Reopening The Door

You no doubt know that J.R.R. Tolkien was considering a sequel to his work The Lord of the Rings? A thirteen page manuscript was found among his writings in which he began writing the scenario. Entitled 'The New Shadow', he envisioned Middle Earth over a century after the defeat of Sauron in the reign of Eldarion, the son of Aragorn/Elessar. Even though Sauron had left a legacy of evil and destruction in his wake, now he was defeated, the peoples of Middle Earth were free and enjoying peace. However, among the new generation the history of the War of the Ring seemed to be no more than old tales and this coupled with a growing dissatisfaction among people, was leading some to explore darker things. A new religion was growing, Tolkien would describe it as 'a secret Satanistic religion' where young Gondorians played at being orcs. A new generation, having forgotten the past, was opening the door to the ancient evil that their ancestors had suffered much to fight and exorcise.

I thought of this when I was watching a video recently in which a former citizen of the Soviet Union confronted two young people who were extolling the virtues of communism and how it was the way forward. One of two, a young woman, was chalking the hammer and sickle onto a public road and admiring her handiwork. The man tried to engage in a discussion with the two with regard to what they thought communism could do for society and it was obvious in their response that they didn't have a realistic grasp of history nor economics. It seemed as if they were regurgitating things they had been told or they had read so narrowly that they could dismiss historical realities in favour of their ideology. When the man begins to tell them about his experiences in the Soviet Union and how he and people he knew witnessed and suffered from the crimes of a communist system, the two get very quiet and seem to be very uncomfortable. Indeed, it seemed to me that they didn't want to hear what he was saying, they were desperately trying to prevent their bubble from bursting. You can see the video here.

A new generation has embraced communism and socialism - we all know that; we have been dealing with their activities for the last few years. Groups like Antifa, a purely terrorist organisation, is creating mayhem on the streets, and universities and colleges in the West have become nests for the ideological promotion of leftism and the closing of the minds of younger generations. They have not forgotten the history of socialism, it has been revised and reinvented by leftist academics in order to kickstart the revolution again, this time not merely as an economic one, but as a cultural one: Gramsci has joined Marx and Lenin on the red banner. 

Tolkien abandoned his sequel, he could not bear to allow the shadow to fall over Middle Earth again; his work would be complete with the victory. However, we have no choice but to revisit the old battles of the past again, this time with new generations who have fallen under the charm of a utopia, a perfect society. They see problems and issues in the West, and there are many, no doubt about that; capitalism is not perfect and has problems of its own. But the fields on the other side of chasm are not greener; that shade of red is not the colour of liberation, it is the colour of blood - the blood of those who must die so the revolution can succeed; and so far there are over a hundred million of them.

Young people have always been ideological, they have great hopes for life and society, and the flaws and inequities of any age grates against their dreams and hopes. They are naive in that they think we can create a perfect and just society here on earth - we have to admire that; they want the best. However, every attempt to create this perfect society has not just failed, it has cost countless lives and led to even greater injustice and poverty. The perfect society will not exist here, we will always have to settle for second best; why? Because we are flawed human beings, we are sinners, we do not have the ability to create perfection, nor the capacity to live it, we are too rebellious - that is one of the important insights Judaism and Christianity offer to the world. As we see in the Church and the lives of the Saints, those who were on the path to perfection, the only perfect society is in heaven with God. It is a fool's task to try and create heaven on earth - we do the best we can, we work for an even more just and loving society. St Thomas More was well aware of this when he wrote his book Utopia. Some saw that book as a model for creating a perfect society on earth, but that missed More's point: utopia in reality means 'nowhere' - it's not possible on earth.

The door to a painful past is now being reopened by another generation. The horrors inflicted on hundreds of millions of people are being forgotten, dismissed, revised or justified in the name of a new birth for Marx's changeling. How we do respond? Can we face the contradictions of this old enemy in the manner of Ricky Gervais, mock its inconsistencies and expose it? Or do we engage in serious scholarly and social discussions, drawing on the lessons of history? That will be difficult as the left has tremendous power and influence in the universities and the media. How does one deal with that as the failure of Venezuela is all too apparent, but yet re-imagined by ideologues to hide the truth? There is a long road ahead and God alone knows how things will turn out in the short term. However, as people of faith, we must support those who are on the front-line of this battle; and for those soaked in the delusions of socialism and communism, we must try to bring to them to consider, not only the lessons of history, but also a greater vision where their desire for fairness, equity and justice can be satisfied.