Back to the future

I remember studying Edward Gibbon while a history student working on my advanced degree. What struck me most was the cyclical view of history his work supported--a view that actually inspired one of the great science fiction classics. Gibbon lapsed in his Christian faith, eventually ascribing the fall of Rome (history's greatest tragedy, in his view) in part to the rising influence of Christianity. Nevertheless, his cyclical view of history -- that mankind repeats the same errors--achieving, then falling from lofty heights--makes perfect Biblical sense.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9

Human nature, says the Bible, is crippled by sin. Like the man lost in the wilderness and hobbled by a bum leg, we tend to walk in circles without even knowing it. Sometimes it appears we're making progress... and yet here we are, dealing with the same problems that have plagued humanity since the Fall: greed, ambition, hatred, racism, and self-worship. Even the "New Atheism" movement, so lauded by secularists today, is little more than recycled pontification and self-justification from the age of Voltaire and before. The wolves continue to wear sheep's clothing; the tragedy is that by updating the clothing to suit modern tastes, they can still convince people they aren't really wolves.

We are entering a danger zone, one that is full of hidden minefields, and unless we step gingerly, and carefully, tragedy is ensured. In times of economic uncertainty, such as these, human beings are susceptible to all sorts of malign influences: energized by economic ignorance, disdainful of history, and unconstrained by either morals or common sense, demagogues arise, and a thousand alien ‘isms take root in American soil, flowers of evil luring us with extravagant colors and exotic perfumes. Ideology, like madness, takes hold of human minds, and dehumanizes them quite effectively. As the conservative philosopher Russell Kirk reminds us (in his storied attack on the neoconservatives): "Ideology animates, in George Orwell's phrase, ‘the streamlined men who think in slogans and talk in bullets.'"

All these rising ideologies take as their starting point the necessity of increasing government power and influence in every sphere of human activity, starting with economics and ending with – well, who knows? There is no logical endpoint to the modern "liberal" faith in the power and benevolence of government – and, these days, the "conservatives" agree with them, and then some.

Our two-century-old experiment with self-governance under a Constitution designed to tightly bind government to specified functions would appear to be coming to an end. People have always been more interested in the promise of a chicken in the pot than in principles on parchment. So as our economic follies return with gale force, and the enemies we've helped create around the world sense their hour has finally come, our people are eager for any voice promising easy deliverance. But at what cost will we try to arrange for all our dreams to come true? Those who would rule us only have the power we give them.