By Spruce Fontaine
What is it that today’s progressive left envisions when they dream of fuzzy utopian ambitions like the “end of history”? A couple of core pretensions emerge. History’s arc will have been bent toward justice, and the unfettered autonomy of the individual will usher in ultimate freedom. How does any of that actually manifest itself? The leftist clergy of elites and intellectual experts will preside because non-credentialed folk can barely find their own pay grade. That is what so angers the left in the reversal of Roe or the affirmation of the 2nd Amendment. The country class won.
To wax in sync with the left’s donnée has an allure. It is lofty and soaring to talk about protest, martyrdom, ultimate freedom, ginormous arcs, history’s end, and Justice! The unfortunate title of a favorite pop album of mine is “Who Speaks for the Planet Earth?” What self-importance. One tingles at the rush of such empty validations. Jesus opined simply on this subject in Matthew 6:7: “they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.”
The allure to intone the smugness of their “extra big” hearts is only part of it, though. Leftists are also impatient in their eschatological dreaming. They are drawn to theatrics as a release. At best, it’s let’s go, pussy hats. At worst, it’s burn, baby, burn or shoot a Supreme Court justice. The leftist’s impatience assumes the impossible outcome of a finished, well oiled planet. Humanity’s infinite variations are all magically accounted for in perfect harmony, like a Super Bowl Coke commercial. Just close the churches, empty the prisons, and let prisoner and parishioner hug each other. It’s John Lennon’s “Imagine,” unbound as the shackles of oppression fall off and we can love thy neighbor’s life partner without consequence and the pedophile shall lie down with the child.
Be honest. Is there a shred of viability to such a queasy end of history? Leftists dare not pursue the question lurking beneath. Do they really want history to end? Their “much speaking” has no interest in history ending. Someone will always want to speak for the planet. When was the last time the smartest man in the room shut up? Then, too, establishing true justice would be to banish their lifeblood, which is “peaceful” protest. And what to say about the idea of unfettered personal autonomy? Is that not simply a fancy sobriquet for no-fault degeneracy?
In the last analysis, everybody gets what he wants until he doesn’t. The left’s tragic flaw is God with a small (g). But God’s power is that he created, knows, and wields all information — even “the mis” and “the dis.” He is never self-absorbed or surprised. His leftist children here in mortality haven’t the least clue about temporal mechanics, let alone endorse celestial ones.
So pick, say, the arc of history and bend it to actually touch justice. In the end, we will find we still need a jury. And what if the verdict is unsatisfactory?
My home town had a small, no-frills moving company. Their unofficial slogan was, “If it don’t fit, force it.”