When major and shocking events occur, there is, of course, a tendency for people to respond more emotionally than rationally, and to overinterpret their significance. But it seems to me that two general points can safely be made about the current situation.
The first is
that Kirk’s murder has vividly illustrated how dangerous and destructive of social
order are the ideologies that have in recent decades come to have such a
pervasive influence in academia and the culture more generally. This is evident not only from the so-called “anti-fascist”
motivations of the shooter, but the approval of this murder shown by a
disturbing number of people on the left side of the political spectrum (the
same people, it seems, who also lionized the murderer of United Healthcare CEO
Brian Thompson).
In an
article at Postliberal Order last
year, I argued that “woke” ideologies are, in spirit, essentially revivals of
the toxic and antisocial Manichean heresy which, in various guises, occasionally
spread like a pestilence through medieval Europe. Much of the political violence we have seen
in recent years, such as the riots of the summer of 2020 and the assassinations
of Thompson and Kirk, illustrate just how dangerous these ideologies are. Their influence within academia and the
broader culture must be thoroughly extirpated, root and branch.
By no means do
I deny that there are also serious problems on the right end of the political
spectrum. On the contrary, I
have argued that Manichean tendencies can also be seen on the right, in,
for example, the QAnon movement. Some of
the recent political violence has also come from the right, as in the case of
the January 6 riot and the assassinations this June of Democratic Minnesota
state legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband. Right-wingers have also sometimes been guilty
of ugly responses to violence against left-wingers, as in the case of the
attack on Paul Pelosi. In no way does
this entail positing some “moral equivalence.”
Let the blame be parceled out in whatever unequal way you like – 60/40
or 70/30, say, instead of 50/50 – the fact is that there is bad behavior on
both sides.
All the
same, I would argue that the problem is more fundamentally on the left than on
the right, because the cultural left more thoroughly dominates major
institutions – academia, journalism, pop culture, and so forth. This is why the moral and cultural center of
gravity has in recent decades moved steadily leftward (as the decline of
religious belief, traditional sexual morality, and the like illustrate). The right has in some ways reacted badly to this,
but precisely because it has been in a position of greater weakness and thus
greater desperation. Nor, in my view, does
recent GOP electoral success show otherwise.
I would argue that that mainly reflects dissatisfaction with Democratic
excess and incompetence rather than any revival of cultural conservatism. Indeed, it occurred precisely as the GOP
itself moved
leftward on moral and cultural issues.
But this
brings me to my second point, which is that as bad as things are for moral and
religious conservatives, they are nevertheless not as bad as too many on the right pretend. In the days since Charlie Kirk was murdered,
many hotheads on social media have suggested that we are now essentially in a
state of civil war and ought to respond accordingly. This is foolish and dangerous talk, and not
true to the facts. In reality, despite
the evil things too many “rank and file” left-wingers have been saying about
Kirk’s assassination, most of the leading voices on the left have strongly
denounced it, often in ways that show real human solidarity with their rivals
on the right (some examples I’ve called attention to on Twitter being Bernie Sanders, Cenk Uygur, and Tim Robbins).
Not only as
a matter of justice and charity, but also for the good of the country and of one’s
own soul, it is crucial not to fall into the trap of pretending that all people
whose political views are contrary to one’s own are monsters, or that they
otherwise basically all think alike. Real life is more complicated than that. It is crucial to acknowledge this reality,
and to work with all men of good will to bring down the political temperature
while this is still possible. For as bad
as things are now, an actual civil war, or any level of political violence
approximating it, would be incalculably worse.
In recent
months, the bitterness of current U.S. politics – and especially the stubborn
insistence of too many on fighting ideology with counter-ideology, lawfare with
counter-lawfare, and so on – has often brought to my mind Thucydides’ account
of the civil war in Corcyra, in his History
of the Peloponnesian War. We have,
thank God, not descended to the level of violence he describes. But the mentality
he describes, which led to that violence, is all too disturbingly evident. I’ll end this post with some relevant
passages, a warning from antiquity that we ignore at our peril:
Civil war ran through the cities… And they reversed the usual
way of using words to evaluate what they did. Ill-considered boldness was counted as loyal
manliness; prudent hesitation was held to be cowardice in disguise, and
moderation merely the cloak of an unmanly nature. A mind that could grasp the good of the whole
was considered wholly lazy. Sudden fury
was accepted as part of manly valor… A
man who expressed anger was always to be trusted, while one who opposed him was
under suspicion... In brief, a man was
praised if he could commit some evil action before anyone else did, or if he
could urge on another person who had never meant to do such a thing.
Family ties were not so close as those of the political
parties, because party members would readily dare to do anything on the
slightest pretext… To take revenge was
of higher value than never to have received injury...
Those who led their parties in the cities promoted their
policies under decent-sounding names: “equality for the mass of citizens” on
one side, and “moderate aristocracy” on the other. And although they pretended to serve the
public in their speeches, they actually treated it as the prize for their
competition; and striving by whatever means to win, both sides ventured the
most horrible outrages and exacted even greater revenge, without any regard for
justice or the public good… The citizens
who remained in the middle were destroyed by both parties, partly because they
would not side with them, and partly for envy that they might escape in this
way.
Thus was every kind of wickedness afoot throughout all Greece
by the occasion of civil wars... People
were sharply divided into opposing camps, and, without trust, their minds were
in strong opposition. No speech was so
powerful, no oath so terrible, as to overcome this mutual hostility... For the most part, those of weaker
intelligence had the greatest success, since a sense of their own inferiority
and the subtlety of their opponents put them into great fear that they would be
overcome in debate or by schemes due to their enemies’ intelligence…
Those who attacked… primarily out of zeal for equality… were the most carried away by their undisciplined passion to commit savage and pitiless attacks… Human nature, having become accustomed to violate justice and laws, now came to dominate law altogether, and showed itself with delight to be the slave of passion, the victor over justice, and the enemy of anyone superior. Without the destructive voice of envy, you see, people would not value revenge over reverence, or profits over justice. When they want revenge on others, people are determined first to destroy without a trace the laws that commonly govern such matters, though it is only because of these that anyone in trouble can hope to be saved. (Book 3, Paul Woodruff translation, at pp. 139-43)
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