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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 3, 2024

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when asked what they envision they're usually cagey on details,

I think Crosby, Stills, and Nash crystalized their motivating impetus pretty well:

Song: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1sH0uR2u7Hs

Lyrics: https://genius.com/Crosby-stills-nash-and-young-woodstock-lyrics

Which makes me think of the line from This is Spinal Tap: There's such a fine line between clever and... stupid.

Rabbi Raphael Hirsch wrote,

Mankind, estranged from G-d, longs in vain for happiness and peace, longs for the garden of Eden, but they have chosen a way on which they will never find them! Cherubim and the flames of the sword of suffering "preserve" for mankind the road to Eden. Their message: Men cannot win Eden through his own strength; this road is saturated with blood; he will find Gan-Eden again if he is willing to be led and commanded by G-d. [Rabbi Raphael Hirsch: Commentary on the Torah]

I think Hirsh is right in that the story of Eden captures something that people, or something inside people, longs deeply for; and there are two paths that appear to lead toward it. One path respects our position as servants of a Higher Power, the position of our fellow man as being made in His image, and the constraints of the moral and causal laws of nature and human nature. The other does not -- and was aptly called the unconstrained vision by Thomas Sowell. Both are essentially spiritual in their composition. What does Marx's utopian vision look like? No divisions by class or country, no courts or cops, no private possessions, and plenty for all. Sound familiar? If you want to understand Marxists, you should think of Marx, not as a political philosopher, but as a self-anointed prophet. When Bertrand Russell met with Lenin, he unexpectedly found that Lenin regarded Marx that way:

If he [Lenin] wanted to prove a point, he thought it enough to quote a text of Marx. No fundamentalist was ever more addicted to scripture than he was to Marx. [Bertrand Russell, describing his meeting with Lenin in a 1962 interview with David Susskind]

Bolshevism is not merely a political doctrine; it is also a religion, with elaborate dogmas and inspired scriptures. When Lenin wishes to prove some proposition, he does so, if possible, by quoting texts from Marx and Engels. [Russell, Bertrand (1920): "The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism".]