It is usually wise not to hate what one is wiser to ignore. The problem is that I cannot ignore the left, because it affects my life and threatens what I love. My ancestors have a respectable record on the left. In the 19th and early 20th centuries they fought for the downtrodden and resisted Nazis and Fascists in the hills.
That left—the one whose ideals and values in many ways are also mine—is long dead. That left wanted meritocracy to trump class privilege, intelligence and effort to trump race and religious affiliation. It wanted the children of the poor to receive a quality education, and it wanted the classics of music and literature to reach ordinary people through public libraries and state-subsidized cultural events.
Today’s left has betrayed and abandoned these values. Today’s left wants quotas to replace meritocracy; it wants the grievances of supposedly oppressed minorities to trump intelligence and effort; it aims to destroy the education system by abolishing excellence and ensuring that children receive an education as bereft as possible of life-enhancing values such as respect and self-responsibility. And the culture today’s left promotes is precisely the kind of tawdry garbage that the left a hundred years ago wanted to emancipate the masses from.
And why did the left destroy itself?
A century ago, it wanted to murder God and replace the Almighty with the Party and the proletariat. Now that the Party and the proletariat are dead—while the God of Abraham, Yitzhak, and Yaacov is still alive—the left has only one heartfelt goal: Destroy the West, the Bible and all Biblical values.
Thus, the family and marriage are now “the patriarchy,” monogamous love is either sexual oppression or sexual exploitation, incitement and hatred against whites and Western civilization are gestures of the highest ethical standards, the butchering of black Christians by Arabized Muslims is a “legacy of European colonialism,” while the rape and butchering of women and children in Nahal Oz becomes an act of resistance comparable to that of partisans in Nazi-Occupied Europe.
The common thread of all this insanity—reaching its apogee in such teratoid leftist groups as “Queers for Palestine”—is a perhaps unconscious yet pervasive nihilism. Ideologically, there is no way to justify the self-destructive blindness of the left. Therefore, the explanation must be sought in psychology. Many leftist cadres who are atheists have a religious devotion to leftism. The idols and ideologies they embrace as substitutes for God—whether Marx, Mao, Trotsky, Fanon, Foucault, or Ibram Kendi—quickly become the center of their lives, their alpha and omega. This fusion of politics and religion, also found in Islam, explains why leftist circles are plagued by fanaticism. On the right, where politics seldom replaces religion, the separation of church and state secures greater sanity.
Conservative pundits often accuse Islam of hating life and celebrating death. Nevertheless, this is a Western-centered perspective, since we consider earthly life to be the center of our efforts. The Muslim world is conditioned from childhood to see earthly life as a provisional corridor leading into paradise and an eternal life. Once we realize this, it is evident that Islamic violence and hatred against the West are more expected than the violence and hatred against the West of the Left.
Since the collapse of Communism, the left has no constructive vision—only the ability to discredit and attack (what leftists call “systemic criticism”). It follows that its ethos is inherently nihilistic and destructive. But why would individuals who profess to care about kindness, love, and justice for the weak and downtrodden want to destroy the very institutions and mechanisms that pull people out of poverty and provide care and love?
The reason is that most of these leftists have never personally experienced poverty and deprivation. At best, they have volunteered at a soup kitchen or worked at NGOs in a developing country. The difference between the person who assists the poor with other people’s money and poor people themselves is that the latter look forward to securing a better job, whereas the former think the solution to all deprivation is more aid and more charity.
I observed this mechanism very well in Jerusalem, which twenty years ago was full of European NGO staff. These Europeans cussed Zionism while working in Israel rather than Syria or Libya. And while they shed tears about the oppression and injustice they observed in Judea and Samaria, they always looked forward to the beaches of Tel-Aviv. Adding insult to injury, while they contrasted Islam and Muslims to Judaism and Jews positively, they often rented homes in West Jerusalem, fearful that their parties, alcohol-drinking, and immorality might lead to violent attacks by their beloved "Palestinians".
The leftist hypocrisy is not just evident in Eretz Yisrael. You are far more likely to see “Smash Capitalism!” T-shirts at the Starbucks in front of an elite private university than at an ordinary diner next to a community college. Likewise, from personal experience, I advise every reader to never invite a leftist “anti-racist” friend to an African restaurant that isn’t sufficiently fancy. The three such friends I invited wore expressions of disgust worthy of the most racist 19th-century colonial officer.
The attitudes and behavior of today’s left are comparable to those of pampered rich kids who feel their toys and teddy bears clutter their playroom. They could sell these toys and help needy children with the money raised. They refuse to do this. Officially, because it is unfair to profit from privilege. In truth, because it’s a hassle to post, wrap, and send packages. So instead of working and earning money, they throw their toys out the window, denounce a system where people can earn money with children’s toys, and then complain that public services are underfunded because one week later their teddies and toys are still on the sidewalk—rotting.
Rafael Castrograduated from Yale and Hebrew University. The grandson of a Piedmontese partisan, Rafael can be reached at rafaelcastro78@gmail.com