” … today … nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself.”
Herman Hesse
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Yesterday I saw this fellow Beto O’Rouke on a midday T.V. show called The View. It was actually remarkable because it was so pathetic.
Here was a youngish looking man offering all sorts of self-hating criticisms to three overweight, unattractive women – two of whom are far past their prime. It was a dark and disturbed, inane act of confession. Confession about skin pigment (being White), gender (being Male), affluence (being the Son-in-Law of a man who is a wealthy Texan) and simply being Beto.
It is strange to see self-hatred or self-loathing but there is a fair amount of it among today’s liberals. Indeed, it seems to be a dreadful by-product of present day Leftism with their template of “identity” politics – and especially prevalent among Democrats vieing to become President.
It is, of course, self-loathing … and as such – utterly unhealthy. And, who, by God, would ever imagine that anyone would want someone with so such self-hated to lead a nation?
It appears the liberals have doubled-down on Mr. Obama’s nation-hopping “apology” tour that marked his early presidency. No one, by the way, attaches admiration to a head of state whose instinct is to grovel.
This strange liberal instinct of self-loathing brings to mind Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution whereby in the midst of Mao failed economics he unleashed hoards of young brain-washed Marxists to corner individuals and extract from them public “confessions” for their real or imagined “betrayals” of the State. Yes, the subjects were randomly selected for their “hatred of socialism” vintage Mao.
Some of those cornered were too “bourgeois.” Others were deemed to have courted “evil habits” of yesterday.
The Cultural Revolution is said to have resulted in 2 million dead, maybe more. The take-away is this: Mao understood that a fearful populace composed of people who carry self-guilt in order to avoid harsh treatment, imprisonment, exile or death is easier to control.
Yes, it is alarming to see people on the Left evoking such self-loathing as young Mr. O’Rouke willing presented for all to see. It is even more concerning that a political party seems to promote this sort of thing, expect it.
Cultures that separate from faith lead us to such states as self-hated. Those who display this are in no position to lead. A society were such illness is present had best rectify its disposition lest it decay and die a chaotic death.
Shalom.
Spirlaw 
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May 18, 2019 at 12:33 am
essaybee2012
Kerouac wrote, in his On The Road (1955), “I walked with every muscle aching among the lights of 27th and Welton in the Denver colored section, wishing I were a Negro, feeling that the best the white world had offered was not enough ecstasy for me, not enough life, joy, kicks, darkness, music, not enough night.“ That certainly works for me as a five-star version of Beto’s puny self loathing on The View. Both men, though, just should have tossed their liberalism aside and heeded the ancient philosopher Pindar’s elegant: “Become what you are!”
May 18, 2019 at 8:42 am
Robert Sylvester
Amen. Kerouac was a kid from Lowell, Mass – a poor town north of where I lived. He was a working class kid in a town that was dying. I was in much the same baot but with a fasinating Irish Mob and lots of great Irish friends. Somehow we see better when the story is written so closely to one’s day – day after day.
God bless,
B.
May 18, 2019 at 12:38 pm
essaybee2012
So very true! Kerouac’s buddy, Neal Cassady grew up in Denver, not too many miles from where I live. Every year, now, there’s a “birthday bash” held in Downtown Denver for Cassady. My wife and I used to go each year for about four years. Then I asked myself, why are we celebrating the birthday every year for a man who, in reality, was such a lose?. Both men are still idolized to this day, but with my 64-year-old eyes and mind, I now realize that the facts are that Cassady was an alcoholic, a druggie, he cheated on his wife, Carolyn, he stole cars (though he always returned them), and he was almost never around for the growth of his children. He died too young, a sad death wandering railroad tracks with a bottle of booze down in Mexico. Kerouac wasn’t really a whole lot better. He also died too young, and alcoholic, and one who just couldn’t settle his mind down. So many young people (and old) today see them as icons of the Beat movement that preceded the Sixties’ hippies, but with today’s eyes, I now see them as wasted talents (especially Kerouac, who really was a great writer with a decent education). They just couldn’t get themselves together, and too many, nowadays, I think, idolize them as role models. Anyway, it’s really great to be able to converse with you occasionally like this. I truly appreciate it!
May 18, 2019 at 5:09 pm
Robert Sylvester
Jack was starting fullback for Columbia when Ivy football still had some status. Studying these guys is interesting – from what I can see they seemed not to have traction, to know what life offered and was about … perhaps a product of the missed the education they were offered. I think of Alan Bloom and his late 60’s or early 70’s book The Closing of the American Mind (excellent in understanding the decline in higher edication and the culture in the years after WWII – the 50’s and 60’s).
I think too of hubris and the inclination to think of ourselves as Jeti pilots governing our journey solo. Silly stuff and contary to human history, and good human develoment. Chase God from view and things go south easily.
When we detach from the story we inherit – i.e., the history of human kind on the planet and in the Western world at-large – we proceed adrift. I often tell people one cannot wite one’s “own” story when one is living it. But rudderless – that is what these guys did. A sad demise indeed. For a great comparasion read Thomas Merton autobiograpghy (with one of the best openings I’ve ever read – gripping). He and his Columbia pays wrestled with purpose and made real progrese – two of them became monks (one – was a Jew, Merton became a Catholic and a monk and literary fibgure).
Figuring out these journeys gives real useful insights that stand valuable today and probably for many tomorrows.
God bless,
B.