May 2019

As many of you know, both cats and I have had nine lives. Back in my days at UC Berkeley, radicalized by the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, and the Realpolitik the general public seldom hears about, I was enthralled by Karl Marx’s early philosophical manuscripts. They were utopian, insightful, and very pro the development of our humanity and consciousness. Galaxies away from what his writing would later produce under Lenin, Stalin, and the boys, his words were inspirational for those who wanted to see the poor and alienated workers of the Industrial Revolution humanized. Following the spirit of the French Revolution, Marx was a champion of those ruined by Western conformity and blinded to the cosmic role they were to play in history and the overwhelming force of dialectic materialism. Go left, young man, go left!

With both my academic background in political philosophy and my personalized passion with the analysis of macroeconomics, I am increasingly aware that many participants in politics today have little to any visible signs that they remotely understand the history or foundational tenets of the policies they advocate. Those who identify with the political “left” do so for many reasons, and some of them very legitimate, but the directional energy of what their convictions produce when applied, often evades them. No surprise, the lack of substance in civic education has led to a superficial tale told by the biased and producing nothing of significance, save socially harmful consequences. Simply stated, few politicians seem to know the history of ideas they advocate or the principles of why they work or don’t work when actually applied in political society.

Any serious student of leftist thinking, especially twentieth century thinking of the core Marxist tradition, know what the far left believes to be the nature of truth. Socially, politically, and economically, “truth” is any opinion or information that supports the revolutionary dynamics of history’s inevitable march to centralized control by the elite as they caretake them until their political consciousness begins to take them to the unraveling of social control and birth of the truly “new man and the new woman.” “Truth” is not a fact; “truth” is not a person’s legitimate opinion; “truth” is not even an observable phenomenon. “Truth” is the process of transformation recognized either fully or partially by the enlightened beholder. “Truth” is an act of inevitability perceived by the elite. If you can understand what I am trying to express, it can save your sanity when you hear so many of today’s political debates and dialogues.

The Russian word for “peace” is translated, mir. To those of us who know what mir really meant to the Soviets when they used the word and their common desire for it, we couldn’t help but laugh at the ignorance of participants in the ongoing peace talks. Yes, the Soviets truly did want peace/mir, but peace for them was the alignment of ideas and policies with history’s inevitable cessation of class warfare and alignment with the revolution. This is no joke, story tale, or “conservative lie.” Consistent with their “truth” is their “peace,” historic compliance, and our personal actions toward it. Knowing what words really mean to people is absolutely critical to the left, especially the hard left. Their meaning of words is very different from that of mainstream citizenship. These words are as different in meaning as one can possibly imagine: justice, righteousness, truth, progress, tolerance, facts, and many others. Please, please deeply consider this reality; it will make sense of so many things that haven’t made sense before. Until terms are clearly stated as to meaning and intent, no real conversation can take place. Our government system isn’t as broken as it appears. It is a case like unto the Tower of Babel; everyone is speaking different languages.

For Christians, all of this has a unique twist of its own. In John 14:6, Jesus announces that He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” Identifying Himself as truth, He injects an “atomic bomb” into the global and historic philosophical discussions regarding truth and objectivity. Truth and objectivity are a person and not an opinion, fact, principle, or way of viewing life. After more than fifty years of pondering this, I am still grasping to understand the depth of such a reality, but this is another day’s musings. What should be clear out of all this business about the left, truth, peace, and the centering point of the revolution as the measurement of all historic purpose, is that when you hear left-wingers demanding “truth” and “justice,” you know what they mean. Their truth is a historic social revolutionary process and not a person, a fact, or an agreed-upon observation. Please hear this: No amount of talking will convince them of anything else, save an intervention from God. Stop wondering, “Why can’t we agree with these people?” and “Why don’t the facts mean anything?” They are in another space, folks, and that is…   

The Bottom Line.