Extremists on the right and left are more alike than different — and dangerous | STAFF COMMENTARY
It is the best of times for right- and left-wing extremists.
It is the worst of times for measured personalities who understand the world as shades of gray, not prime colors.
It is the best of times for Sodom and Gomorrah.
It is the worst of times for a shining city on a hill.
The United States confronts an existential threat from zealous, incendiary radicals of the right and left fueled by deranged conspiracy theories and intoxicated by the quest for power through threats, force, and violence.
They are more alike than different. They both revel in hunting for heretics to destroy. They both are convinced they enjoy a monopoly of truth and are God’s chosen people to censor dissent and to exterminate dissenters. They both scorn time-honored books, wisdom, and the cerebral faculties in favor of hormonal instincts, gratifications, and juvenile lusts.
They have raced back to the Dark Ages. Their demand for intellectual conformity is reminiscent of Spanish Grand Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada. They shun Voltaire’s reported unwavering devotion to free speech: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to death your right to say it.” They are gaining power, nonetheless, because moral and political courage are in short supply. As William Butler Yeats lamented, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
The new generation portends more of the same. It is taught to denounce and assault free speech as “microaggressions.” It demands “safe spaces” which fence off ideas that might provoke mental activity by challenging idiosyncratic or tribal verities.
Students are quick to protest over matters about which they know little or nothing and that have challenged the greatest minds for centuries. How can power be fragmented to prevent any faction from dominating or oppressing a rival to sanctify liberty and the march of the mind? Students need to be humbled by knowing what they don’t know and undertaking research, education and deliberation before opining or acting. That’s why they should be hesitant to pronounce without a full appreciation of the facts and context, like a jury verdict before listening to the defense.
Infinite ignorance is alarming because it chronically risks calamitous cures worse than the disease. Both the right and the left believe that because the justice system is imperfect and occasionally stumbles, resort to rule by AK-47s should follow in which life is poor, brutish, nasty, and short. Is there a word missing in the previous sentence, maybe around the “resort to rule” part? Fanatics believe anything wrong should be destroyed without contemplating the day after. Were Lenin and Stalin an improvement on the Romanovs? Was Napoleon an improvement on King Louis XVI? Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.
In sum, never in the history of the United States have so many known so little about so much importance to the art of self-government. Never? As James Madison instructed, “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.” The United States, however, has lost its capacity for self-government through stupendous intellectual indolence and the exaltation of puerilities, like Tayor Swift or Tom Brady, over thinkers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, and Montaigne.
A nation dominated by extremists cannot long endure. Some say the United States is coming to resemble the last years of the Weimar Republic, with Nazis and Communists brawling in the streets. Ignoring history is dicey. Philosopher George Santayana warned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Armstrong Williams (awilliams@baltsun.com; @arightside) is a political analyst, syndicated columnist and owner of the broadcasting company, Howard Stirk Holdings. He is also part owner of The Baltimore Sun.