There you are, rioting, opening up a trans bathroom, tearing down a statue of George Washington and screaming out for America to repent of its systemic evil. It makes you feel good, you're living the revolutionary dream without actually helping anyone at all.
C.S. Lewis spoke to this at the beginning of World War II, when privileged undergraduates were calling on the Sceptred Isle to "repent" of the war. Via First Things:
Men fail so often to repent their real sins that the occasional repentance of an imaginary sin might appear almost desirable. But what actually happens (I have watched it happening) to the youthful national penitent is a little more complicated than that. England is not a natural agent, but a civil society. When we speak of England’s actions we mean the actions of the British government. The young man who is called upon to repent of England’s foreign policy is really being called upon to repent the acts of his neighbor; for a foreign secretary or a cabinet minister is certainly a neighbor. And repentance presupposes condemnation. The first and fatal charm of national repentance is, therefore, the encouragement it gives us to turn from the bitter task of repenting our own sins to the congenial one of bewailing—but, first, of denouncing—the conduct of others. If it were clear to the young that this is what he is doing, no doubt he would remember the law of charity.
Unfortunately the very terms in which national repentance is recommended to him conceal its true nature. By a dangerous figure of speech, he calls the government not “they” but “we.” And since, as penitents, we are not encouraged to be charitable to our own sins, nor to give ourselves the benefit of any doubt, a government which is called “we” is ipso facto placed beyond the sphere of charity or even of justice. You can say anything you please about it. You can indulge in the popular vice of detraction without restraint, and yet feel all the time that you are practicing contrition. A group of such young penitents will say, “Let us repent our national sins”; what they mean is, “Let us attribute to our neighbor (even our Christian neighbor) in the cabinet, whenever we disagree with him, every abominable motive that Satan can suggest to our fancy.”
"Contrition" as a virtue-signaling cover for personal failing and hatred. As it was in 1939/40 so today, but arguably amplified. And while we're at it, how much of their not inconsiderable, corporate given fortune have BLM poured into ghetto communities? How much of their billion dollar hoard have the black Marxists used to help poor black people? A lot, some, nothing at all?
Good question and while reflecting on the answer, I'd say Lewis is right on the money.
Your Pal,
LSP
