Living on Edge Part II

Secular humor or existential threat? 
For those living on the metaphysical edge there is nothing funny 
in this, not just because they lack a sense of humor generally
but because they see everything in this as blasphemy. 
(Thanks to Rob Belgieri)
Most everyone can understand the concept of “living on the edge” in physical or psychological terms. At its best, in both instances living on the edge can create a heightened sense of awareness of being through accepting and meeting physical or mental challenges. At its worst, living on the edge can lead to destruction…usually of the self because it's generally a selfish or at least self-centered choice. Living on the edge metaphysically, however, inevitably brings with it more widespread consequences because that usually involves a mass of people with an intensely shared belief in an imagined order of the universe…a belief to which others, apart from the mass, are expected to adhere...or else. 
A cult is an obvious example. In 1997 the Heaven’s Gate religious cult, for instance, living and breathing on the edge of metaphysical certainty that they were going to hitch a ride on an extraterrestrial spacecraft following in the wake of the Hale-Bopp comet committed mass suicide. Thirty-nine people living in luxury in San Diego County killed themselves in pre-determined groups over a span of three days based on a theology cobbled together out of bits and pieces of Biblical writing, secular new ageism, and science fiction. Bizarre as it was, it is a not so fat-fetched foreshadowing of a scenario that is unfolding on a broader national level. Lots of analysis of the clear, sharp partisan divide in the country right now focuses on typical social/political issues: income inequality, racism, taxation, immigration, globalization, social media. Only recently has the metaphysical dimension of this divide gotten the attention it deserves. 
It is altogether fitting that it is Attorney General William Barr’s recent speech at Notre Dame that invited this attention. Barr, both in his actions and now in his unambiguous words, perfectly personifies the nation’s lurch toward the metaphysical edge. When Donald Trump announced Barr as his replacement AG after running unreconstructed Southerner Jeff Sessions out of the office, establishment Washington breathed a collective sigh of relief. Many savvy, fully evolved TV commentators/legal minds described Barr was an “institutionalist”, and predicted that because he knew and honored the American system of justice, would serve it well. To their shock, within weeks of assuming his crucial role in maintaining the rule of law, Barr was perverting it and acting outright as lawyer for the one man at the top rather than the very many below and actively destroying the principle that no one was above the law. Bafflement at this seemingly sudden and sinister turn by someone with a decades’ long reputation to protect banished when Barr, a devout Catholic and member of the zealous Catholic group Opus Dei, clearly spelled out his purposes in his Notre Dame speech:

Today we face something different that may mean that we cannot count on the pendulum swinging back. First is the force, fervor, and comprehensiveness of the assault on religionwe are experiencing today. This is not decay; it is organized destruction. Secularists, and their allies among the “progressives,” have marshaled all the force of mass communications, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.
In any age, the so-called progressives treat politics as their religion. Their holy missionis to use the coercive power of the State to remake man and society in their own image, according to an abstract ideal of perfection. Whatever means they use are therefore justified because, by definition, they are a virtuous people pursuing a deific end.They are willing to use any means necessary to gain momentary advantage in achieving their end, regardless of collateral consequences and the systemic implications. …
Conservatives, on the other hand, do not seek an earthly paradise. We are interested in preserving over the long run the proper balance of freedom and order necessary for healthy development of natural civil society and individual human flourishing…conservatives tend to have more scruple over their political tactics and rarely feel that the ends justify the means. And this is as it should be, but there is no getting around the fact that this puts conservatives at a disadvantage when facing progressive holy war… 

Projection and hypocrisy fairly well reek out of Barr’s mouth. Anyone with even a slight grip on politics--unfiltered through the Fox propaganda apparatus--knows that expansive, intensive conservative attempts to suppress the vote do the exact opposite of “promoting a proper balance of freedom and order necessary for healthy development of natural civil society and individual human flourishing.” Anyone not blinkered by Third Way accommodation wishfulness realizes that conservatives openly want nothing less than the permanent manifestation of their “earthy paradise,” where planning parenthood is taboo, sexual preference is converted and homogenized, patriarchy rules, and American style Christianity holds pre-eminence over all other religions (and eternal damnation to hell for those with no religion).  There is no room for third way magical thinking, negotiation, compromise. This brand of conservatism has pushed itself to the metaphysical edge where the only choice is all or nothing. 

The reality is that Barr is not only selling traditional values to conservative voters, some of whom are genuinely starved for them, he is also marketing apocalyptic hogwash because, for his boss to get re-elected, Trump’s supporters must continue to believe that liberals and the Democratic Party are the embodiment of evil, determined to destroy the American way of life.

I’ll leave it to others to do the heavy lifting of categorically and substantively make the strong case that liberalism is quite literally improving American life, not destroying it. (“The white working class constituency that would seem to be most immune to the appeal of the cultural left — the very constituency that has moved more decisively than any other to the right — is now succumbing to the centrifugal, even anarchic, forces denounced by Barr and other social conservatives, while more liberal constituencies are moving in the opposite, more socially coherent, rule-following, direction.”) The point of this post is not to provide a counterpoint to religious conservatives’ preposterous claims that they may have more scrupulous plans and policies “for healthy development of natural civil society”. They demonstrably do not. What’s really at issue here is that they have a deep, abiding, sincere belief that not only do they have the answer, but that any answer other than theirs (Trump re-election prospects aside) is apocalyptic. Their blueprint for dealing with existential threats to their worldview lies in plain sight in our history. From the 1620 charter that granted the Puritans dominion over New England:

And also for that We have been further given certainly to knowe, that within these late Yeares there hath by God's Visitation reigned a wonderfull Plague, together with many horrible Slaugthers, and Murders, committed amoungst the Savages and brutish People there, heertofore inhabiting, in a Manner to the utter Destruction, Devastacion, and Depopulacion of that whole Territorye, so that there is not left for many Leagues together in a Manner, any that do claime or challenge any Kind of Interests therein, nor any other Superior Lord or Souveraigne to make Claime "hereunto, whereby We in our Judgment are persuaded and satisfied that the appointed Time is come in which Almighty God in his great Goodness and Bountie towards Us and our People, hath thought fitt and determined, that those large and goodly Territoryes, deserted as it were by their naturall Inhabitants, should be possessed and enjoyed by such of our Subjects and People as heertofore have and hereafter shall by his Mercie and Favour, and by his Powerfull Arme, be directed and conducted thither. 

The enemy—Democrats, liberals, progressive/moderates, even Never Trump Republicans--must be wiped out, confined to reservations, shackled or restricted by law from full participation in American society. That’s how they propose to deal with those who choose a path at odds with theirs. Otherwise they will—to paraphrase a general once mired in a bloody, calamitous military campaign—destroy the village in order to save it.  Thanks to Andy McRory