Month: August 2012

To Call it an Exaggeration Would be an Understatement

There are statements so extreme that to call them exaggerations would be an understatement.  There are plenty of examples to be found in liberal precincts.

"The photo ID requirement is voter suppression. It disenfranchises minorities, the poor, the elderly.  It is an onerous barrier to voting."

Onerous?  In Pennsylvania a photo ID can be had free of charge.  In Arizona it costs a paltry $12 and is good for 12 years.  If you are 65 or older, or on SS disability, it is free.

Are our liberal pals exaggerating?  Actually it is more like lying.  It is the willful misuse of language to win at all costs.  Linguistic hijacking.

Academic Philosophy (with an addendum on Human Corruption)

Academic philosophy too often degenerates into a sterile intellectual game whose sole function is to inflate and deflate the egos of the participants.  But this is no surprise: everything human is either degenerate or will become degenerate.

……………………..

Addendum: 2:45 PM

Long-time blogger-buddy and supplier of high-quality links and comments, Bill Keezer, comments:

Academic anything eventually degenerates either into ego battles or battles for status as grant securers.  In addition to tuition inflation the big money-maker for universities is the administration overhead awarded within grants and the supplement to salaries in some cases that allow them to forego raises or to reduce their portion of the payroll.   

Government corrupts all that it touches.

I agree with Bill's first point, but not with his second.  The source of moral corruption is not government, but the human being, his ignorance, his inordinate and disordered desires, and his free but wayward will.  Everything human beings are involved in is either corrupt or corruptible, and government is no exception, not because government is the unique source of corruption, but because government is a human, all-too-human, enterprise.

On my view, government is practically necessary.  Anarchism is for adolescents.  Some of what government does is good, some bad.  Governments in the free world defeated the Nazis; communist governments murdered 100 million in the 20th century. (Source: Black Book of Communism.)  Some of what is bad are unintended consequences of programs that were set up with good intentions.  Federally-insured student loans made it possible (or at least easier) for many of us to finance our educations.  (It is of course a debatable point whether it is a legitimate function of government to insure student loans.)  But lack of oversight on the part of the Feds, and the greediness of university administrators coupled with the laziness and prodigality of too many students has led to the education bubble.

What has happened is truly disgusting.  The price of higher education has skyrocketed, increasing out of all proportion to general inflation, while the quality of the product delivered has plummeted in some fields and merely declined in others.   There are young people graduating from law schools today with $150 K in debt and little prospect of a job sufficiently remunerative to discharge the debt in a reasonable time.

Can we blame the federal government for the education bubble?  Of course, if there had been no federally-insured loan program the bubble would not have come about.  But there was no necessity that the program issue in a bubble.  So we are brought back to the real root of the problem, human beings, their ignorance, greed, prodigality, and general lack of moral and intellectual virtue.

Compare the housing bubble.  Government must bear some of the blame through its bad legislation.  But no bubble would have occurred if consumers weren't stupid and lazy and greedy.  What sort of fool signs up for a negative amortization loan?  Am I blaming the victim?  Of course.  Blaming the victim is, within limits and in some cases, a perfectly reasonable and indeed morally necessary thing to do.  If you are complicit in your own being ripped-off through your own self-induced intellectual and moral defectiveness, then you must hold yourself and be held by others partially responsible.  And then there are the morally corrupt lenders themselves who exploited the stupidity, laziness, greediness and general lack of moral and intellectual virtue of the consumers.  A fourth factor is the corruption of the rating agencies. 

So, contra my friend Keezer, we cannot assign all the blame to government.  We need government, limited government.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Scott McKenzie, San Francisco, Summer of Love

Nostalgia time again.  Scott McKenzie, famous for the 1967 anthem "San Francisco" penned by John Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas, is dead at 73.  Gen-Xer Mick LaSalle gets it right in his commentary:

The thing about that song is that . . . however naive and even sanctimonious it might be, it is so clearly a true expression of a mindset, of a vision, of a moment in time, of a generation, of an aspiration that, even if it is singing about a San Francisco that never happened and a dream that never came true and never really had a chance of coming true, and that had only a scant relationship with reality . . . it’s a precious thing.  It’s a document of a moment, but more than that, a perfect poetic expression of that moment.

It was not MY youth, but I can recognize in that song and in the purity of McKenzie’s vocal something that is as unmistakably honest, in its way, as Gershwin playing the piano, or Fred Astaire dancing, or Artie Shaw playing the clarinet.  It is youth finding itself in the world and saying the most beautiful thing it can think of saying at that particular moment. You can’t laugh that away.  You have to treasure that.  Really, you have to love it.

Speaking of the Mamas and Papas, here are some of my favorites:  Dedicated to the One I Love (1967), a cover almost as good as the Shirelles original.  But it is hard to touch the Shirelles. 

Twelve Thirty.  Creeque Alley. California Dreamin'.

And then there's Eric Burdon and the Animals, San Franciscan Nights from '67.

The so-called Summer of Love transpired 45 years ago. (My reminiscences of the Monterey Pop Festival of that same summer of '67 are reported here.) Ted Nugent, the guru of kill and grill, and a rocker singularly without musical merit in my humble opinion,  offers some rather intemperate reflections in a WSJ piece, The Summer of Drugs. Excerpts:

The 1960s, a generation that wanted to hold hands, give peace a chance, smoke dope and change the world, changed it all right: for the worse. America is still suffering the horrible consequences of
hippies who thought utopia could be found in joints and intentional disconnect.

[. . .]

While I salute and commend the political and cultural activism of the 1960s that fueled the civil rights movement, other than that, the decade is barren of any positive cultural or social impact. Honest people will remember 1967 for what it truly was.

Although I am not inclined to disagree too strenuously with Nugent's indictment, especially when it comes to drug-fueled self-destruction, Nugent misses much that was positive in those days. For one thing, there was the amazing musical creativity of the period, as represented by Dylan and the Beatles above all. This in stark contrast to the vapidity of '50s popular music. Has there been anything before or since in popular music that has come up the level of the best of Dylan?

The '60s also offered welcome relief from the dreary materialism and social conformism of the '50s. My generation saw through the emptiness of a life devoted to social oneupsmanship, status-seeking, and the piling up of consumer goods. We were an idealistic generation. We wanted something more out of life than job security in suburbia. (Frank Zappa: "Do your job, do it right! Life's a ball, TV tonight!")

We were seekers and questers, though there is no denying that some of us were suckers for charlatans and pied pipers like Timothy Leary. We questioned the half-hearted pieties and platitudes and hypocrisies of our elders. Some of the questioning was puerile and dangerously utopian, but at least we were questioning. We wanted life and we wanted it in abundance in rebellion against the deadness we perceived around us. We experimented with psychedelics to open the doors of perception, not to get loaded.

We were a destructive generation as well, a fact documented in Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the '60s. But the picture Nugent paints is onesided. Here is Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind" which was one of the anthems of the Civil Rights movement. Or give a listen to the Youngblood's Let's Get Together.  This song captures the positive spirit of the '60s, a spirit not much in evidence nowadays.

My Argument That ‘Exist(s)’ is not Univocal Revisited: No ‘Is’ of Predication?

On August 11th I wrote:

Suppose we acquiesce for the space of this post in QuineSpeak. 

Then 'Horses exist' says no more and no less than that 'Something is a horse.'  And 'Harry exists' says no more and no less than that 'Something is Harry.'  But the 'is' does not have the same sense in both translations.  The first is the 'is' of predication while the second is the 'is' of identity.  The difference  is reflected in the standard notation.  The propositional function in the first case is Hx.  The propositional function in the second case is x = h.  Immediate juxtaposition of predicate constant and free variable [with the predicate constant coming first] is the sign for predication.  '=' is the sign for identity.  Different signs for different concepts.  Identity is irreducible to predication which is presumably why first-order predicate logic with identity is so-called.

Those heir to the 'Fressellian' position, such as Quine and his epigoni, dare not fudge the distinction between the two senses of 'is' lately noted. That, surely, is a cardinal tenet of their brand of analysis.

So even along Quinean lines, the strict univocity of 'exist(s)' across all its uses cannot [pace van Inwagen] be upheld.  It cannot be upheld across the divide that separates general from singular existentials.

But the next morning I had a doubt about what I had written.  Is there an 'is' of predication in MPL (modern predicate logic)? I argued (above) that 'exist(s)' is not univocal: it does not in MPL have the same sense in 'Fs exist' and 'a exists.' The former translates as 'Something is (predicatively) an F' while the latter translates as 'Something is (identically) a.'  Kicked out the front door, the equivocity returns through the back door disguised as  an equivocation on 'is' as between predication and identity.

But if the 'is' in 'Grass is green' or 'Something is green' is bundled into the predicate in the Fregean manner, then it could be argued that there is no 'is' of predication in MPL distinct from the 'is' of identity and the 'is' of existence.  If so, my equivocity argument above collapses, resting as it does on the unexpungeable distinction between the 'is' or identity and the 'is' of predication.

Yesterday a note from Spencer Case shows that he is on to the same (putative) difficulty with my argument:

Hey Bill, I have a professor whose pet peeve is the claim that there is an 'is' of identity and an 'is' of predication. I don't know his arguments for thinking so, but his view is that 'is' is univocal and what differs is the content of the copula. If he's right, that would be a problem for you here. Do you know more about this position than I do?           

To sort this out we need to distinguish several different questions:

Q1. Is there a predicative use of 'is' in English?  Yes, e.g., 'Al is fat.'  This use is distinct from the existential use and the identitative use (and others that I needn't mention).  So I hope Spencer's professor is not denying the plain linguistic fact that in English there is an 'is' of predication and an 'is' of identity and that they are distinct.

Q2. Must there be a separate sign for the predicative tie in a logically perspicuous artificial language such as MPL (modern predicate logic, i.e., first-order predicate logic with identity)?  No.  When we symbolize 'Al is fat' by Fa, there is no separate sign for the predicative tie.  But there is a sign for it, namely, the immediate juxtaposition of the predicate constant and the individual constant with the predicate constant to the left of the individual constant. So we shouldn't confuse a separate or stand-alone sign with a sign.  Other non-separate signs are conceivable exploiting different fonts and different colors, etc. 

Q3.  Must there be some sign or other for predication in a logically adequate language such as MPL? How could there fail to be?  If our logical language is adequate, then it has to be able to symbolize predications such as 'Al is fat.'  And note that existentials such as 'Fat cats exist' cannot be put into MPL without a sign for predication.  '(∃x)(Fx & Cx)' employs non-separate signs for predication.

Q4.  Is the predicative tie reducible or eliminable?  No.  For Frege, there is no need for a logical copula or connector to tie object a to concept F when a falls under F.  The concept is "unsaturated" (ungesaettigt).  Predicates and their referents (Bedeutungen) are inherently gappy or incomplete.   So the predicate 'wise' would be depicted as follows: '___ wise.'  What is thereby depicted is a sentential function or open sentence.  A (closed) sentence results when a name is placed in the gap. The concept to which this predicate or sentential function refers is gappy in an analogous sense. Hence there is no need for for an 'is' of predication in the logical language or for an instantiation relation. Object falls under concept without the need of a tertium quid to connect them.

I would imagine that Spencer Case's professor has some such scheme in mind.  One problem is that it is none too clear what could be meant by a gappy or incomplete or unsaturated entity.  That a predicate should be gappy is tolerably clear, but how could the referent of a predicate be gappy given that the referent of a predicate is a single item and not the manifold of things to which the predicate applies?  The idea is not that concepts exist only when instantiated, but that  their instantiation does not require the services of a nexus of predication: the concept has as it were a slot in it that accepts the object without the need of a connector to hold them together.  (Think of a plug and a socket: there is no need for a third thing to connect the plug to the socket: the 'female' receptacle just accepts the 'male' plug.)

There are other problems as well.

But here is the main point.  Frege cannot avoid speaking of objects falling under concepts, of a's falling under F but not under G.  If the notion of the unsaturatedness of concepts is defensible, then Frege can avoid speaking of a separate predicative tie that connects objects and concepts.  But he cannot get on without predication and without a sign for predication.

I conclude that my original argument is sound.  There is is and must be a sign for predication in any adequate logic, but it needn't be a stand-alone sign.  (Nor need its referent be a stand-alone entity.)   Compare '(∃x)Hx' to '(∃x)(x = h)' as translations of 'Horses exist' and 'Harry exists,' respectively.  The identity sign occurs in only one of the translations, the second.  And the sign for predication occurs only in the first.  There is no univocity of 'exist(s)' because there is no univocity of 'is' in the translations. 

Why Do Jews Do So Well and Arabs So Poorly?

I don't think much of Richard Cohen as a commentator on the passing scene, but his A Difference Beyond Question is right on target in his defense of Mitt Romney for pointing out the obvious:

The cultural difference between Israel and its Arab neighbors is so striking that you would think it beyond question. But when Mitt Romney attributed the gap between Israel's economic performance and the Palestinians' — "Culture makes all the difference," he said in Israel — the roof came down on him. PC police the world over raised a red card, giving him demerits for having the temerity to notice the obvious. Predictably, Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator and a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, denounced the statement as "racist." It was, of course, just the opposite.

But I want to take issue with the following sentence:  "I do know, though, that if you eliminate what would certainly be condemned as a racist explanation — Jews as inherently smarter than non-Jews — then you are left with culture . . . ."  What I object to is Cohen's apparent acquiescence in the false notion that a racial explanation must be a racist explanation.  I take no position on whether Jewish superiority is best explained racially or culturally.  I am objecting to the conflation of the racial with the racist.

There are two distinctions operative here and they ought not be conflated.  There is a distinction between the racial and the cultural, and a distinction between the racial and the racist.  The distinctions cut perpendicular to one another.  If some phenomenon has a racial explanation, as opposed to a cultural explantion, it doesn't follow that the explanation is racist or that the people advancing it are racist.

Suppose that Jews as a group are smarter than non-Jews.  If that is true, then it is true. (And what I just wrote is a tautology, hence logically true: it doesn't get any better than that.)  Now if a statement is true, how can it be racist?  This is what I don't understand.  Truth is truth. Facts are facts.  There are racial facts, facts about race, but no racist facts.  If blacks are 12-14% of the U. S. population, then that is a racial fact.  But it is not a racist fact.  Nor is someone who states it, just in virtue of his stating it, a racist.  A person who states it may be, accidentally, a racist; but he is not, just in virtue of stating it, a racist.  Similaarly, there are facts about sex, but such facts are not sexist facts, and there are the sorts of facts that gerontologists study, but they are not ageist facts.

There are racial explanations, explanations in terms of race, but a racial explanation is not a racist explanation.  Facts, propositions, explanations — these are not the sorts of item that could be racist or nonracist.  To think otherwise would appear to be a Rylean category mistake.  People are racist or not.

The Obama Movie, 2016

I'll be seeing  it soon.  Here are some remarks on the movie by Thomas Sowell. Excerpts:

It was refreshing to see how addressing adults as adults could be effective, in an age when so many parts of the media address the public as if they were children who need a constant whirlwind of sounds and movements to keep them interested.

That is one of my main objections to the destructive HollyWeird libruls who produce the mindless crap that fill our screens.  I continue in this vein, in only slightly more measured terms, in What I Look For in a Movie: A Rant.

The story of Barack Obama, however, is not just the story of how one man came to be the way he is. It is a much larger story about how millions of Americans came to vote for, and some to idolize, a man whose fundamental beliefs and values are so different from their own.

For every person who sees Obama as somehow foreign there are many others who see him as a mainstream American political figure — and an inspiring one.

This D'Souza attributes to Barack Obama's great talents in rhetoric, and his ability to project an image that resonates with most Americans, however much that image may differ from, or even flatly contradict, the reality of Obama's own ideological view of the world.

What is that ideological view?

The Third World, or anti-colonial, view is that the rich nations have gotten rich by taking wealth from the poor nations. It is part of a much larger vision, in which the rich in general have gotten rich by taking from the poor, whether in their own country or elsewhere.

Whatever its factual weaknesses, it is an emotionally powerful vision, to which many people have dedicated their lives, and for which some have even risked their lives. Some of these people appear in this documentary movie, as they have appeared throughout the formative phases of Barack Obama's life.

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is just the most visible and vocal of a long line of such people who played crucial roles in Obama's evolution. When Jeremiah Wright thundered about how "white folks' greed runs a world in need," he captured the essence of the Third World or anti-colonial vision.

But many of the other mentors, allies, family and friends of Barack Obama over the years were of the same mindset, as this documentary demonstrates.

More important, the movie "2016" demonstrates how so many of Obama's actions as President of the United States, which D'Souza had predicted on the basis of his study of Obama's background, are perfectly consistent with that ideology, however inconsistent it is with the rhetoric that gained him the highest office in the land.

 

Existentials and Their Equivalents: Aid and Comfort for the Thin Theory?

I grant that logical equivalents not containing 'exist(s)' or cognates can be supplied for all singular and general existentials.  Thus, 'Socrates exists' can be translated, salva veritate, as 'Something is identical to Socrates,' or, in canonical notation,  '(∃x)(x = Socrates).'  Accordingly,

Socrates exists =df (∃x)(x = Socrates).

But if the definiens preserves the truth of the definiendum, then the definiendum must be true, hence must be meaningful, in which case first-level uses of 'exist(s)' must be meaningful.  Pace Russell, 'Socrates exists' is nothing like 'Socrates is numerous.'

What's more, the definiendum is prior in the order of understanding to the definiens.  If I didn't already understand 'Socrates exists,' then I would not  be able to understand '(∃x)(x = Socrates).'  You couldn't teach me the Quinean translation if I didn't already understand the sentence to be translated.

One conclusion we can draw from this is that if 'exist(s)' is univocal across general and singular existentials, then  existence cannot be instantiation.  For the left-hand side of the definition does not make an instantiation claim.  It is simply nonsense to say of an individual that it is instantiated.  And if the right-hand side makes an instantiation claim, then we need those creatures of darkness, haecceity-properties.

But we don't have to give the RHS a Fressellian reading; we can give it a Quinean-Inwagenian reading.  (We could call this the 'Van' reading.)  Accordingly: There exists an x such that x = Socrates. On the Van reading, in stark contrast to the Fressellian reading,  'exist(s)' can be construed as a first-level predicate, as synonymous to the predicate 'is identical to something.'  Accordingly:

y exists =df(∃x)(x = y).

On the reasonable assumptions that (i) 'exist(s)' is an admissible first-level predicate and that (ii) there are no nonexistent objects, this last definition is unobjectionable.  If Tom exists, then there exists an object to which he is identical.  And if there exists an object to which Tom is identical, then Tom exists.  No doubt!

The interesting  question, however, is whether any of this affords aid and comfort to the thin theory.  Well, what exactly is the thin theory?  It is the theory that existence is exhaustively understandable in purely logical, indeed purely syntactical, terms.  The thin theory is a deflationary theory that aims  to eliminate existence as a metaphysical topic.  It aims to supplant the metaphysics of existence (of whatever stripe: Thomist, Heideggerian, etc.) with the sober logic of 'exist(s).'  The aim of the thin theory is to show that there is no sense in which existence is a non-logical property of individuals.  The aim is to be able to consign all those tomes of metaphysical rubbish to the flames with a good conscience.

Now glance back at the definition.  Every mark on the RHS  is a bit of logical syntax.  Ignoring the parentheses which in this instance can be dropped, we have the backwards-E, two bound occurrences of the variable 'x,' a free occurrence of the variable 'y,' and the sign for identity.  There are no non-logical expressions such as 'Socrates' or 'philosopher.'  On the LHS, however, we find 'exists' which is not obviously a logical expression.  Indeed,  I claim that it is not a logical expression like 'some' or 'all' or 'not.'  It is a 'content' expression.  What could be more important and contentful than a thing's existing?  If it didn't exist it would be nothing and couldn't have properties or stand in relations.

Surely my sheer be-ing is my most impressive 'feature.'  "To be or not to be, that is the question."

Since there is content on the LHS there has to be content on the RHS.  But how did it get there, given that every expression on the RHS is just a bit of syntax? In only one way: the domain of the bound variables is a domain of existents.  But now it should be clear that the definition gives us no deflationary account of existence.  What it does is presuppose existence by presupposing that the domain of quantification is a domain of existents.  Existence is that which existents have in common and in virtue of which they exist.

In short, I have no objection to the definition read in the 'Van' as opposed to the  'Fressellian' way.  It is perfectly trivial!  My point, however, is that it gives no aid and comfort to the thin theory.  A decent thin theory would have to show how we can dispence with existence entirely by eliminating it  in favor of purely logical concepts.  But that is precisely what we cannot do given that the domain of quantification is a domain of existents.  (Of course, if the domain were populated by Meinongian nonexistent objects, then the definition would be false). 

Some Aphorisms of Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

LecI have discovered the aphorisms of Stanislaw Jerzy Lec via a reference in a book by Josef Pieper.  Here are a few that  impressed me from More Unkempt Thoughts (Curtis Publishing, 1968, tr. Jacek Galazka), the only book of Lec's I could easily lay hands on.

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. (9)

Why can't you believe in paradise on earth when you know there is hell on earth? (10)

When they blow the horn of plenty this loud, it must be empty. (15)

In him there is a void filled to the brim with erudition. (18)

Do not greet people with open arms.  Why make yourself easier to crucify? (19)

Take good care of yourself: Property of the State. (22)

Cannibals prefer men who have no spines. (28)

To keep fit fame needs the massage of applause. (31)

Ladies, do not complain about men:  their aims are as transparent as your clothes. (36)

The strongest brakes fail on the path of least resistance. (37)

Percussion wins every discussion. (38)

You cannot rely on people to remember, or, alas, to forget. (42).

In some countries life is so open you can spot the Secret Police everywhere. (42)

Not every shi- can age gracefully and become valuable guano. (48)

America! We gave you Kosciuszko and Pulaski; please send us some used clothes. (48)

Woe to those who have more hate than enemies. (49)

Who created the world? So far only God admits to it. (52)

When reasons are weak, attitudes stiffen. (52)

He had a clear conscience. Never used it. (53)

Bread opens all mouths. (56)

You may give a barbarian a knife or a gun, but never a pen.  He will turn you into barbarians as well. (56)

How did they get a permit to create the world? (57) 

To Doctor Empiric

When men a dangerous disease did 'scape
    Of old they gave a cock to Aesculape
Let me give two, that doubly am got free
    From my disease's danger, and from thee.

Ben Jonson (1753?-1637) from Epigrams and Epitaphs (London: Faber and Faber, 1977), p. 27.

At the very end of the Phaedo, having drunk the hemlock, Socrates is reported by Plato as saying to Crito, "I owe a cock to Asclepius; do not forget to pay it." (tr. F. J. Church) Asclepius is the Greek god of healing.  Presumably, Socrates wanted to thank the god for his recovery from the sickness of life itself.

Nietzsche comments at the the beginning of "The Problem of Socrates" in The Twilight of the Idols:

Concerning life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is no good.  Always and everywhere one has heard the same sound from their mouths — a sound full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weariness of life, full of resistance to life.  Even Socrates said, as he died: "To live — that means to be sick a long time: I owe Asclepius the Savior a rooster." (tr. W. Kaufmann)

Coyne versus Vallicella Vapaista Valinnoista

I can't read it, but maybe you can.  It is a response to my Jerry Coyne on Why You Really Don't Have Free Will.

Update (22 August):  Ilari Malkki writes:

I noticed that you posted a link to my blog post "Coyne versus Vallicella Vapaista Valinnoista" (Coyne vs Vallicella on Free Will).  Thanks for the link! The main language is Finnish, so I´m not too  surprised that you can´t read it.

One correction, though. It is not a "response" to you, but to Jerry  Coyne. I just lay out your arguments on that post and defend them  against Coyne.

Trotsky’s Faith

Leon Trotsky died on this date in 1940.  Here is something I posted about two and a half years ago:


TrotskyThe last days of Lev Davidovich Bronstein, better known as Leon Trotsky, prime mover of the October 1917 Russian Revolution, are the subject of Bertrand M. Patenaude's Trotsky: The Downfall of a Revolutionary (HarperCollins, 2009).  It held my interest from the first page to the last, skillfully telling the story of Trotsky's Mexican exile, those who guarded him, and their failure ultimately to protect him from an agent of the GPU/NKVD sent by Stalin to murder him.  Contrary to some accounts, it was not an ice pick that Ramon Mercader drove into Trotsky's skull, but an ice axe.  Here is how Trotsky ends his last testament, written in 1940, the year of his death:

For forty-three years of my conscious life I have been a revolutionary; and for forty-two I have fought under the banner of Marxism . . . I will die a proletarian revolutionary, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist.  My faith in the communist future of mankind is no less ardent, indeed it is even stronger now than it was in the days of my youth. [. . .] Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air might enter more freely into my room.  I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight is everywhere.  Life is beautiful.  Let the future generations cleanse it of evil,
oppression, and violence, and enjoy it to the full. (Patenaude, pp. 234-235)

No pie-in-the-sky for old Trotsky, but pie-in-the-future.  Those of us who take religion seriously needn't deny that it can serve as opium for some.  But if one can see that, then one should also be able to see that secular substitutes for religion can be just as narcotic.   Why is utopian opium less narcotic than the religious variety?  Why is a faith in Man and his future more worthy of credence than faith in God?

I should think that it is less credible.  Note first that there is no Man, only men.  And we human beings are a cussedly diverse and polyglot lot, a motley assortment of ornery sons-of-bitches riven by tribalisms and untold other factors of division.  The notion that we are all going to work together to create a workers' paradise or any sort of earthly paradise is a notion too absurd to swallow given what we know about human nature, and in particular, what we know of the crimes of communism.  In the 20th century, communists  murdered 100 million to achieve their utopia without achieving it.  That is a lot of eggs to waste for a nonexistent omelet.

We know Man does not exist, but we do not know that God does not exist. Religious faith, therefore, has a bit more to recommend it than secular faith.  You say God does not exist? That may be so. But the present question is not whether God exists or not, but whether belief in Man makes any sense and can substitute for belief in God. I say it doesn't and can’t, that it is a sorry substitute if not outright delusional. We need help that we cannot provide for ourselves, either individually or collectively. The failure to grasp this is of the essence of the delusional Left, which, refusing the tutelage of tradition and experience, and having thrown overboard every moral standard,  is ever ready to spill oceans of blood in pursuit of their utopian fantasies.

There may be no source of the help we need. Then the conclusion to draw is that we should get by as best we can until Night falls, rather than making things worse by drinking the Left's utopian Kool-Aid.

Trotsky, as you can see from the quotation, believed in a redemptive future.  Life in this world is beautiful and will be cleansed by future generations of evil, oppression, and violence.  But even if this fantasy future were achieved, it could not possibly redeem the countless millions who have suffered and died in the most horrible ways since time beyond memory.  Marxist redemption-in-the-future would be a pseudo-redemption even if it were possible, which it isn't. 

There is also the moral and practical absurdity of a social programme that employs present evil, oppression, and violence in order to extirpate future evil, oppression, and violence.  Once the totalitarian State is empowered to do absolutely anything in furtherance of its means-justifying ends it will turn on its own creators as it did on Trotsky.  Because there is no such thing as The People, 'power to the people' is an empty and dangerous phrase and a cover for the tyranny of the vanguard or the dictator.  The same goes for 'dictatorship of the proletariat.'  What it comes to in practice is the dictatorship of the dictator.

The tragedy of Trotsky is that of a man of great theoretical and practical gifts who squandered his life pursuing a fata morgana. It is interesting to compare Edith Stein and Lev Davidovich Bronstein.  Each renounced the present world and both set out in quest of a Not-Yet, one via contemplation, the other via  revolution.  Which chose the path of truth, which that of illusion?  it is of course possible that both quests were illusory.

How strange the stage of this life and the characters that pass upon it, their words and gestures resounding for a time before fading away.