The Folly of Going Too Far

The Promised Land is a symbolic dream and nothing more. Its satisfactions are beyond the reach of both individuals and society, irrespective of whether the tools used to attain happiness are politics, religion, science, economics, or philosophy. The supreme, contemporary irony, though, is that, while we’re living in an overtly moral age, it’s a fundamental, but often overlooked side of human nature to disturb our own and other people’s peace.

All of us, to our shame, are guilty of naively or even deliberately choosing the wrong path. We do it continually throughout our lives. Dostoevsky said that if all human desire was indulged, we would still, through a quirk of psychology, destroy everything that makes our lives happy and meaningful. Eden, Jannah, Nirvana, the prelapsarian state of nature, the perfect world of the future, the false gods and snake oil of communism, feminism, socialism, fascism or environmentalism, (our wildest, febrile imaginings, in other words) are…