by Michael Isaacson

Created on: February 08, 2011   Last Updated: February 09, 2011

Ronald Wilson Reagan turned 100 recently. He has been enshrined of late by many of us conservatives, as everything right and good about America, or the Moses of our day to lead us to our promised land. His record is, of course, more practical and moderate than that. But other, more qualified (and more liberal), editorialists have whipped that horse to death already. Dutch was a great president who helped do amazing and laudable things during his eight years of responsibility. The mythology and “story” that is being built up around him is only natural.

Myth is human. But let’s not get carried away. Liberals and some historians have balked at the genuflecting, mocking conservatives and generally being jerks. They are jerks because what they criticize is so ingrained in humanity: the hero-worship, person-centered meaning and subjective connotations of Reagan denote a habit we’ve had for millennia, and the stories run from Beowulf to Robin Hood to George Washington’s cherry tree. Modern and Post-Modern thought has left us better on the whole, but we still like our symbolism, it’s part of who we are.

And liberals do the same damn thing, only with policy. One only has to take a step back from Global warming (most conservatives did that a long time ago), or the idea of a ‘balance’ between capitalism and socialism being pushed at us to see that, while mental and moral arguments are made all the time, the underlying story is mythology of the highest order. This is not even to say these positions are right or wrong; many arguments are made with rigorous and scientific thought. But those on the political left should excuse the churchgoer who rightly identifies and categorizes the Greenpeace activist and the tree-hugger as a theologian, not a scientist.

Post-modernism is applying the rational demands of modern thought to itself, in a sense it’s a philosophical snake eating its tail. Those who use it, wittingly or unwittingly, have a problem; they often cease to logically address their own cultural biases and subjective beliefs, believing that by identifying the “person-centered meanings” they have eradicated it from their thought processes. More people on the Left have this problem, I would argue, because conservatives are less likely to disavow their subjectivity. I have beliefs, for example, and you can go to hell before you sway me from the really important ones.

In holding the reins

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