I am trying to understand Robin Lehman’s latest piece in the February 9, 2023, issue of The Valley Reporter. If his intention was to highlight the moral failings of our forefathers, I would expand that to include other nations such as the former Soviet Union under totalitarian rule. When reflecting on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s question as to what could have possibly precipitated the severe cruelty to his fellow Russians, in seeing 60 million of them annihilated. In short, the Soviet fathers lamented, “Men have forgotten God, that’s why all this happened.”
In a final analysis Solzhenitsyn said, “Untouched by the breath of God, unrestricted by human conscience, both capitalism and socialism are repulsive.” Considering Lehman’s opinion and his interest in promoting critical race theory, (CRT) his resistance to capitalism stems from the “historic racial bent of Christian white men. Solzhenitsyn is also quoted as saying, “If only it were that simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and to destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”
The draw of CRT is nothing new when it comes to searching to find a solution to mankind’s ills. The assertion that the world’s problems can be blamed on the racial injustices, and greed of white men, and their systems falls short. The key word being theory, which postulates the world has been unfairly divided into a racial hierarchy with Caucasians or white people at the top, with all of the other races, in general “Black and Brown” people, subjugated historically by white people. This theory remains both theoretical and ironically American in its focus, ignoring the historical truth that white people led the charge to free Black and Brown slaves in America and elsewhere.” **
If we were to take a rigorous, honest, self-evaluation, we’d find similar tendencies in our own hearts. So, the plan to re-educate the upcoming generations about the problems of white men, and their systems is shallow, deceptive, and empty of promise. Of course, the truth of racial offenses needs to be applied, but as well the significant, costly, sacrificial, contributions America has made to the world overall. Hmm, if our country is so wretched to the core, why are our borders being overrun with desperate immigrants?
The fleeting hopes of constructing a perfect utopia on earth through capitalism, socialism, religion, etc., can never be realized until the heart of man is converted.
I appreciate the quest for a renewed nation of empathetic sincere patrons to lead us out of our darkness. In attempting to understand why anyone, coming from a nation of affluence and freedoms such as we have, is looking for an alternative, I’d refer to a similar question posed to a man named Whitacre Chambers, a successful senior editor of Time magazine and an underground communist. After turning himself in he was asked how a comfortable liberal who made a real living in America could become a communist, he replied, “The making of a good living does not necessarily blind a man to a critical period for which he is passing through, such people may in fact feel a special anxiety. They seek a moral solution in a world of moral confusion . . .The very vigor of the project appeals to the more or less sheltered middle-class intellectuals, who feel that the whole context of their lives has kept them away from the world of reality.”
Chambers came from a home of disastrous dysfunction and, similarly, today many are looking for a cure for their pain and are finding meaning and purpose in a grand movement. This is a shortcut to working on themselves to become whole, for sure a difficult task requiring time.
There is a desperate need for our hearts to be converted. Trying to steer some safe middle way through secular liberalism, while attempting to push God away, will not bring us salvation.
Lundblad lives in Moretown.
