Here’s a question to which I never hear a coherent answer: “What will the world look like when the Social Justice Left has won?”
I know what kind of world I want: a world of communities and individuals. Communities with different values. Individuals with different values, some of whom I can avoid because I don’t like their values—or whom I might befriend even though I don’t like their values. I want maximum personal liberty. Our respective values and beliefs make us different, and I want a world of difference. Otherwise, we have a world of eternal oppression.
What kind of world does the Left want, and how might that play out, in reality, when the Left has vanquished people like me?
Many leftists, “progressives,” and “modern liberals” are utopians—almost millenarianists. They believe society can be transformed, and mankind perfected, that human nature can be demolished and rebuilt—once people like them have sufficient power.
Utopianism always means more government, more top-down solutions, less individuality, less community. You’re told what you may say and think, what words you may not use, what behaviors you must approve, what scientific facts you must deny.
The road to Utopia never gets there. It’s an infinite road, full of marching prisoners—patrolled by snitches who report, and enforcers who punish any deviation.
Utopians talk of “loving acceptance of all people.” That’s the most intolerant concept imaginable. It means forcing people to suppress whatever private values they might have and adopt the “non-judgmental” values of their betters. Implicitly, it means letting others dictate what’s right or good—or letting them decree that such concepts are mere constructs.
The banner of inclusiveness and diversity bears the slogan, “Shut up.”
You might know that two and two make four, but an all-powerful government (call it The Party) could force you to say two and two make five, or whatever other number The Party dictates for the moment. You might continue to think that two and two make four, but you’ll not be allowed to say it—and you’ll eventually be buffaloed into defending a lie.
That will make you angry, of course. Ever notice how so many people on the Left seem perpetually angry? Maybe I would be angry, too, if I were constantly repeating lies that I knew were lies, but that I felt I had to repeat because I wanted to look good to my leftist friends.
The Left wants power over you.
That is all.
The utopian Left doesn’t really care about people of color, women, gays, etc. It doesn’t matter how black you are, how gay you are, how Hispanic you are, whatever: If you belong to a protected group, and you betray the Left, you are outcast. You and your family will be shunned and defamed by the “woke,” maybe even physically terrorized and economically destroyed.
If you are not allowed your values—if you must shut up if you disagree with The Party—you are not a person. You are an artifact. A thing. The leftist agenda, in a sense, denies your very humanity, by denying your human nature.
I believe—perhaps naïvely—in a natural order. A Tao, if you like. I can’t tell you where it originates, but it exists. Maybe the Tao comes from a creator; maybe from a “Life Force”; maybe it’s evolution; maybe it comes from nothing. Whatever its source, man has a nature, and a natural way—just as a frog, a bird, or a yak has. Part of man’s nature is reason, whence comes independence of thought, diversity of values and preferences.
The utopian Left believes human nature can be conquered; that they can annihilate the old Tao—and create a new one, based on their emotions. Sure, some of us might behave wrongly, they think, but human beings are potentially good. They can be made good, they can be corrected of their errors, the Left believes—but the only means to that end is force, force to the utmost. To “perfect” society, we must grant our betters the power to make us what they please.
Get this straight: these people hate you. Former President Obama wasn’t kidding when he said he proposed to “fundamentally transform America.” That is what he and his kind want.
What would you think of a man who said, “I intend to fundamentally transform my wife”? Not, “I’m going to encourage her to change a certain bad habit she has,” but “I intend to fundamentally transform her.” You would conclude that he hated his wife, had no respect for her. Would he “fundamentally transform” a person he respected?
The Left wants power over you. That is all.
Utopians will never perfect society because they stand on nothing. Right now, they’re pumping their legs like Wile E. Coyote when he has run off the edge of the cliff—and hoping they can keep moving forward into thin air. Inevitably, though, they will plunge into the abyss. That would be funny—except that they are determined to drag decent people down with them.