Earlier this week while reading an
article from a relatively new writer I found myself in the comments sections. I
won't reveal who this author is or what he was writing about exactly (I want to
protect the privacy of all involved) but because I consider his writing close
to that of this coalition most of his articles are greeted with vituperation in
the foulest forms in the comments section. I usually post a comment in support
of him.
While looking I ran across a
quasi-familiar voice who for the purposes of this article I'll refer to as
Ernest. He was making a loud and angry rant defending student protestors and
how proud he was of them. As my readers know this is a common subject of mine
in my articles and comments about how little it has ever done to help the cause
of liberalism. I also know, on this site like many others, arguing that
protesting is ineffective and in fact has often helped the cause of
conservatism is not something that the left wants to be told and in fact gets
very creative in the language they use when you impugn on that idea. But as
always I wasn't doing it for the protestor but for the coalition.
I went off on my usual combination of
angry rant/constructive criticism making all the points I've made before and
which I'm pretty sure most of you are aware of. As always I knew one of two
things would come from Ernest: he'd either ignore me or call me horrible names.
Ernest chose a third option, basically
bringing up six different causes that I've no doubt were personal to him and
that I'm sure he's protested for. The first he mentioned which is the most
pertinent is marching against apartheid in South Africa.
This is a subject I'm familiar with
and I am very aware that while the protest movement did play a role it would
have been meaningless without multinational support from global and American
politicians. When elected mayor of New York City David Dinkins, the first
African-American to hold that office, chose to divest the city of its
investments in South Africa. Another critical figure Ronald Dellums began an
anti-apartheid campaign in 1972 and fourteen years later the House of
Representatives passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, calling
for sanctions against South Africa. Reagan vetoed the bill but both Houses of
Congress combined to override the veto for the first time in the 20th
century when it came to foreign policy. In other words many people may have
protested apartheid for decades but Dellums actually spent his career trying to
do something about it.
I didn't go into this detail with
Ernest (I was being brusque and pointing out the flaws of his other issues) but
considering he had the usual pineapple of politeness that most of those who
answer me do I didn't think he deserved it, and anyway I wasn't writing for
him.
Incredibly less than two hours after I
concluded my criticism Ernest responded by referring to me as 'my silly friend'
and said "There are undisputable facts here>"
1. College students protests, chanted
and (as our silly friend sayid {sic} marched in a circle to fight for justice
on each of these issues.
2. Progress was made on all these
issues from ending apartheid in South Africa…
And then in the very next sentence he
gives it away:
Admittedly I can't prove causation. I
don't have a way to prove that college students had a significant effect on
causing social change. But I can point to many examples where there was social
change on the very issues the college students were protesting.
Remember that old phrase:
"Correlation does not necessarily equal causation." 'Ernest' clearly
never heard of it. He goes on:
"I am proud to have protested South African Apartheid when
I was a college student…I would like to think we had a part in causing
change (italics mine for emphasis)"
In this response 'Ernest' has pretty
much spelled out the full nature of the delusion of the progressive activist
dating back since Vietnam. That he clearly is unable to see the reality of what
he's essentially revealed makes all the more pertinent that we understand it
because it's basically dogma with every activist in the 21st
century.
The modern activist is incapable of
realizing that without political power, marching alone doesn't cut it. You need
economic and political power somewhere down the line and people who are willing
to listen to listen to you in that world. The protestors against the Vietnam
War, with the exception of the Eugene McCarthy candidacy in 1968 and their
failed attempts to unite the left behind McGovern, never had that.
And in my lifetime activist movements
have been all about getting attention before the camera rather than working
towards a political goal. For all the energy of the demands for AIDS funding,
the lesbian and gay community made no real progress during the 1980s until the
end of the 21st century because they were built on rage and
demanding to be heard rather then trying to convince politicians to help them.
Much of what passed for civil rights in the 1980s and 1990s under figures like
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton was always build on rage and anger rather than
trying to build bridges. Certainly none of it ever compared to what the
conservative movement was doing at every level of government and in the media.
From the 1980s to the 21st century, the right organized at a
governmental level, the left shouted and protested for the cameras. We all know
who won that battle.
In the 21st century the
left has spent much of its time following the gospel of Marx – Groucho far more
than Karl. Whatever it is, they're against it. They've been against the War on
Terror, the War in Iraq, the WTO, they've occupied Wall Street, they've been
against police violence, police brutality and anything the Republican Party has
been associated with – though to be clear, they've never been that wild for
Democrats. They've made it clear how they feel about Donald Trump and have made
it clear to anyone who will listen and even those who wouldn't for ten straight
years. They're against the One Percent, capitalism, billionaires,
trillionaires, ICE, Gaza, book banning, book publishing, white supremacy, the
patriarchy, and of course moderates.
I don't blame the protestors for being
angry and outrages about so much of what's happening in the world. I understand
the frustration and the desire to do something about it. It's admirable and
should be encouraged. Where I differ with the Ernests of the world is that I
actually want to do something to fix things long term rather than take
the quick, dopamine hit of protesting and chanting.
I've often wondered if people like
Ernest actually look at their actions and believe they've created change or
they delude themselves into thinking they have because it makes them feel
important. Looking at Ernest's response I see it’s a mix of the two. He wants
or needs to believe he played a role in the fall of apartheid because it makes
him feel like he played the same kind of role as elected officials like Dinkins
and Dellums did. But it's not anywhere
near the same thing at all. Activists
have done much in recent years to argue their roles are more important then
those of the politician but you can't have real change without both. Laws and treaties have a far more important
effect then the rhetoric of the activist. Today's protestors have forgotten
this fact, if they ever knew it and in the case of the Ernests in the world, I
think that's debatable.
One of the recurring lines of the
left-wing activist is 'We're on the right side of history'. This works for many reasons. First like all
progressive statements it pushes the goal lines for the outsider down the road
to some indeterminate time in the future. Second it argues that the other – who
the left has already decided must be disregarded as a bigot – can't make any
judgments, only some future society will, who of course will argue as always
the progressives were correct. And finally it forces any opposition into
proving a negative because there's no way in the present one can prove that you
will be regarded what will happen later.
All of which absolves the activist – in their own minds, which is all
that matters - for any responsibility
for their actions in the present,
The irony is, of course, that the
prudent historian can demonstrate with the benefit of hindsight which actions
worked for one side and which failed for the other. The leftist themselves do
this when they choose to look back and argue how previous generations have
failed them. That decades, even centuries, after so many of the historic
events that have passed by the left knows to a moral certainty what previous
generations did incorrectly but still can't define what we should do now, is
another example of their willful blindness.
'Ernest', to be clear, believes
sincerely that he his actions were the correct ones and that they changed the
world. That he admits that he can't prove this fact is no reason for him to
dismiss his certainty that he did. Furthermore, he makes it clear he is proud
that the next generation are doing the exact same thing he did in regard to
world events. That all they are doing is perpetuating the same endless cycle I
listed above is not something he is willing to concede and he certainly has no
intention of telling his children otherwise.
And why would we? It's nearly
impossible to admit to ourselves that our actions were not only meaningless in
the grand scale of things but that they may have contributed to so much of the
wreckage that this 21st century America. In a world when even
listening to the opposition is considered a betrayal of the cause – even if by
doing so it might at last bring about the change the activist has spent their
lives working for - the burden always
seems to be on the 'other' to come to them.
That throughout American history there are far more examples of those on
the left preferring to stay on the outside throwing thunderbolts rather then
work within the system to bring about change
- and those actions have almost always delayed the cause of reform far
more than they have ever helped it - is
not something the activist wants to acknowledge either.
I should mention the only thing that I
found shocking about Ernest's commentary is that he was so forthcoming about
something I've only suspected for years. I merely bring this commentary up
because going forward those who wish to bring about reform – the kind that
Ernest believes he was vital to in his memory but in reality had nothing to do
with - we must make it clear that the
activist is never going to solve the problem because they have no clear idea
themselves how to solve it. They have
convinced themselves that there is only one way to do things, they will hear no
other and they will pass that down from generation to generation like a family
heirloom rather than something far closer to a genetic defect – an inability to
hear any opinion but one's own. This
makes them part of the problem, not the solution. And if we want to bring about
a better world we have to realize that they have no desire to bring it about
themselves.
As for 'Ernest' I don't expect to hear
from him again. I ended my discussion with him by putting forth a question that
no leftist ever wants to answer because it undercuts everything they believe
in. It's always easier to either ignore it or call the questioner part of the
'enemy.' I always leave the door half
open for reasonable dialogue even among those I disagree with. That's another
difference between them and me, even though they'll never acknowledge it either.
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