Progressivism: Chicken Soup for the Soulless

If nothing else, the principle of Original Sin prepares us to consider man's proposals and solutions (especially to the problem of man!) with great skepticism -- or without the childish naivete of the tenured snob, the woke mob, the media blob, etc. 

For we don't just predict the failure of the left, we guarantee it.    

The doctrine of original sin, which can be established on purely philosophic grounds, has an immediate bearing on the study of human nature.... [T]he fact is that no human being exhibits the excellencies which we theoretically attribute to human nature (Brennan).

On paper, man is a good idea, even very good -- if I understand correctly, a Swiss watch. Considering him from the cosmic angle, he potentially spans the entire creation, from corporeal matter to subatomic physics at one end, to philosophy, ontology, metaphysics, and mystical union at the other. 

And yet, we still screw up, every time -- at least on a collective basis; the existence of saints only rubs it in. Suffice it to say, there is no Group Saint. 

The perennial question is, why is man such a chronic underachiever? If your philosophy doesn't address this head on, you're like a child who wanders into into the middle of a movie and wants to know... 

Look, say what you want about the left, at least it's an ethos: at least they know that we are the problem, and that elimination of conservatives is the solution. I'm old enough to remember when they didn't mean that literally. 

I haven't read this entire essay by Roger Kimball, but I don't have to, because we always agree. Only the style is different, that and the substance (https://newcriterion.com/issues/2022/1/the-right-targets):

the “culture war” we have been hearing about for decades has not died down or petered out. On the contrary, it is raging with more virulence than ever. Invocations of 1858 and the advent of civil war may be exaggerated, Podhoretz grants. Nevertheless, “We’re in a war, and it’s a war to the death. Now they [the Left] actually admit it. They used to pretend. Not anymore.”

Cancellation is political assassination by other means. Indeed, the mass movement from blue states to red is a wave of asylum seekers and political refugees by another name. Except the migrants are trying  to escape from the asylums. 

Me? I'd be the first to join them if I weren't the laziest man in Los Angeles County, which places me high in the runnin' for laziest man worldwide. Nor do I find it to be exactly the County of Angels... Condado de los Diablos is more like it, albeit with strikes mixed in with the gutters until harvest time.

The woke culture of the Left seeks to destroy not only America as we know it but also the political, moral, and economic foundations upon which it rests. The conflagration is partly physical, as we saw and see on city streets throughout the country. It is also partly spiritual, as the most basic human realities and aspirations are deconstructed and politicized (ibid.).

Yup, one of those irritating situations: an all-consuming whirlpool of nihilistic self-engorgement (Kimball). 

If I'd been invited to contribute to this symposium on conservatism, I'd... only beclown the proceedings and embarrass the movement. I am a Useless Man and this is a Useless Blog. Indeed, if it had a purpose, it would be like all the others. I'm sure there must exist some other superfluous bloggers, but I haven't run into them.

Yes, I have a super power: fluousness.

The point is, this blog comes after all that -- after you've gotten your way politically and removed every obstacle to utopia, then we can get down to the real struggle. Josef Pieper asks, 

Once the means of living have been obtained, in what will this now-secure life consist? Furthermore, is it not patently absurd to say that the meaning of life consists in securing the means of livelihood? 

Yes to the second: it is absurd, a performative tautology. As to the first, "all practical activity"

serves something other than itself. And this other thing is not practical activity.... the ultimate meaning of the active life is to make possible the happiness of contemplation (ibid.).

Bottom line: "politics must inevitably become empty agitation if it does not aim at something that is not political." 

Which is precisely why the left has the advantage over us, because they know of no higher life, such that politics is their religion. Sure, it's a religion of empty agitation, but at least it keeps them on the streets. 

Imagine not knowing the pleasures of higher worlds! I suppose that's one of the things that keeps me here, being that these worlds are as close to California as they are to Florida, Texas, or Tennessee.   Wherever you go, there you are, and so is God.

It is requisite for the good of the human community that there should be persons who devote themselves to the life of contemplation (Thomas).

You're welcome.

Man matures when he stops believing that politics solves his problems. 

But 

It is impossible to convince the fool that there are pleasures superior to those we share with the other animals (NGD).