I also find this perplexing. It seems to me that for the people to lose their belief in the inevitability and desirability of leftism, a disaster so large would be required that 90 % of the people would rather just die than try to cope with the new reality. The fall of leftism will be much worse than the fall of the Soviet Union. The remaining 10 % might be "right wing" but I wouldn't call that outcome winning.
@Matias - Indeed. As well as us being far advanced on a sure road to totalitarianism, there seems to be such a deep and pervasive spiritual peril - the self-chosen damnation of so many people...
Yet, as you say, to stop and reverse this trend will certainly be a societal catastrophe. It seems we are by now way too late in repenting for any of the pleasant this-world options to be realistic.
I continue to hope that there are, or will be, unperceived or out-of-the-system factors that may make things much better than calcualtion suggests; but on the other hand, the End Times will sooner or later come to an end; and the prophecies do sound horrific.
16 June 2017 at 20:31
I see a lot of this, especially online. The 'tough' people who talk about 'winning' against the mainstream Left: some even believe that they are winning, that the tide has turned...
They pour scorn upon those who do not 'fight' - because they seem to feel that they can - from where we are now, and with people as they are now - actually 'win'! And roll society back to some earlier stage a few or many generations ago (which was, itself, in fact, a transitional phase en route to current Leftism).
It is delusional nonsense, however well-meant. The Left is not losing, the Right is not winning - because there is no 'Right' in the mainstream of public discourse: None. At. All.
Because even when a genuinely non-Left (i.e. religious) group speaks in the public sphere, that aspect is filtered; such that what appears has moved the debate onto the core secular Left ground of 'utilitarianism' - the calculus of human pleasure or suffering in this mortal life.
So the Right (whether actual or self-styled) is just proposing a different means to the identical Leftist goal of a comfortable and stimulating mortal life - full-stop - nothing else matters...
Therefore all supposed 'victories' of the 'Right' are merely reinforcing the deep-Left agenda.
The Right is Not winning, Nothing substantive has changed, Pessimism is the only rational calculation.
Yes, we must always hope and must never despair...
But someone can only be optimistic about the socio-political probabilities if they are deluded about the pervasiveness, depth and inertia of present realities.
"Delusional optimism on the political Right"
2 Comments -
I also find this perplexing. It seems to me that for the people to lose their belief in the inevitability and desirability of leftism, a disaster so large would be required that 90 % of the people would rather just die than try to cope with the new reality. The fall of leftism will be much worse than the fall of the Soviet Union.
The remaining 10 % might be "right wing" but I wouldn't call that outcome winning.
16 June 2017 at 18:40
@Matias - Indeed. As well as us being far advanced on a sure road to totalitarianism, there seems to be such a deep and pervasive spiritual peril - the self-chosen damnation of so many people...
Yet, as you say, to stop and reverse this trend will certainly be a societal catastrophe. It seems we are by now way too late in repenting for any of the pleasant this-world options to be realistic.
I continue to hope that there are, or will be, unperceived or out-of-the-system factors that may make things much better than calcualtion suggests; but on the other hand, the End Times will sooner or later come to an end; and the prophecies do sound horrific.
16 June 2017 at 20:31