become streetcorner preachers, shouting 'The end is nigh', ragged marchers carrying 'Repent' signs, wild desert prophets warning of the end of the world.  No one is paying attention any more. 

The Trump government does not just represent a reversal of progressive folly - it is a virtual revolutionary remaking of America.  No President in recent memory has put actions behind words so declaratively and so forcefully. By the time Trump is finished, the bits and pieces, the fragments of the progressive left will be scattered to the four winds. 

Politics is not moral, and never has been.  Machiavelli was right over five hundred years ago - self interest rules individuals, families, and nations.  There is no such thing as evil, only the absolute amoral pursuit of power.  The sooner the Left understands this, the more hope it has for a resurrection.