Yesterday I got deep into the weeds with Critical Race Theory, which declares that all whites are racist, because white oppression, in direct opposition to the whole point of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, that everything we humans think and do it a gussied up interpretation of the appearances conjured up from impulses recorded by our five senses.
Our liberal friends have to have a theory like that because their whole Political Formula is based on the existence of oppressed peoples. Therefore there must be oppressed peoples, period, full stop. Critical Race Theory is the successor theory to socialism that explains everything as oppression.
But the other thing about ruling, it seems to me, is that rulers really need a Big Thing, a frightful peril to lead us against. Thus the ruler waves his flashing sword against the enemy, and then leads a united tribe / community / nation / planet against the frightful foe to glorious victory.
Doesn’t matter whether it’s King Henry V rallying his “dear friends” to charge “once more unto the breach” or Napoleon restoring France’s glory, or fighting to End Slavery, or World War I, the “war to end all wars.” I suppose World War II was to defeat fascism, and the Cold War to contain Communism. Now of course, we are called upon the stop runaway climate change, and fight systemic racism when we are not fighting the latest pandemic.
Even Donald Trump based his 2016 campaign on the glorious fight to Make America Great Again. You see? He is doing the same as Henry V, urging us to join his quest to Make America Great Again.
But middle-class culture doesn’t really do the Big Thing. Life is about getting a job, getting married, having kids. This is is contrast with lower-class life, which is a struggle just to stay alive, knowing that it’s all the fault of The Man; and upper-class life which is all about chasing status, whether economic, cultural, political, or creative.
Notice that activism is an upper-class thing, because it’s all about acquiring the reputation of fighting for justice for the oppressed peoples.
Of course, right now, the Big Thing for the middle class is pushing back against the Woke. And our wokey friends are doing us a favor by pushing gender reassignment surgery for our kids and parading transgenders in the women’s bathroom. It really is a gift, because it hits women right where they live: protecting their children while trusting society to protect them.
But then what? What monster does the political leader of the middle class conjure up so as to rally them to his banner next year?
It’s easy for Democrats because they always have a new spending program to distribute loot to their supporters, and always another helpless victim being oppressed by the oppressors.
I say that the next Einstein-level genius will be the guy that either ends the political search for an enemy to fight against, or finds a way to convert politics into a professional sport where everyone cheers for the home team but nobody gets hurt.