At the gym, I was subjected to a music video called “Paradise.” It starts with two fully clothed men riding their bikes while two bikini-clad women strike pornographic poses on a beach. It ends with Chris Brown singing, “See you on the other side,” while surrounded by scantily-clad women raising their glasses and dancing at a full-blown beach party. Paradise lost; party found.
I don’t know what has happened or is happening to this country, but it’s lost its way. The right has weaponized the majority religion, Christianity, while appealing to more “conservative” factions of other religions and libertarians, to hold onto power, money and white privilege. The left has weaponized hatred of religion, mainly Christianity, while appealing to more “liberal” factions of other religions and libertarians to gain power, money and to further place themselves in positions of privilege. Both extremes are disgusting and dangerous.
I have held a reverence for and have unwaveringly pursued a truly intellectual and artistic life since I was a teenager. My life is my bona fides, and it is incontestable. Given who I am and how I have lived, the left’s trajectory has repulsed me. It has divorced itself from anything resembling the search for truth, which is my life’s commitment. Instead, it is simply in pursuit of itself and the imposition of itself on a society that is struggling to define who it is and what it believes.
Although I have always been a Christian, I have not always been a deeply religious person, but I have also never harbored any hatred for Christianity or for any other religion. Instead, I have always been fascinated by religions. I have read various religious texts, artistically engaged with diverse religious art and visited many places of worship.
I would view any other approach as a betrayal of my objectivity, which is absolutely necessary in the pursuit of truth. These religions have also added a critical spiritual dimension to my intellectual and artistic pursuits that gave them depth. Without my spiritual journeys, my understanding of the human experience and of truth would be incomplete and superficial.
The left has become a grotesque caricature of an “enlightened” person. It has replaced genuine curiosity and the often endless and frustrating search for truth with no search at all. It is not trying to find paradise. It is not questioning if we have lost paradise. It is not even genuinely questioning if an otherworldly paradise exists. It is just a party that wants to party. It is shallow, stupid and self-centered.
It has easy answers for hard questions, which effectively means that it has no answers at all. The left has also engaged in various forms of revisionism that are basically lies it conveniently peddles to support its narrative and its agenda. It has become the opposite extreme of everything it claims to hate on the right, so much so that there is, in fact, a considerable overlap between extreme right and left.
Let me put this as succinctly as I can. Both of these extremes are an intellectual and artistic failure. The left, which considers itself “enlightened,” actually has nothing meaningful to offer to either an individual who is genuinely seeking a deeper understanding of him or herself or to our society as we navigate a period of considerable change and uncertainty.