Whither Our Totalitarians?

An alliance of convenience between Muslims and modern anti-Western secular totalitarians in support of the October 7 atrocities makes sense if the advancement of the cause and injury to the enemies of one’s cause are the highest goods. The lack of moral or logical consistency of “LGBT for Palestine” is analogous to the morally contradictory (yet always divinely approved) means by which early Islam advanced militarily and behaved towards enemies.

A significant difference between Mohammadism and other major religions (in chronological order: Judaism, Buddhism, and Christianity) is that the political, military, or material advance of the movement itself is the highest value. Hindering its growth or rise is the ultimate evil. People of other faiths and secular humanists condemned the atrocities of October 7 on the basis of transcendent moral values. But because it was cast as a Muslim strike against a hated enemy, Muslims are largely incapable of forming any adverse judgments about the actions of their “side.”

The advancement of a "side" or ideology ahead of rightful moral order and sensibilities is never a good thing.

Much of the incoherence of American politics at present is due to the loss of moral common ground. Fifty years ago, no election outcome would result in formal repudiations of the Ten Commandments, denigrating the Founding Fathers and defacing their monuments and memory nor the replacement of science with ideology and superstition. What held us together was never threatened by which party held power.

American normals are not cognitively equipped to become dhimmis to ideologues who demand submission nor to effectively oppose such domestic totalitarians. The inclination is to call for electoral solutions at a time when elections have less and less impact on the entities that shape and control economic, intellectual, and social life.

By relying too heavily on democratic means, conservatives are demanding (well, asking, anyway) that the totalitarians (a) regard themselves as being merely one side of a debate as conservatives regard themselves and (b) accept that there are higher values and lasting principles that must inform governance regardless of which partisans control elected government. By their very nature, totalitarians will invariably reject such demands/requests/expectations.

That there was no First Amendment in the USSR or any Islamic state is not surprising in that the notions of freedom of conscience, thought, and expression are based on a kind of enforced, shared humility—none of us is so possessed of the truth such that all others must submit to our judgments and opinions. That humility is a necessary ingredient of our political, legal, and moral equality. It is also expressly rejected by Mohammed, Lenin, all DEI offices, and Greta Thunberg.

Acceptance of our human nature that makes humility requisite is also why conservatives and old-fashioned liberals tend to value discourse. Totalitarians find it an inconvenience if not an affront. It is telling that so many people who were spectacularly wrong about the origins of the COVID-19 virus, the efficacy of lockdowns, school closings, masks, and vaccines feel no remorse because they were at all times on the enlightened progressive side and followed “the science.” Advancement of that "side" turned out to be vastly more important than the truth, empirical science, any moral or social obligations, or even the avoidance of inflicting significant injury to others.

Thus, for whatever reason we have already created a petty totalitarian subculture that prizes conformity, membership, and constructed conflicts with caricatured enemies even before the arrival of its prophet, Fuhrer or Chairman. And their children are currently cheerleaders for Hamas.

Is the loss of the humility upon which our freedoms depend simply a result of the sin of pride? Or from the seduction of false certainties in an always difficult world? How do we ultimately liberate totalitarians without all of us recognizing that they are in fact totalitarians and that we must respond accordingly?