America, A Country Divided, So What? - Darwin, Natural Selection, And The Survival Of The Fittest

A recent article in The Atlantic used the tale of the Tower of Babel to bemoan the divisions in American society. However the Biblical story says nothing about the purity, innocence, and beauty of a harmonious world, summarily destroyed but a vengeful pre-crime God who destroyed the city, confused the language of the inhabitants so they could no longer collude, and scattered them far and wide.  The tale is about the omnipotence, extra-judicial authority, the power of God, the duty of obedience to him, and an expression of his absolute intolerance for any act of defiance, actual or potential .

 

Both the Old Testament and the New are very clear about the nature of the human race God created - it cannot be trusted to do the right thing, and in case after case he tried to send an irrefutable message.  He destroyed the world in the Flood, destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and destroyed Babel.  Seeing that none of these penitential lessons had sunk in, he sent his only begotten son, Jesus, to redeem the world.  Through the miracle of salvation, at least some of his creatures would be saved, and eventually all would hear Jesus' words, reform, and join him in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

That has not worked out so well.  The world is still a contentious, bellicose, aggressive, territorial place with no peace in sight.  History is nothing but an archive of wars, slaughter, greed, venal ambition, and merciless pursuit of individual self-interest. 

It must also be remembered that God always gave man the option of right behavior; and it was through that struggle against temptation that he would prove his mettle.  God could have created a perfect, harmonious, peaceable world, but he decided to do it this way - let man with his endowed free will, sort things out for himself - a Biblical survival of the fittest. 

Millennia later, Darwin added secular credence to this divine plan.  There might not be a heaven which man sought, and in fact the world was nothing but random change, but through the natural competition between and among species, the human race could 'improve'.  Not improve in any moral or ethical way, but in its ability to survive more and more easily through the acquisition of a more adaptable body and brain.  This improvement would happen by random genetic mutation, and the dominance of the better evolved, stronger species over the weaker.

History has shown the insight and scientific brilliance of Darwin.  Man and the societies which God created continue to evolve thanks to survivalism.  The tenacious self-interest of kings, their defiance of any usurper or foreign enemy, and their unquestioned will to dominate, extend, and expand created the great civilizations of Europe, Persia, China, India, and China. Contention, violent opposition, and warfare were givens, the expressions of aggressive self-interest. 

 

Along the way as empires expanded, took lands and resources and became wealthy, cities grew, time and space became available for scientific inquiry, art, philosophy, and religion. There was never a question of 'right' but only powerful ascendancy.  Those empires which betrayed their subjects and created mayhem rather than order, were defeated and destroyed by the stronger, the more willful and more determined. 

And so it is with any society.  America is indeed a country divided by political philosophy - a staunchly conservative majority and an entrenched progressive minority.  The country has witnessed great swings in leadership over the past ten years with two conservative Trump presidencies and one far-Left term of Joe Biden. 

The Left during the past four years has insisted that their particular vision of society is not only the right one, but the only one. It is based on race, gender, and ethnicity and the notions of inclusivity and diversity; the politics of identity; and the culture of 'positive revisionism'.  The opposition of the Right has claimed its own moral ground - a deep respect for the principles of early America and the insights of Jefferson, Hamilton, and Adams; a reverence for the Constitution as the embodiment of these ideas; and a belief in the God-given and -created natural order of things. 

 

There could be no more distinctly different philosophies than these, and the two have been in aggressive competition for years. There is nothing wrong with this at all.  Where in the history of human civilization has such competitiveness not occurred?  A society made up of 300 million individuals cannot possibly agree on anything, let alone on a political canon.  Political philosophy is perhaps the most defining, distinctive human expression.  A conservative is not just a Republican, but a believer in a well-defined worldview.  A vote for the Right is not just about immigration, energy, or income; but about the very vision of what society should look like as a whole, in its entirety. 

Given that rather existential view of politics, it is no wonder that the battle lines have been drawn between Left and Right in America.  Par for the course, understandable, predictable, and necessary. If conservatives enable the structural and behavioral change necessary to return to basic originalist principles, then they will have a long run.  If not, liberals will again have their moment. So why the hue and cry about divisiveness?  It is the natural order of things, a bit unpleasant at the margins, but absolutely de rigeur. 

The Devil in Ivan's Nightmare in The Brothers Karamazov says that without him the world would be a deadly bore.  If everyone acted responsibly, always did the right thing, and went to church each and every Sunday, the human race would fall asleep.  He is the one who creates interest, drama, art, poetry, and kingdoms.  Prayers for his demise and for the purification of the world are ill-conceived, vain, and irrelevant.  Not only did God create the world in this shambling, disordered, illogical way, his subjects were born to revel in it, enjoy it, profit from it. 

It should be noticed that the only ones who wail and beat their breasts over America's shameful divisiveness are progressives whose Utopian idealism, despite the lessons of millennia of human history, reaches for universal peace, harmony, and cooperation. No nation has ever succeeded in creating a classless, unified, generously sharing society.  The Soviets and Red Chinese tried, but their deformed, brutal, and oppressive attempts ended very badly indeed. 

So, long live divisiveness!  It is not something one encourages, but is simply the natural order of things, so, 'Let It Be'