Idealism - The Faint, Bleeding Heart Of American Liberalism

American liberals are quick to say that the country is in deep trouble - not that it is beset by racial division, inner city dysfunctionality, and a feral, punishingly partisan, venal, and obstructionist Congress but because its ideals have been doubted, its march to a more verdant, compassionate, peaceful, and harmonious world blunted, and its hopes for Utopia stymied. 

Most of the rest of the world is far less sanguine about its chances.  Europe has been through two recent devastating world wars, and throughout its history countries, clans, and regions have been almost perennially in battle.  The Mongol onslaught, The Hundred Years War, the War of the Roses, the Napoleonic Wars, the Franco-Prussian Wars are only some of the conflicts seen on the continent.  The French and Russian revolutions, the monumental upsetting of civil order by the Soviet Union, and the constant struggles for national sovereignty and expansionist hegemony have been common. 

China throughout its dynastic history has been a country at war - savage, brutal conflicts to decide rule, territorial control, and ethnic dominance. Successive Japanese shogunates have battled for imperial power for over a thousand years.  Africa after independence has become an unrulable, uncivil place with civil war, harsh, interminable dictatorships, and savage tribalism. 

It is not surprising that Europeans, Asians, and Africans are bemused by the optimism and idealism of America.  They know the lessons of history - history repeats itself over and over again and humankind is acquisitive, territorial, and violent. 

The Shakespearean critic Jan Kott wrote that if the Bard's Histories were laid down in chronological order, they would be chronicles of the same, predictable, repetitive events - palace plots, murders, and coups; wars, civil conflicts, brutal leadership, and perennial conflict.  Only the actors change, and they in their marvelous diversity, are at the center of his plays.  Richard III, Macbeth, Titus Andronicus and their women have all been of the same ilk but fascinatingly different.  Goneril, Regan, Tamora, Dionyza, and Volumnia are all have the same indomitable will and hunger for power. 

Europeans are waking up to a radical remake of their societies and culture as millions of Muslims have been let in under permissive immigration policies and are now insular, restive, hostile, and radical.  Yet no European can say that any Utopian dream has been shattered, or that progress towards a more equitable, generous world has been blunted.  This is the way European history has always been - one group always wanting what another has and is willing to fight for their share. 

There is no political group more blind to and dismissive of history than the American Left.  Progressivism by its very name suggests progress, the inevitable path to a better world.  Yet nowhere in history has any country, regime, or empire ever come close to creating such an idealistic place.  The closest mankind came was Pax Romana, a long period of Roman control of the vast territories of its empire. Such complete, authoritarian, and autocratic rule kept the peace - no breaches of Roman hegemony were allowed. 

Yet this was not the Utopia that American progressives look to for inspiration, for it was colonialism writ large.  Rome was an occupying force which maintained power through might, intimidation and collusion. 

The Cold War was another period of peace, for it was an example of the only other modality to geopolitical reserve.  The Soviet Union and the United States had thousands of nuclear weapons aimed at each other, and fear of nuclear holocaust kept them in their silos. 

American liberals refuse to look at history's principal lesson - wars, military might, and the permanent desire for control are common to all eras and generations.  Wars only stop when one side wins, there is a standoff, or one side has managed complete dominance.  There is no such thing as human peace, only settlement. 

The American Left has made the now-discredited climate change the centerpiece of their political philosophy. Any and all means to slow or stop global warming must be used so that the world can achieve its potential as a heavenly place - acres of forests, glades, wetlands, and woodlands.  Other countries, particular America's adversaries, Russia and China think differently.  

China absolutely, unequivocally must acquire the natural resources for the production of energy - key to continuing economic growth and geopolitical dominance. It is not the fate of the Earth which concerns them, but the fate of China. 

These same countries looked at the social agenda of the Biden Administration with glee.  Its policy of diversity, equity, inclusivity, and identity politics drove the nation apart rather than brought it together around a central, universal ethos.  There was no Confucianism at the heart of the American Republic, no guiding moral philosophy; nor was there any hearkening to an imperial past, the history of civilizing empire.  There is nothing concentric about America, just individual groups divided by race, gender, and ethnicity fighting for recognition and their share of the pie. 

Such fanciful, anti-historical myopia bled over into Republican administrations.  The neo-cons of the Bush administration believed in American exceptionalism and that just wars to promote democracy and capitalism are worthy enterprises.  No Machiavelli or Kissinger realpolitik for them.  Good was at stake, idealism once more to the fore. 

Modern Russia and China are on the contrary committed Machiavellian nations. Wars are fought only when a clear self interest is at stake - territory, resources, populations - not some idealistic notion of goodness. 

Donald Trump has joined the group and has dismissed exceptionalism in favor of self-interest; and that amoral stance, that conviction that wars are inevitable and must always be fought places America in the best geopolitical position possible. 

American liberals today have gone beyond simple historical ignorance.  Their idealism has led them into untenability.  They have ignored history, culture, and society and claimed that the black man, sentient superior being of the African forest, attuned to nature and the environment and endowed with a special, intuitive greatness is the model for modern society and must be helped to rise to the pinnacle of world culture.  This despite the tribal primitivism of Africa, the dysfunctionality of the inner city and the bottom-dwelling socio-economic indicators of the African diaspora on any scale. 

These same liberals have insisted that heterosexuality is merely a cultural choice, and that there exists a gender spectrum on which are found hundreds of distinct sexualities.  Reproduction is fungible, mothers and fathers have been replaced by 'gestational influencers' - completely insane attempt to reconfigure biological reality. 

They cling to socialism as the modality of progress when it has failed miserably everywhere.  Redistribution of wealth has always led to a decline in productivity and assured more poverty not less.  Yet because socialism hinges on a strong central government - the kindly caretaker of the people -liberals have embraced it. 

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Perhaps Americans cannot rid themselves of such fairytale idealism; perhaps it is in their history of Manifest Destiny, Westward Expansion, the expeditious settlement of lands from coast to coast, and heroic victory in WWII.  Or in Calvinism, Puritanism, and Protestant fundamentalism. 

In any case the Trump revolution will do much to send such fantastical, idealistic liberalism to the political margins, but history has shown it will not go away. It has become endemic, part of the national character, deeply embedded and permanent.