Now Which Piece Was Dialectical? 6-28-2008

With all due respect to Mr. John Brock (a moralizing columnist for the Waccamaw Times, an extension of the local church bulletin), I believe rumors of our moral demise are greatly exaggerated. While devoid of any understanding of what dialectical materialism is or means, Mr. Brock is at least clever enough to use the adult surrogate for the bogeyman, Karl Marx, to panic us into shunning ‘change’ in all its nefarious disguises.  Prohibit change, the conservative Brock  tell us, and we can begin to turn back the clock to those halcyon days of yore when all was right with the world.  He and his nostalgic (mostly) male collaborators suggest that all important decisions on all important issues were made before the year 1800, and the really big ones long before that. If you concur, then while re-winding your grandfather’s clock, smack yourself soundly on the head to erase the knowledge that those were the days when powerful institutions controlled nearly all of the life and death forces that determined our well being on earth and beyond.  Tighten your blindfold to avoid exposure to the fact that suppressing the minds and circumscribing the rights and activities of women were the primary tool for inhibiting change.  Struggle to ignore the reality that without change, a significant portion of Americans would still qualify as the “property” of another American.  Do all this, and you too can be numbered among those conservatives with minds like steel traps that, to our sorrow, snapped shut when they were 17 and have not been pried loose since.

Change is not a liberal plot. It is a fundamental process of reality that envelopes us when science begins to dominate our intellectual processes, when superstition and fear begin to loosen their grip on our lives, and when well meaning men and women work arm in arm to make what improvements they can  to a flawed world. To those unpersuaded by these arguments and still lusting for a return to yesteryear, please check ticket prices to Iran or Saudi Arabia. If you promise to take Rush Limbaugh with you, and not return, I will send a check for both your tickets.