Earlier this year I was visiting the family, parents and sister. They live in a big Blue city in a big Blue state, so as part of my mental self-defense I brought along a best-of Chesterton essays to read. This was when I was reading him for his anti-progressive cleverness, and not for his Christianity. Though that moment was rapidly approaching.
One early evening I was sitting in the living room reading to avoid the non-stop MSNBC playing in the TV room. I could look clear across the house to the kitchen, where my mother was ranting on about how no one should be having children because of climate change.
I looked down at my book. Gilbert was talking (yes, I was reading but I hear him as if he is talking; that’s his style) about how families are a little kingdom that provides escape from the tyranny of the modern world.
The rant from the kitchen: families are bad, they make women slaves.
Chesterton: “Of the two sexes the woman is in the more powerful position. For the average woman is at the head of something with which she can do as she likes; the average man has to obey orders and do nothing else.”
In other words, it was a typical radical secular Leftist rant during a family visit. Yet this time, instead of hunkering down and trying to retreat into a mental castle where I could fitfully defend my self-esteem against the endless siege, Gilbert was presenting a way out. No, not just out but to something better, Christianity. It was at that moment I thought, I should actually read the Bible for myself because what I’ve been taught is insane but what Gilbert is telling me makes much more sense. And so started my journey into Christianity and away from secular humanism, which the Left has rejected anyway and probably was never held by them as a conviction but just a bridge to something monstrous, Identity-based Social Justice, though that was a secret they kept to themselves.
But why, do you ask, would anyone even want to practice such an insane belief system?
When you’re liberal/progressive/radical Left, as I was raised to be from birth, you are taught what I call the “required hates”. Those start with the Others, and then progress inwards.
Hate Republicans.
Hate Christians.
Hate the rich.
Hate the whites.
Hate men.
Hate the straights.
Hate children.
Hate free speech (for others).
Hate cars.
Hate roads.
Hate houses.
Hate money.
Hate construction and manufacturing.
Hate carbon.
Hate that you have to work.
Hate that you have to put gas in your car.
Hate that you have to have a car.
Hate that you need money.
Hate that you need an airplane to travel.
Hate that you need A/C to get through the heat.
Hate that you need animal protein to live.
Hate that you need exercise to stay healthy.
Hate that healthcare isn’t free.
Hate that you are unhappy.
Hate that you are happy.
And the final commandment of the Progressive Left:
Hate yourself.
This list isn’t complete; I’m sure you can make your own. Every progressive’s mix of hates is different. And new hates are generated monthly, so add to your collection! It’s like a Franklin Mint of misery.
(Funny enough, these progressives usually reject Church and tradition because they don’t like having a list of things they can’t do. Don’t try to point out the irony to them—the response will be hostile).
Keep in mind, my childhood was in the pre-internet age. There was no where to turn for a second opinion. This was the family culture and anyone who might say otherwise was carefully kept away from me. There was no place else to turn or find another way of thinking.
School was no help. This was the 1970s so the cultural precursor of today’s Wokeism was strong. We were shown film strips (remember those?) of our projected life-long consumption of food to make us feel guilty. We were told about climate change but, inconveniently, it was global cooling at that time. Are you a boy who raises his hand in class? Put it back down, the girls get to answer first, your filthy male chauvinist pig. And so on. We were told we were bad, a burden, a drain on the world and society. And that’s education for you.
Having children just to punish them for existing is a very peculiar form of mental illness.
Lest you think I’m exaggerating, I recommend going to Janice Fiamengo’s “Fiamengo File” Substack and reading the comments. Reactions to each post rapidly becomes a form of talk therapy for we who were raised in this hellscape. For most of my life I thought this was unique to my family culture but I have learned, it’s a common experience of those us raised in the radical Left. We were just all gas-lit into thinking misery and self-loathing was normal.
But why? Not “why did the children believe this,” we were given no choice. We couldn’t know anything better. But the adults? Why would adults embrace such a depressing outlook, and then imbue it into children?
Depression and anger are empowering. You feel that you have a special knowledge that something is wrong and that no one else can see it. You know you’re a terrible person but it’s your special knowledge, so your depression is self-affirming. You know about this terrible worldly injustice that all those stupid normal people can’t see. Your anger makes you better than them.
Your fellow adults though are so stupid, no? They don’t see the special things you see and your special knowledge. They’re so happy and content! Fools.
But children...children are malleable.
So the teacher makes her class into a bunch of little bitter social warriors, and their anger and depression justify her anger and depression. She feels important. The parents make their children self-righteous, angry and judgmental which justifies their feeling the same. And look at those other children of other parents, happy and laughing, ignorant. Our child is so much better because they know. (See, Thunberg, Greta).
Does this mean there is no joy at all? No, there is laughter. Jokes are made. Good things are shared. But there’s always a twinge of sarcasm to it. People who are truly joyful in their heart of hearts are seen as suspicious. They are counted among the most ignorant. And they usually are religious, Christian here in the West. That is one of the origins of the Left’s hatred of that religion.
Ah, but an astute reader will point out, isn’t this Leftist self-righteousness like religion? Absolutely. It’s a dark shadow of the Christianity they reject, especially those who were raised in the religion. The Leftists who were never raised Christian dance the forms without knowing that they are acting out a sort of counter-point to the West’s founding religion.
So you are raised to hate and you grow into adulthood continuing to hate and judge, most of all yourself. But it all feels good because it makes you better than everyone else.
Every sin must have its relief. While the Leftists are judging others they also understand that they are also not perfect. For the ultimate goal, which is the perfection of the world, is out of reach through your own imperfections.
The acceptance of the imperfection of the world and yourself is not in the mindset of the Left. Because there is no afterlife for them they have to strive to make this world perfect. History is no lesson for them because this time, absolutely, they’ll get perfection right. They just know they will. The arc of history led to this very moment, did it not? Making the world perfect is salvation.
The Abrahamic religions get their salvation from from God. The Eastern religions get their salvation from the impersonal system of karma. Either way, it’s something given to humans (or earned) by a force outside of the material human world.
But for the Leftists, there is no God to ask forgiveness of. I mean, look at him. He’s PaTRiaRcIaL and is against abortion! Obviously he hates women and gays and pretty much anybody who’s not a straight white guy. And he’s Jewish. We won’t debase ourselves from asking for forgiveness from a being like that. And it’s not like he exists anyway, it’s all made up to keep dumb people down. Obviously.
Original Sin was dismissed by the Left as a mind-control fabrication meant to make people controllable and grovel before a patriarchal authority. Social Justice sin is seen as a right and correct re-figuring of the judgment of history, punishing just the right people and leaving alone sinless others.
Karma is popular among some Leftists in a pop culture sort of way, but if you’ve been around the New Agers you learn quickly that karma is something other people suffer from, not them. Their embrace of karma can be easily dismissed.
But the dismissed Original Sin says something important, something the Left does not; despite your imperfections you are a good person. And there is a way to be better and those improvements in your character will be acknowledged and accepted by your community and by God. You can be a better person, always. And sin is universal to all humans therefore salvation is universal as well. There are no identity categories in the eye of God.
The secular Left says your “sin” cannot be improved upon no matter what you do. You carry it always from birth to death. It is based on your identity, not by your own actions. The only way to make up for that original sin of being the wrong race, sex, gender, and income level is endless punishment. You “absolve” by attacking the source of “sin” in this world, both yourself and the sinful others like you. Because the mark is permanent this process never ends.
So the “salvation” is not vertical but lateral. You save yourself against your imperfections by destroying those less perfect than you. If you destroy enough, the world will be perfect here and now in this lifetime. Or if not, in the future for someone else, but certainly not you, since you are simply a bad person.
And this is why Leftists are miserable and make everyone miserable as well. To try and save themselves from the judgment of simply existing. They accept it because they have been taught from birth that they are bad, bad people based on an unchanging set of identities. There is no improvement and no happiness, no goal, no final triumph. Just self-punishment.
If you are a lucky Leftist you get a chance to step outside and look back and become an ex-Leftist and learn to love yourself, even just a bit. I’ve made that journey, really still am on that path. Periods of remission last longer than they used to but a flare-up of self-loathing sometimes comes back.
Church does most of the heavy lifting on that path these days. Mass and the absolving of sins. I go, I confess, I let it go, I know I can do better, I strive to do better. Always knowing I am a good and valued human being. No anti-depressants or reparations necessary.
Left, right, whatever, using your own opinions and morality to dump on everyone else's way of life is bad. The thing that drew me to the left, especially in high school, is I couldn't be who I wanted. I wanted to take joy in being queer and dramatic and a nerd and there were elements of my environment that limited that (while other people were very open and accepting). Now, I want to create an environment where everyone can feel that way. Leftist rhetoric online, where the most intense voices get promoted, is guilty sometimes of creating this toxic, unhelpful environment. And it can feel very heavy and unpleasant. All that to say, I am sorry that you have felt this way. I'm glad you're finding something that helps bring you back to your center.