Faith-Based Theatrics of the Left

An interesting idea is floating around in the blogosphere. There is a refinement of something that I toyed with a few months back, but failed to articulate fully.

At the time, I saw the leftist ideology as a form of religion – based on a faith that was more reliant on internal feelings than on any physical reality. Communism has consistently failed, yet there are still ardent communists, etc.

Well the argument has recently been articulated a bit more clearly now. Joe Katzman in his piece entitled “ACTIVISM'S ONANIST FANTASY IDEOLOGY” makes some very interesting points. (By the way, I had to look up one word in the title of his article in a dictionary to understand exactly what he was saying. But now I get it…)

Al Qaeda may not be the only ones out there with a fantasy ideology (pace, Lee Harris), and another version of same may explain quite a bit about modern American politics and the decline of the Democratic Party. If you see activism as the default mode of politics, goes this thesis, you shouldn't be surprised when it leads to anti-intellectualism, tolerance of extremists, retreat into fantasy, and a self-defeating kind of partisanship designed to make people feel better about themselves rather than produce meaningful change.

This rather interesting thesis links modern ultra-left politics with terrorism on a very surprising dimension. As Katzman’s arguments (and those of Harris he cites) point out, the ultra-left tactics of in-your-face activism, and the oft-times bizarre combinations of disparate ideas linked together in “hate-Bush” rallies – these acts of “theatre” usually have less to do with convincing the un-persuaded or with making converts to a cause (which would be a legitimate political objective) than they have to do with the theatrical nature of the acts themselves.

The activist is less concerned with persuasion and making convincing arguments than with demonstrating the extremity of their own conviction. Katzman and Harris argue that these theatrics are acts of fantasy – that the doers of these theatrical deeds are doing them to satisfy a need, a need to act out a fantasy within the doers themselves. They argue that a fantasy of self-importance is enhanced when an extremist demonstrates in a disruptive way.

I think that there is a bit more to it than this. I see these activist disruptions (or acts of self-immolation by terrorists) more as testimonials than just fantasy. The more extreme the action, or the more self-destructive the result, the more the doer of the act highlights the depth of their belief in that thing they are proclaiming. The protester that is arrested says, “See, I am willing to be arrested for my belief.” The terrorist says, “See, I am willing to die for my belief.” These are just various degrees of proclaiming a deeply held belief.

But, that is all that they are doing – expressing a belief. There is no argument of logic that can be digested or considered – only faith. Activism is not a way of arguing rationally, it is only a way of expressing extreme belief.

That is precisely why politics of the extreme left are exactly like a religion. These politics are not arguable in the dimension of logic or reason – they are simply felt to be true.

These “extreme testaments” of the activist and the terrorist are similar. They inevitably rail against the status quo, against the system that exists, and testify of an alternative path to happiness.

Those that believe most fiercely that there is another way, that the status quo is evil or wrong, are naturally drawn together. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The extremist lover of trees and forests that sees modern industrialized society as the enemy to his garden utopia assails the status quo. At the same time, the terrorist who seeks a totalitarian religious state where modern industrialized society is the enemy – he also assails the status quo. These two, the extremist and the terrorist, share a common foe – the status quo. They are linked in their fight against a common enemy.

In there inability to argue and persuade by logic, both the extremist and the terrorist resort to testimony. “Please believe as I do,” they scream with their audacious acts of theatre. “See how deeply I feel,” they proclaim with their actions.

The less able they are to persuade with logic, and the more helpless they become in effecting changes in the status quo, the more dramatically they resort to testimony. That becomes the only outlet for their zealous beliefs.

Consequently, there is only one direction ahead as I see it. As capitalism and conservatism march forward as a ideologies based on empirical success in government and based on logical arguments of what is philosophically justifiable, the loony left will be increasingly marginalized and will abandon all pretense of civil discourse. In turn, the more the extreme elements of the left are marginalized, the more audacious they will become in their “acts of testimony,” the more virulent they will become in acts against the status quo, and the more linked that these groups will become with the other “anti-status quo” players such as the terrorists. The extreme left and the terrorists will merge into a single force seeking the destruction of the current capitalist system.

As the Democrats swing to the left to include these fringe groups that hate the current capitalist system, they will embrace with more open arms the enemies of our state. Just wait and see – this war on terrorism will be more and more openly opposed by the left.

And yes, I still think that modern liberalism is nothing more than a religion – it can only thrive where a deep faith in its principles pushes out logic and invites acts of testimony, acts of desperate theatrical desperation.