The Nihilism of the “Progressive” Left
(A recent comment by pparets equating leftwing policy proposals to nihilism, got my attention, and with some able referential assistance from Sparkie, our resident if quirky philosophical guru, we have jointly penned the following.
FYI: Nihilism is a philosophical position that argues that life itself is without any discernible purpose or value, that there is no reasonable or scientific argument for the existence of God, and that no objective morality or code of behavior is intrinsically possible. A corollary belief advocates that society is sufficiently “bad” or “unfair” as to warrant its destruction for its own sake, absent any constructive alternative.)
The modern liberal movement’s flirtation with self-destruction in America began with the publication of a single song, BLOWIN’ IN THE WIND by Bob Dylan in 1962. It quickly became the anthem of the anti-war, anti-authority movement and it’s enigmatic, nihilistic lyrics struck a chord in the minds and hearts of liberals which resonates to this day.
Yes, ‘n’ how many times must the cannonballs fly?
How many years can a mountain exist
before it is washed to the sea?
The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind.
Dylan’s opus speaks directly and uniquely to a little-recognized motif in the contemporary Leftwing ethos: The belief that there is virtue in destruction - even self-destruction - and joy in chaos over order. The tantrum had begun.
Nine years later, the enigmatic crusade toward self-destruction adopted yet another, more powerful anthem, John Lennon’s “Imagine.” The paradox of a man worth well over $150 million advocating a world with “no possessions” was largely ignored. The Woodstock generation had found adulthood… and its own secular version of religion.
As an example of the “dance-with-death” dynamic consider that in the 1980’s when the HIV/AIDS virus began to spread and its unforgiving scythe began to mow down first hundreds and then thousands of victims, scientists quickly identified the cause. AIDS was a lethal, self-replicating virus spread by the choice of avoidable behaviors, which could be prevented by the simplest of means – abstinence from homosexual sex and intravenous drug use.. The response of the gay bathhouse community and their liberal cheerleaders was instant, irrational and ultimately self-destructive. This, they said, was an effort by conservatives to control human sexuality! And so began a political struggle which raised the death toll into the millions. Within 24 months, AIDS victims were literally being anointed as martyrs in the struggle against oppression. Being ‘gay’ became a noble cause and today gay-marriage and gay culture threatens to rend the very fabric of our culture. That so many have died so needlessly is of little concern to those whose politics condemned them. They were, after all, martyrs. And today, while AIDS continues to ravage the American Black community, a community still largely in denial, nationally prominent “men of God” decry not the behavior that kills, but the “white power structure” that purportedly created the epidemic to kill off black Americans. The Left, meanwhile, stands mute in politically correct assent.
In the 1990’s, energy experts began to warn that in the next 20 years the American economy and way of life could be damaged or destroyed by a looming international oil crisis. They called on congress and the president to take steps to prevent what has today become a reality. Among the recommendations were tapping our vast supply of coal, drilling for ample oil off our coasts and in ANWR, invest in nuclear energy and begin a crash program to build modern refineries. Again the response of the Left - allied this time with environmentalists - was swift, irrational and nihilistic. ANWR, they cried, was a pristine wilderness which would be destroyed by oil companies driven by profit and - anyway - meaningful supplies of oil from ANWR would take 10 years to come on line, and would never be of any real significance anyway. Defeatism masked as environmental orthodoxy.
Today, the classic liberal argument goes like this: Somewhere, somehow, sometime we will run out of oil. Better to stop drilling for it now, tax those who produce it and use it, and spend the money on stuff like wind-farms.
Translating that view to the personal human experience, one could just as easily argue that somewhere, somehow, sometime, your life is going to run out. Why not end it now and supplement the death-tax.
Taxes and the economy are another area of public policy where the Left views self-destruction as salvation. America’s population grows at an average rate of two percent per year. And that’s just the “legal” population. But where a rational optimist would pursue policies that encourage economic growth and the creation of more productive employment opportunities, those on the Left prefer increasing taxes and increasing government regulation, the very actions which stifle creative economic growth and lead to a stagnant economic malaise.
Perhaps the most pertinent, and irrational example of Leftist nihilism is in the area of national defense… the single most basic function of any government. For more than 20 years the same Leftists who screamed that government was not spending enough money to save those whose own self-destructive behavior cost them their lives to the AIDS virus, decried plans for a strategic missile shield which would quite possibly save us all, Ballistic missile defense was unworkable and a waste of resources. Better to accommodate those who threaten us and maybe they’ll leave us in peace. Kum-ba-yah!
Similarly, the West’s current struggle against radical Islamists and corresponding attempts to enforce the non-proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weaponry, are met with bored disparagement from the “progressive” Left. We must reason with those who would destroy or subjugate us, goes the surreal and seductive mantra.
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…
