Saved by Grace

I have, for a long time, wondered along with a number of others why individuals and organizations on the left are granted immunity from behaviors roundly condemned by leftists.  Why is George Soros, billionaire currency speculator, allowed to be politically active without criticism while the Koch brothers are not?  Why are leftist comedians permitted to utter vile words without a murmur from the press while conservative radio hosts are called to task for much less objectionable language?  Why are people of color who express conservative views allowed to be referred to by highly objectionable racial epithets while the most indirect reference to race from a conservative is grounds for termination and blacklisting?  Why are liberal billionaires and millionaires not considered to be part of the "one percent" and permitted to rail against conservatives of similar, or lesser, wealth without being called on their hypocrisy? 

Victor Davis Hansen has pointed out that those on the left are immunized from criticism because they believe, or at least express belief, in all of the right things.  They toe the ideological line, their hearts are in the right place.  That is certainly true as an objective matter but I have always wondered what the ideological underpinning for such an approach might be.  After all if the left is interested in results, one's belief should not trump one's actions; form should not be exalted above substance. The left's actions made no logical sense which is quite extraordinary for a philosophy that prides itself on being rational above all else.  I think I found an explanation.

I read with interest yesterday a review of a book called An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America by Joseph Bottum.  According to the review (I haven't read the book yet, but it's now on my summer reading list) Bottum's thesis is that

post-Protestant secular religion...gained force and staying power by recasting the old Mainline Protestantism in the form of catechistic worldly categories: anti-racism, anti-gender discrimination, anti-inequality, and so forth. What sustains the heirs of the now-defunct Protestant consensus, he concludes, is a sense of the sacred, but one that seeks the security of personal salvation through assuming the right stance on social and political issues. Precisely because the new secular religion permeates into the pores of everyday life, it sustains the certitude of salvation and a self-perpetuating spiritual aura. Secularism has succeeded on religious terms.

 Viewing the left's attitude as a religious stance it seems to me makes sense of its apparently contradictory attitude.  If one views the left as being part of a religion, particularly a religion in the protestant tradition with its emphasis of grace over works, it is possible to understand why simply ascribing to the correct beliefs insulates one from criticism.  If the purpose of the leftist program is secular salvation then a declaration that one has been saved by having accepted the leftist saving principles absolves one of the need for action.  The grace of the left's ideological program is sufficiently powerful to save the sinner; no other qualification or action is required.

In this view since the purpose of life is to be saved by adopting the required beliefs, actual worldly conditions are unimportant.  If the population believes in the leftist program the fact that the results of the program lead to less freedom, opportunity and prosperity and increased misery, death and destruction are completely irrelevant because such worldly concerns are much less important than the souls that are saved.   

That is why leftists can with complete internal consistency ignore the misery and death caused by communist and socialist governments: "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"   The leftist program makes sense only in religious terms.  What the left really has to offer is salvation by grace.