We are creeping up on the Fourth of July again. It is, as we all know, our nation’s annual commemoration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in 1776.
Over the years, I’ve come to reject the name given the ensuing conflict, “American Revolutionary War,” preferring the “American War of Independence” (to distinguish it from real revolutions like the one in France a few years later).
For, unlike the French Revolution, the Colonists did not intend to reject the basic insights of British culture, its values, morals, principles, or religion. Rather, it sought to confirm and strengthen them while eliminating what were perceived as corruptions of the existing British model.
As it was, Britain had become the repository of Western Civilization, successfully having inculcated the insights of Judeo-Christian tradition, ancient Greek and Roman literature and philosophy, and the civilizing framework of Roman law. Among its historic achievements was the Magna Carta of 1215, which effectively paved the way for modern-day democracy.
These influences not only informed the early Colonists, they were foundational. Thus, theirs was not a revolution to tear down all that had come before, but a project of reform.
As I say, they intended to strengthen English tradition by correcting its perceived errors in the same way the early Protestants attempted to reform Christianity. The idea was to make it better.
In studied contrast, the French Revolution tried to eliminate Western Civilization completely. Similar to the radicals of today, they believed civilization was a purely arbitrary arrangement of laws, values, and norms created out of whole cloth by the powerful in order to maintain their control and subjugate the less powerful. Civil society, as such, was premised not on human nature, solid principles, or eternal truths, each refined over centuries, but merely a wicked tool to oppress the people.
Underlying this was the Rousseauian idea that the natural state of humanity is, at root, sinless and perfect. If not for the artifice of civilization, Rousseau maintained, all human ills would vanish. By eliminating the false and coercive structures of society, humanity would return to the lost purity of the Garden of Eden.
To accomplish this, the old regime had to be deposed, if not physically eliminated (think the Reign of Terror and the guillotine). All institutions, not least the church and family, had to be dismantled in order that the inherent goodness of human nature finally could climb out from under their malignant weight.
There is a pertinent line attributed to Voltaire: “The perfect is the enemy of good,” or “The best is the enemy of the good.” If something isn’t absolutely perfect, in other words, it must be rejected. Unfortunately, no system is good enough when compared to the Utopian ideal.
Then again, since we religionists take for granted that all human beings are sinners, any and all systems devised by these same sinful human beings will be necessarily imperfect. How could they be otherwise?
This obvious truth notwithstanding, Karl Marx looked at the imperfections of civilization, with its injustices and inequities, and theorized a new system based on the romantic promptings of Rousseau. Life need not be imperfect, he surmised. If only the “oppressors” controlling the system could be dethroned and the sinless “proletariats” put in their place.
Reinhold Niebuhr once addressed this fallacy in his book, Nature and Destiny of Man Part II. There he noted that though there are indeed abuses of power in the world, the irony is that those previously oppressed, upon gaining power, are just as prone to the very same abuses of power they naively assumed were the unique province of the now-dethroned.
Consider, for example, the radicals who recently took over part of downtown Seattle, “CHAZ” aka “CHOP.” Having rejected the civil society around them, they immediately went about instituting a hierarchy of “leaders,” securing their “borders,” and enlisting certain individuals to keep order, suitably armed with AK-47s.
Having rejected the prevailing social order, they can be seen replicating many of its same features, albeit crudely. Yet does anyone seriously think their new “system” will work better than the one it seeks to replace? And who do you think ultimately will attend to their basic needs for food, shelter, clothing, and medical care? My guess? The very same old capitalist system they are trying to tear down.
Which is to say that the current system, refined and reformed over centuries, while admittedly imperfect, will prove vastly superior to the hopelessly naïve efforts of our clownish CHOP “revolutionaries.”
The fact is, no grouping of individuals anywhere, now or ever, has existed without some sort of system (and hierarchy). Because we are made to live in community, we require rules and order. The real question is what kind of system. It is difficult to imagine a better or fairer system than the one bequeathed to us by the American Founders.
What complicates things, of course, is that we human beings are born with an innate and unquenchable desire for God. Thus, it is in our nature to seek perfection. But rather than direct that desire toward a future Paradise, we claim it here on earth. Nothing short of perfection, therefore, shall be countenanced.
It is right and good that we should reject sin and strive to live in harmony and peace, that all may be one. But how to achieve this in a fallen world? Revolution or reform?
18th century France chose the former. Eventually, things got so violent and out-of-control that it took Napoleon to restore order. And how did he accomplish this? By an iron-fisted crackdown and by assuming dictatorial powers that would have made the French kings blush.
A slow learner, Marx picked up where Robespierre left off. The temptation was simply too great. After all, who desires to live with evil when given an out? His solution, as we know, was revolution.
The Marx-inspired socialists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were indeed eager for revolution. Previously, the French Revolution had gone so far as to eliminate the names of the months of the year in an effort to restart history at “day one” (there would be no past since it was the product of a hopelessly corrupt system).
Likewise, 20th century socialists, such as those within Germany’s Bauhaus movement , rejected all forms of historic architecture since it too was the product of corrupt “bourgeois” culture. Once again, “day one” would erase all that came before.
In this country, the “Frankfurt School” injected this same revolutionary spirit upon their arrival in the 1930s. They were a group of radical Marxist intellectuals having fled Nazi Germany.
Their assessment of America (and the West in general), was that it was not (as yet) ripe for revolution. Orthodox Marxism, in other words, had preached that the workers, or the “proletariat,” would necessarily rise up against their “oppressors” and foment revolution.
But unlike Russia, the conditions in America were not conducive. Not only had the “proletariat” not risen up, but they had integrated into the capitalistic system.
So how to promulgate a Marxist revolution? By undermining society from within. The Frankfurt School made no attempt to hide their goal, or their strategy. This approach eventually came to be known as “Cultural Marxism” or “Critical Theory.”
The first strategy would be to divide and conquer, to set various groups against one another, to foment unrest based on race, class, and gender. Societal conflict was the goal.
Today we talk about “intersectionality,” which is but an updated version of this same approach. Here a wide range of “identities” function as the “oppressed,’ or the “victims,” who, in the absence of the proletariats, are urged to revolt against their “oppressors” and tear down the system they’ve selfishly created, “root and branch.”
The second strategy was to undermine traditional values and norms, to “deconstruct” and falsify Western Civilization’s traditional truths, norms, and practices. Notably, the church and family were targeted specifically, as they were perceived as stolid transmitters of Western values.
Finally, the third strategy was to infiltrate the various institutions of society, particularly the educational establishment. This process was first enunciated by the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, and later dubbed “the long march through the institutions.”
Again, the idea was that Western Civilization was too strong to attack head-on. It had to be dismantled circuitously, stealthily, in effect, hollowed out from the inside, all but invisible to the host institution.
With these three strategies in place, the resultant chaos, dislocation, and transvaluation of words and ideas would leave society ripe for change – revolutionary change.
It is this revolutionary narrative that appears to have hijacked events following the tragic death of George Floyd. For it provided the perfect opportunity for the Left to pursue the wider goal of radical transformation of society. The message is that American civil society is rotten to the core and must be ripped out root and branch.
Reminiscent of the French Revolution, as well as Mao’s Cultural Revolution in the late 60s, our current “cancel culture” seeks to erase and/or rewrite our history and begin anew, that is, at “day one.”
Tearing down statues (iconoclasm), symbols of our past, and burning down infrastructure is part of a larger strategy designed to create confusion and chaos. The hope is that the populace will decide the old system is not working and embrace the promise of something better, something altogether new, Utopian, in fact.
As I’ve watched the protests unfold following Floyd’s death, they strike me increasingly as having less to do with racism per se, as in marshaling the disparate forces of discontent, led, it seems, by a highly organized, well-funded, professional Left eager to use his death as a pretext to further their quixotic desire to take down Western Civilization and all it stands for.
During the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. sought peaceable reform, not revolution. He appealed to the “better angels” of our nature, believing that this ultimately would lead to meaningful change within, not outside of, the American system.
Malcolm X, on the other hand, sought revolution, by the point of a gun, if necessary. He rejected the American system outright, viewing it as irrevocably corrupt and, as such, irrreformable.
Recently our son asked me to compare the protests of today with those of the 60s. His sense was that it was probably more violent and more dangerous back then.
And while I had to agree, I offered one fairly significant caveat. Back then, I suggested, and on the whole, the establishment elites did not approve of the violence and mayhem. Nor did they ever appear to be egging it on. That, unfortunately, seems to have changed.
Ultimately, we as a society have a simple choice to make: Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. The American Revolution or the French Revolution. Which shall it be?
Our answer. it seems, will go along way toward defining what our future will look like.