Two thoughts. First let me make it clear that I have zero sympathy for the “thinking” of Herbert Marcuse, but I genuinely do respect his honesty. Effectively he is saying, “Yes, I want to limit freedom of expression. Here’s why, and here’s how.” That’s a debate I’m ready to have. In fact, it’s a fight I am spoiling for. But I can’t have it because today’s more typical leftists refuse to acknowledge that they want to do any such thing. They aren’t just wrong. They’re wrong and they’re dishonest.

Second, I can’t help thinking that this is all going to backfire on the left. I get a little uneasy when what I really think is also what I want to believe, but that is where I am. People know when they are being lied to. No one likes the thought police, and thoughts that are “forbidden” are seductive – especially to the young. Today’s college professors may well succeed in turning out students who are rebellious and ready to challenge the status quo. What they may be missing is that, at least in academia, they are the status quo.

I just spent an hour writing a comment in reply to the post of January 7 to which Mark Steyn has linked; then I discovered that comments are closed, although the comment form is open. Here is the comment, which you will leave here, move, or delete according to your pleasure.

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It appears that a judgment about the extension of healthy life can't be both universal and true. Instead, it seems that the worth of life extension is the worth of the healthy extended life of some given person, to some given person. The host of this weblog is almost entirely unknown to me, so instead let me offer Mark Steyn, the writer whose link led me here, as an example. It seems that most of us who foresee political collapse in the West have Mark to thank for having clarified matters for us. I'd sign on for an extra fifty years of Mark Steyn, even if I had to endure an extra fifty years of, say, Al Gore in the bargain. Turning to transhumanism and taking human intelligence, Mark Steyn, and Al Gore again as examples, I'd even more willingly endure another fifty years of those two, if the entire population became smart enough and intellectually rigorous enough to distinguish which of the two is right on any given point of disputation. I mean, imagine Al Gore compelled by his own sharpened mind to concede that the demographic forecast looks worse than the weather forecast. Imagine the rest of the thinkers we despise waking up one morning, sitting on the edge of the bed, head in hands, as if they've just awakened from a years-long nightmare, and saying out loud, "I have been stupid." I'd pay the price of having to go through that purgatory myself, for the comic pleasure of watching everyone else go through it, too. And although I don't imagine the sequel would be a paradise, I think it would be an improvement on life so far; it would surely be more interesting, at a minimum.

Now, as for "the loss of faith," I see it as a problem, too, but not altogether as such. I agree with Machiavelli that one must be wary of trusting exiles from another land. I agree with him that, other things being equal, an army with a way to escape is weaker than one with no way to escape. I agree with him that it's dangerous to rely on a foreign prince. I agree with him on the difference between power and greatness. Machiavelli would probably also join me in observing that there's some low comedy in watching a Christian deprecate the utopianisms of others. And I've observed you, here, evaluating Christianity in terms of its effects on politics, rather than in terms of its truth or falsity. I wonder if you've found yourself slipping from faith in the truth of your revealed religion and whether you're clinging to its utility, as if utility were proof of truth.

I actually have no opinion on whether life extension itself is good or bad. The subject that interests me is change, and the life-extension crowd is, to me, a perfect example of people pushing something that will change us, socially and spiritually, with not the least concern over where we are heading. I suspect the attitude of the life-extenders is spiritually perilous. But the effect of actually having extra years--who knows? Chesterton wrote somewhere that if people could live a thousand years everyone would end up either Catholic or in complete despair and nihilism. We may get to see the experiment run in our lifetimes.

"And I've observed you, here, evaluating Christianity in terms of its effects on politics, rather than in terms of its truth or falsity..." I'm in an odd position now, since I've been blogging about politics and economics and the world since 2001 (and thinking about those things for decades.) But I've only last year come to the Church (after being an Episcopalian, which is to say, not much of anything) and won't actually be received until this Easter. I'm not going to change this into a religion blog, and chase away all my old friends! And anyway it would be presumptuous at this early point to start preaching. In fact I find my faith in Jesus and his Church only growing stronger.

I'm definitely not just clinging to Christianity for its utility, although thoughts about that have influenced my path over the last few years, as I blogged about the same sort of things Steyn is covering (so much better than I can.) I suspect there is really only one story. (And that Mark Steyn needs to just connect a couple more dots.) None of which I can prove, but I stick my suspicions in frequently, and enjoy it when people disagree,

If you think Christians are utopians, you mistake us.

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