Leftism's Strange, Procrustean Bed

I’ve mentioned before – socialism is evil. I’ll go further. Leftism is a death cult of the mind, of the spirit, of thought, and finally, of bodies. Jordan Peterson can indeed argue that post-modernism didn’t come about until the 70’s – which explains why, even as murderous as they were, the leftism of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were at least coherent, and so were their followers in the west – but I would argue that while it may not have gone off the rails until then, the seeds were there, and it was inevitable.

And as has been repeatedly noted: they eat their own.

First, Procrustes.

In the Greek myth, Procrustes was a son of Poseidon with a stronghold on Mount Korydallos at Erineus, on the sacred way between Athens and Eleusis. There he had a bed, in which he invited every passer-by to spend the night, and where he set to work on them with his smith’s hammer, to stretch them to fit. In later tellings, if the guest proved too tall, Procrustes would amputate the excess length; nobody ever fit the bed exactly. Procrustes continued his reign of terror until he was captured by Theseus, travelling to Athens along the sacred way, who “fitted” Procrustes to his own bed

Leftism isn’t a true Procrustean bed – they don’t generally stretch people to fit. As long as your ideology, your beliefs fit within the current “bed” – you’re safe. Woe betide thee if your beliefs don’t fit – if an ideological limb hangs over. You better be able to curl up and keep those limbs over the mattress, never stretching out, or they’ll be lopped off. In the real world, you’re imprisoned, hammered down, and if a sufficient example needs to be made of you, killed.

But here’s the rub. The size of the bed is determined by beliefs, procedures, policies that will supposedly bring utopia – an ideal society, where everyone is equal. But, equality is a myth – the best we can hope for is something close to an equality of opportunity. Give a hundred kids from the same socioeconomic background, age, gender, etc. a huge box of legos, and no two will build the same thing. Some will not play at all. Some will build houses, some will build bridges, and excepting maybe a copycat, they will all be different. Kids have different insights, different spatial awareness, different interests, different desires.

So given the freedom to try anything they want, some will be doctors, some will be farmers, some will be gardeners, some will be plumbers. Some will never have the interest and intelligence to become programmers, to model the world in that fashion. Start factoring in the observable differences in interest between men and women,for example, and suddenly the demographic breakdown of any job in society is not going to look like the demographic breakdown of the region.

Add to that people change, and sometimes even still learn, as they grow. The desired outcome is not achieved. Obviously, either we have enemies of the people, or the policies, what’s allowed, are not pure enough. In either case, the ideology is purified and made smaller. Words are redefined to attempt to make a tail a leg.

The size of the bed shrinks. A more careful watch is kept for stray limbs to keep things that don’t fit from corrupting the result. Suddenly, those who comfortably fit within the ideological bed while still keeping a conscience, still applying their own standards of what is true or not, find themselves at odds with the new outlook. What was fine yesterday, or a year ago, no longer is. At first, it’s just shaming, but history shows it always ends in blood as those with the power to choose struggle to maintain more and tighter control.

Since people never will fit into assigned boxes very well, it will never stop.

The people we’ve seen recently pushing back on the left include a number who even ten years ago would have been comfortably ensconced in the “liberal” side of the spectrum, and unthinkingly accepting the leftist worldview that has poisoned our institutions. The constant redefinition, the attacks, and the changing standards have caused them to wake up in small part. No, many are still liberal, but they realize there is something deeply wrong with where the left is, even if they don’t recognize it was inevitable. Dave Rubin comes to mind. The Bernie-voting professor mobbed by students angrily shouting for his resignation because he wasn’t going to go along with a “day of absence” does as well. Despite the words of Reagan spotlighting this trend for decades, despite the history of multiple revolutions such as the French revolution, most didn’t realize the left had changed until they themselves were attacked.

And so, day by day, as the left loses touch with reality and insists that the emperor is indeed wearing clothes, more and more see it for the vicious and deadly thing that it is. And though we should never trust a “moderate” or a recent convert with leadership of the fight against the left, the globalists, the left offers them no chance to stay out of it, indeed forces them to choose sides.

Their mask isn’t just slipping, they are taking it off to scare us.

Be not afraid.