The Secret Knowledge (21 page)

And where was the Left, and where the Feminists, during President Clinton's savaging of Juanita Broaddrick, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Susan McDougal, and Monica Lewinsky? These women, who suffered, if anyone has ever suffered, “workplace harassment,” were dismissed from consideration by the Left, who mentioned their struggles
not at all
; and Monica Lewinsky, a Nice Jewish Girl from Brentwood, working as an intern in the office of the most powerful man on the planet, was treated to the silence of the feminists as she was accused, by her employer, the President of the United States, while he was committing perjury, of being unbalanced and, perhaps, of having had a “bad childhood.” How, by the Left, can this be excused? It cannot. But it may be partially explained—Flowers, Jones et al., were dismissed by the Left not merely because they accused the Left's avatar, but because of their
class
. They were, to the Left, “trailer trash,” and so, de-facto, undeserving of a hearing yet alone a defense. The Feminists of the Left were voluble in their indictment of Justice Thomas, in Anita Hill's, at best, “he said, she said” controversy; using racist language and innuendo against him unheard in this country in decades. They supported Tawana Brawley's improbable claims of rape up to, and, indeed,
past
the point at which they had been proved fraudulent and her testimony found perjured. But what of the death of Mary Jo Kopechne by drowning? What feminist spoke up for the dead victim? Or against the man who drove her to her death? He remained an icon of the Left for the rest of his life. Are those feminists, then, spokespersons for the Rights of Women? Demonstrably not. They are not even spokeswomen for the rights of
Liberal
women—Ms. Kopechne was working for a Democrat, as was Ms. Lewinsky. They are advocates only of the positions of the Left—at
whatever
cost to women. If Feminism does not consist in the actual defense of actual women, what in the
world
are those people talking about?

Matrimony and monogamy have forever been linked with property and inheritance, the nuclear family, in the West, having been decided upon through trial and error as the most effective unit for preservation of both.

In the sixties, the Commune emerged as a riposte to the nuclear family. This was an autonomic re-creation of not only preindustrial, but pre-agrarian life; it was the Return to Nature, but the Commune, like the colleges from which the idea reemerged, only functioned if Daddy was paying the bills, for the rejection of property can work only in subvention or in slavery. It is an illusion that we all can share, that there is naturally occurring wealth, and that the constituency with which we all will share it is expansible. It is only in a summer camp (College or the hippie commune) that the enlightened live on the American Plan—room and board included prepaid—and one is free to frolic all day in the unspoiled woods.

Liberalism is a parlor game, where one, for a small stipend, is allowed to think he is aiding starving children in X or exploited workers in Y, when he is merely, in the capitalist tradition, paying a premium, tacked onto his goods, or subtracted from his income, for the illusion that he is behaving laudably (cf. bottled water).

So the Socialists want to do away with the notion of Property, and, so inclined, they want to do away with marriage. The Right sees an erosion of marriage (evidenced by sex education, cohabitation, homosexuality, single motherhood, abortion), and understands it as a moral affront. But it is additionally, and, perhaps, more basically, an attack on
property.
If the very poor and the very rich can breed without a stable home into which to introduce their children, then what of inheritance? The poor do so, as their children will perhaps be taken care of by the state, or by their grandparents; the rich, as they consider the child an affordable luxury, whose sustenance will not significantly affect the parent's fortune. What of the middle class, upon whose fortunes the future of our country rests?

Monogamy and property came about as human beings developed away from the life of the cave and the savannahs; the question of their usefulness seems to signal a desire to return to that pre-agrarian state: all will own everything, children will be raised by a “village,” no human being need make the commitment of marriage, they may simply follow the dictates of their hearts.
⁶⁵
These dictates, however, everyone of a certain age knows, are sometimes misleading. And they are, at certain points in life, not only damned near irresistible, but are many times in opposition: the desire to breed promiscuously, and the desire to fall in love, for example. Here the organism is endeavoring to adjudicate not only its societal but its
genetic
course, for, as the desire for unfettered procreation, strengthened as the societally imposed condition of
marriage
is weakened, the chemical urge is ratified, and human beings may self-select for greater sexual athleticism (mass nonfamilial breeding), rather than for “falling in love” (monogamy), which, we see, is already coming to be thought effete.

See the lyrics of songs. These, in my youth were moony, about the One Boy and Girl, then became about the joys of Freedom from Entanglement, and the folly of love, and now, in rap music, actually assert the desirability of spousal abuse and misogyny. Here we have a glimpse into the operation of evolution, and how the social and the genetic are linked; human life will change not because we have eaten more or less leaves off the trees (
pace
, the environmentalists) as if we were giraffes, but because we have become infected with the bacillus of socialism—destroy the family, and trust the State.

But to follow the reasoning one step further, is it possible that the actual delusion of Socialism is a reaction to scarcity or to the perception of scarcity? That the herd, troubled by a burgeoning world population, has simply decided to stop: to stop breeding, to stop producing (the Net Exports of Goods & Services fell from–$78 billion in 1990 to–$669 billion in 2008) to stop consuming (green movements) and exploring (environmentalism)—that the herd reaction to
supposed
scarcity is a return to the savagery of the savannah, which, after the fact, is rationalized as Socialism?

I saw a Prius on the street, with a bumper sticker reading “The only nuclear reactor I want is 93,000,000 miles away.” Fine, but if one rejects nuclear, and coal, and drilling for oil, what will run the presses that print the bumper stickers?

The battle between Left and Right can be seen to take place on a chemic level. The Right says one
must
breed, one must produce, and explore, to keep our civilization vital and strong. The Left says we must stop doing
all
these things, and simply widen the herd. That if we widen the herd sufficiently there will be no more struggle and, so, no more anxiety—thus those institutions which
sequester
property to the use of its producers (the nation-state, marriage, etc.) may be and, indeed must be discarded as divisive and productive of rancor. The blather about “Americans' image in the world” is an instance of this unconscious implication of a fraternity of the good-willed, from which we, because of (fill in this space) have been excluded.

What would make the Islamic Jihad happy? Our death, according to their repeated assertions. How might one placate them? One cannot (see the State of Israel's efforts over sixty years). What, then, is our Image in the World?

Socialism is attractive because the
effects
of individual enterprise are unforeseeable and the weakened individual is incapable of dealing with anxiety.

One could not predict air travel in 1850, or penicillin in 1920, or the personal computer in 1940. One can, no less, predict today the marvelous and less than marvelous effects of free enterprise, either for the nation or the individual. The effects of the Socialism at the heart of the Left's agenda, on the other hand, are completely predictable: a disappearance of the nation-state, and its conquest by the stronger-willed. This horrific vision offers only one benefit: it is completely predictable. See the Jews pleading with Moses to go “home” to slavery. “Were there not enough graves in Egypt?” (Exodus) But the magic return to nature seems to awaken no fear, for then we will simply love each other, share everything, and care for the earth of which we are stewards. Well and good, but under what system of laws? And what of those who,
though
recipients of our wisdom, want something more than or different from that which we have in our kind wisdom awarded them?

And who will guide this return to nature? Will there be many attempts to simplify our lives, and do away with pollution, and disease, and poverty, and care and worry, or will there be just the one, that of the State, from which all blessings flow, which never wanes but always waxes in power, and which cannot be wrong?

And how would the leaders of such a State be chosen? By vote? And how would they raise the money for their campaigns? Or should we all simply mass behind a leader so charismatic and well-spoken as to induce in the electorate that state of bliss which, though it may momentarily be indistinguishable from madness or satori, necessitates eventual return to a world made more complicated by our surrender?

A man the bulk of whose income is taxed has less incentive toward monogamy.

A weakening of monogamy will weaken and eventually destroy the ability of the family,
any
family, to transmit familial values and wisdom. This function will be taken over by the State (to a large extent it has been—see social studies classes in school and identity politics in college).

School vouchers are a grand idea, if for no other reason than they allow the family choice of institutional tenor and bias
.
An amusing school in my neighborhood has a billboard upon which one of their staff posts, weekly, ultra-Liberal and diverting messages. This week we find, “What about nationalizing the banks . . . hmm?” We have seen, in the past, also “Leaks—some good, some bad.”
⁶⁶

This, in addition to brightening my drive time, is perhaps a good idea generally. Consider if each school were allowed, or indeed forced to post on a sign its political bias. It would make the job of parents easier. Well-to-do parents have a choice; everyone should have a choice, if for no other reason than to weaken the power of the State to form good-willed programs of social indoctrination.

I am the tag-end of that generation of Jews linked to the Ashkenazi Immigration.

The Ashkenazi, the Eastern European Jews, were, in the main, unassimilated in Europe. They lived in the Pale of Settlement, banished there by the Tsarina, in 1772, and, save in extraordinary circumstances, were barred from residence in cities. They were poor, they lived apart from their neighbors who, periodically, descended upon them, in Pogroms, notably, in my grandparents' time, during which over two thousand Polish Jews were killed, 1903-1906. My grandparents left, on my mother's side in 1918 and, on my father's in 1922. Those who stayed behind, in Warsaw, and on the Bug River, the Russian-Polish border, died, killed by Stalin or Hitler.