Burdened By America As It Has Been

 As Kamala Harris continues running what is probably the most policy free, unvetted, and hateful campaign in modern American presidential history, it is ironic that the whole spectacle is being peddled to citizens as an exercise in joyous optimism. If the election was a contest over who has the most pop culture currency, Harris would certainly win. But it’s not about whatever happens to be the Current Thing. On the contrary, a sizable number of Americans have no appetite for the Left’s Year Zero ideology—an eternal present stripped of any connection to the past or a shared history that predates the release of Charli XCX’s most recent album.

Instead, Harris’s ruthless presentism is derived from a nihilistic worldview that animates the goals of secular progressivism. There is perhaps no better example of this than a favorite phrase of Harris’s: “what can be, unburdened by what has been.” If she only used this slogan once or twice, we could interpret it in the context of whatever she happened to be talking about. But she has invoked it so frequently over the years that it has become a mantra that sums up her political sensibilities—and they aren’t good.

There is a distinctly collegiate—and therefore Marxist—flavor to the maxim, so some Americans might be unclear on what it means. To pursue “what can be, unburdened by what has been” is to make the following assertions:

1. There is a kind of monotonous uniformity to the events of history (that is, “what has been”).
2. Taken on the whole, “what has been” in the past was bad and not worth preserving.
3. The legacy of history (“what has been”) imposes an intolerable “burden” on us today.
4. We can cut ties with the burdens imposed by the past and leave them behind.
5. We should cut ties because “what can be” will surely improve upon “what has been.”

Taken together, these assumptions expose a view that is anathema to the American tradition—a set of falsehoods which, if adopted, would make our nation unrecognizable. With the election fast approaching, let’s consider each premise in turn.

The Supposed Uniformity of “What Has Been”

Any serious student of history knows that “what has been” is anything but “uniform.” A more generous reading indicates that Harris must be referring to two of the only constants that attend the incessant change of human history: suffering and injustice. But there are degrees of suffering and injustice. Surely, there is measurably less suffering today than there was 2,000 years ago (less hunger, less poverty, more medicine, anesthetics, etc.). And even by the materialistic standards of modernity, there is certainly more justice now than in the past. Does Harris really believe that the U.S. has substantially less justice and more suffering than most other parts of the world today? If she does, then she’s poorly informed. If she does not, her slogan makes her a liar: we have some duty to preserve “what has been” in the United States.

The Cynical Focus on the Supposed Misery of “What Has Been”

Of course, we should strive for greater justice and less suffering. But that’s obvious—like Harris’s mind-numbing explanation of a hypothesis. Her refrain suggests a foolhardy belief that human hardship can be eliminated, a feat no society has ever achieved. Why does Harris think that we can do it? Presumably, because she is a secular humanist who thinks human reason and ingenuity, properly applied, can perfect the world. This is in stark contrast to the beliefs that animated the American Founding, which recognized suffering and injustice as inevitable consequences of living in a fallen world. The Founders put human redemption squarely in the hands of God—not government. Further, Harris’s contention that “what has been” was generally awful ignores the enormous progress that human beings generally—and the United States specifically—have achieved over time. This disregard betrays an ingratitude for the past that fuels the Left’s constant demands that our society must sacrifice the good in the name of the ideal.

The Supposed Burden That “What Has Been” Places on Individuals

Implicit in Harris’s disdain for “what has been” is a false equation of human suffering with injustice: she assumes that suffering is never justified. But sometimes it is. Human distress isn’t always the result of the mistakes of our forebears. Instead, suffering is often the result of choices that we ourselves made in the very recent past.

Of course, there are also “burdens” that history imposes upon us. But to think that because those burdens are undesired they are necessarily unfair wrongly assumes that we are completely severed from the people of the past. It implies that we have no practical or moral connection to them and refuses to acknowledge that (like us) previous generations pursued human flourishing imperfectly, insofar as they were able. Most people forget that they also endured undeserved burdens for us. Viewing the recent past as a sequence of wrongly-imposed burdens implies that we owe our ancestors nothing, but that their debt to us is unpaid. We hope that we are not judged too harshly by history. But Harris and the Left deny that courtesy to our forebears. They not only impugn their motives, but insist we are better than them: “they screwed things up, but utopia is within our reach.”

The Impossibility and Danger of Unburdening

Most of the human catastrophes of the 20th century were caused by people who got overly excited about “what can be, unburdened by what has been.” There are real limitations to our ability to perfect the world. After all, the word “utopia,” translated from Greek, roughly means “nowhere.” But even if “unburdening” ourselves of the inequities and injustices of the past was possible, Harris and her ilk never acknowledge the risks inherent to such idealism. Progressivism recklessly denies the inevitable costs of solving any social problem. Sometimes, solving a particular social pathology brings new forms of suffering and injustice. Other times, the intended solution to a problem fails, ensuring that the original suffering persists, now amplified by the costs caused by a blind confidence in “what can be, unburdened by what has been.”

The Desirability of Unburdening

“What has been” refers to the past we all share: our traditions, our cultural inheritance, our beliefs—and yes, our failures. But it forms a continuity between our ancestors and ourselves that reinforces social stability in the present. The legacy of the past tells us who we are and gives life meaning—both individually and collectively. To “unburden” ourselves of our inheritance wouldn’t merely be to forget our identity as a nation—it would be to purposely reject it. At bottom, that rejection is the central aspiration of the progressive Left that promises to “dismantle” everything they see.

Certainly, many of the burdens that history imposes on us are unwelcome. But accepting and enduring the difficulties of life—especially when they are unfair—affirms our dignity. When people quietly abide unjust suffering, they develop greater strength and resolve. It is also a show of hope, which is a kind of optimism: hopeful people are confident that things will get better. While the phrase “what can be, unburdened by what has been” conveys a blinkered optimism, it also betrays impatience—an unwillingness to accept that progress is incremental, and that it builds on past successes. Further, our nation’s Christian tradition reminds us of the beauty and love that can animate self-sacrificial acts. A political program directed toward an “unburdening” denies that truth.

Growing Tired of Man

This desire to pursue “what can be, unburdened by what has been” reflects a historical naiveté, coupled with a very modern oversensitivity to the minor pains and injustices that define 21st century life. Our society isn’t perfect. But only a reckless, ignorant, ingrate would reflexively reject “what has been” (both the good and the bad) in a vain pursuit of…well…what?

In his treatise On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche showed that the trajectory of culture in the 19th century was already careening toward a great and destructive “unburdening.” He writes:

The stunting and levelling of European [and now, American] man conceals our greatest danger, because the sight of this makes us tired…. Today we see nothing that wants to expand, we suspect that things will just continue to decline, getting thinner, better-natured, cleverer, more comfortable, more mediocre, more indifferent, more Chinese, more Christian—no doubt about it, man is getting ‘better’ all the time…. Right here is where [our] destiny…lies—in losing our fear of man we have also lost our love for him, our respect for him, our hope in him and even our will to be man. The sight of man now makes us tired – what is nihilism today if it is not that?

Ultimately, the aspiring un-burdener seeks greater comfort in a place and time where comfort is already at an all-time high.

Suffering pain and injustice with patience and grace has always been one of the highest expressions of what it means to be man. When we habitually and indiscriminately wage war upon every burden out of a base desire for maximum comfort, we reject an essential part of the human experience. And by saying no to “what has been,” we reject reason, history, dignity, and finally ourselves—all in a momentary moralistic flinching.

Before you vote this November, consider whether we might be better off with the burden of “what has been.” And remember to account for what might be lost in a feckless effort to unburden ourselves of the past and its legacy.

Adam Ellwanger is professor of English at the University of Houston - Downtown. He is editor of The Peerless Review, a new online platform for publishing dissident scholarly research. Find him on X at @1hereticaltruth

https://americanmind.org/salvo/burdened-by-america-as-it-has-been/