Head In The Sand Idolatry - Why Faith Always Trumps Reason In The True Believer, The Curse Of Social Justice

Vicki Chalmers would never describe herself as a true believer.  She was old enough to remember the book of the same name by Eric Hoffer in 1951 - a damning criticism of political mass hysteria generated by increasing numbers of adherents to a cause who believe that it undeniably right.  The true believer was described as a credulous, needy, emotionally desperate person for whom belonging and community approbation are his lifeblood.  

 

No amount of reason, objective inquiry, factual conclusion, or rational judgment can move the true believer off the mark, for to do so would be to rob him of his identity, self-esteem, and credibility.  Belief is the be-all and end-all of the true believer. 

As much as Vicki protested, the label fit her to a tee. She was a subscriber to the liberal canon without reservation.  She was in concert with progressives on the black man, the climate, immigration, sexuality, capitalism, and foreign affairs.  It didn't take more than a headline to send her to the barricades. 

She was so insular in her thinking that she refused to consider the opposition's arguments which, ipso facto were wrong.  Liberalism, nurtured over the years of a hermetically-lived experience, was the perfect solution for the world's problems; and conservative was the diametric opposite, the source of inhumanity, prejudice, and injustice. 

Vicki also resented the 'knee-jerk liberal' label. While it was true that she reacted quickly and consistently to liberal claims, this did not mean that she did not consider the alternatives; and while it was true that she dismissed these options out of hand, that did not mean that there was no modicum of reason in her conclusions. 

Yet up and down the line she showed nothing but a rock-ribbed inflexibility that denied reason.   The climate was changing due to human intervention, it was existential in nature, and that an end-of-the-world incineration was assured if nothing was done to stop its progress.  The black man was a sentient, higher order being of the forest, attuned to his primal instincts and attuned to his environment like no other.  He, thanks to this forest, tribal, animist legacy, belong on top of the human pyramid, not at the bottom.  

   

She believed on the basis of faith alone that the transgender woman represents the most advanced evolution of sexuality since the first Homo Sapiens.  Open borders are the welcome to the oppressed brown and black populations of the world that best expresses the real America. Crime is a result of white supremacy, oppression, and persistent segregation.

She believed in all this heart and soul and without hesitation and was willingly deceived in each and every case. 

There should have been more to Vicki than just political idolatry.  Graduate of a premier women's college, married to a wealthy attorney, and with homes in Bethesda and Palm Beach, she should have been more complex, or at least multivariant, interested in far more than political servitude and certainly less obsessed with the febrile notions of progressivism. 

But no, Vicki was indeed a woman possessed and happily so.  Her life, compared to her classmates who wandered and dithered, played golf, and arranged tea parties, was one of commitment, purpose, and ideals.  How could they possibly sit by and watch the evil of conservatism corrupt the hallowed institutions that she, her colleagues, and their ancestors had built.  She was a legatee of Brandeis, Lafollette, Gompers, and Hegel, and was proud of it. 

For true believers like Vicki progressivism was no different from a religion.  It had a canon, a liturgy, commandments, oratorio, sacraments, priests and a belief in the hereafter.  Vicki again refused the association - progressivism was all about secular progress and real religion was an obstacle in the path of reform - but had she taken a moment to reflect, she would have realized that The Movement was no different from Islamic evangelism.  The creation of a world Muslim caliphate and the conversion of the world into a socialist empire were cut from the same idealism and true belief. 

Iran is in flames, hundreds of Iranians are dying in the streets to reclaim their country, their freedom, and their human rights from the clerical dictators who have ruled for almost five decades; but Vicki and her colleagues remain quiet.  There are no outpourings of Free Palestine support for the Iranian people, and their silence is tantamount to support for one of the world's most abusive regimes.  The progressive canon states that Iran is an implacable enemy of Israel, the Jews are marauders and occupiers of Arab land and overseers of brown people who want only recognition.  

Hypocrisy has no limits when it comes to the true believer, the obsessive, the needy.  The Venezuelan people are cheering the capture and removal of Maduro, the President-for-Life who ruled the country with an iron hand, instituted socialist policies that ruined the economy, and turned an once prosperous country to ruin.  Yet, Vicki has been silent.  The extraction of Maduro was another overreaching, illegal, arrogant act by Donald Trump, and whatever the outcome, it must be condemned.  Trump hatred - absolute, reflexive, judgmental, and unthinking is central to the canon.  Nothing he does can possibly be right, so his every action should be outed for the sham that it is. 

ICE fires a shot, and they are no different from the prison guards at Auschwitz.   They are ipso facto in the wrong, and no patently self-serving claim of self-defense can justify the murder of an innocent Minnesota woman. 

 

The fact that she was an Antifa recruit, trained in violent opposition to ICE and all federal troops; and that she used her vehicle as a deadly weapon to run over a federal agent and kill him was irrelevant to Vicki.  The ICE agent was a murderer, pure and simple. 

Through all this Vicki was happy.  Tragedy, especially at the hands of Donald Trump, justified the progressive hatred of him and rejection of all his programs and policies.  She was happy when January went by with no snow on the streets, when northern India baked in insufferable heat, when federal troops were deployed in Washington, DC overstepping Constitutional authority and abrogated municipal authority.  Hard as it is to admit, she wanted disaster to happen. That would show 'em.  That would send an irrevocable message to Trump and his cronies. 

Progressivism is a movement based on misery, penury, fear, and intimidation; but its members are a happy, contented lot.  They may be righteously angry, but inside they are happy to see the rightness of their ways. 

Most importantly, Vicki and her colleagues are happy to share their lives with others of the same beliefs, for community is all - it is an identifier, a solace, a place of worship, and a center of goodness.  She couldn't wait for the next demonstration on the National Mall.  She couldn't remember what it was about, but knew she had to be there. She would pack lunches for her bus-mates and be the first to assemble in front of the Lincoln Memorial, just like in the good old days of Martin and Ralph and MLK's famous 'I have a dream' speech.  It felt good to be a progressive. 

Of course Donald Trump and conservatism was throwing a spanner in the works, and country after country in Europe and the Americas was turning right, adopting conservative social and economic principles, championing white, Christian, European civilization and calling out Muslim terror, insularity, and Christian hatred. 'We don't want them' is the meme in contrast to American progressives' cry, 'We'll take them all'. 

 

So the blush is off the bloom of the rose, but Vicki is undaunted, resolute, and still passionate about the progressive agenda, even more so given the rise of the Right everywhere. 

She lit a candle in her living room - not a votive candle exactly, but a light to shine in the darkness.  It meant a lot to her. Her hand trembled as she struck the match and lit the candle.  Was it old age creeping up on her? An unwanted vision of Trump's brave new world? A questioning of her life of immutable belonging?

We'll never know, but even if at this moment of epiphany she might have considered the Stoic, the Epicurean, the Nietzschean, the the Existentialist and wondered if they were on to something, she probably didn't, smiled, adjusted the painting of Dr. King on the mantlepiece, and sat down.