Raymond Klassen – Ideals and Identities

When I was young, I believed those in power held dignity and authority. Our form of rebellion was subversive: obscene gestures, dirty words, and sharp critique. However, I have learned a sobering truth. The powers that be have turned out to be far more obscene than we could ever imagine. They outdid us in their shamelessness, and our assumptions about their vulnerability to exposure—such as the idea that catching them in lies or acts of hypocrisy would weaken them—proved disastrously wrong. I fear my sheltered upbringing in Canada did not really expose me to the obscenity of which both Stalin and Hitler were capable. The last elections, particularly, how the Democrats failed to learn from past mistakes, only underscored this reality.

While I considered myself a radical leftist when I was in university, I have come to identify as a “moderately conservative socialist.” This may seem contradictory, but it stems from a recognition that history is not guided by inevitable progress toward utopia or socialism. It seems that I had misunderstood “progress” to be a forward-thinking term. I have now come to believe, with some evidence, that progress is entirely applied retrospectively. We look back at historical events and tell stories about events as if they were inevitably leading to what we experience now. This type of narrative was common in the campaign of Kamala Harris in the United States, as it is for Pierre Pollievre of the Conservative Party in Canada.

There are particular times, though, on a global scale, where large portions of the population enter a time “between past and future” (re: Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt) – where we can adopt a standpoint that does not confuse progress for either the movement toward a fictional utopia or an interpretation of past events as if they were part of the inevitable march to ultimate freedom.

This may be one time when we all know that we exist between the past and future.

The old liberal and Marxist dreams of historical determinism—whether Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” or the orthodox Marxist belief that communism is humanity’s future—have crumbled. Even Rosa Luxemburg’s famous slogan, “Socialism or barbarism,” missed a critical possibility: that we could get both socialism and barbarism simultaneously, as evidenced by Stalinism.

In today’s historical moment, we seem to be living in a state of superposition, akin to the quantum state where a particle simultaneously takes all possible paths until it collapses into one. The world stands at a crossroads, confronted by multiple, interconnected crises: ecological devastation, war, mass migration, and economic instability. These crises interact unpredictably. Some argue that escalating ecological disasters might reduce warfare, while others see no such guarantee. The outcome of these overlapping threats remains profoundly uncertain.

We are in a state of radical openness. The future might bring a new form of socialism, or it might usher in barbarism—a fragmented world of islands of civilization surrounded by murderous violence. Yet, the most probable outcome is something I call “soft fascism.” This is not the violent, overt fascism of the Nazis, but a subtler version: a conservative revolution in which capitalism is maintained but heavily controlled by a strong state, justified by appeals to tradition, religion, or other ideological constructs.

China offers a striking example. Recently, President Xi Jinping emphasized the need for ideological education, not by referencing Marx or Mao, but by Confucian tradition—a call for cultural cohesion to stabilize society amidst brutal economic competition. Similarly, in India, Narendra Modi combines harsh capitalism with appeals to Hindu nationalism. This trend of authoritarian capitalist governance is becoming a model for many parts of the world.

The harsh truth is that history is not on our side. Progress is not inevitable, and many states are sliding into what I call “rogue state” status. A rogue state is one where the existing legal and ideological framework can no longer sustain itself and must resort to extralegal violence to maintain order. Haiti, where gangs control much of the territory, is one example. But we see this phenomenon in ostensibly stronger states as well. Russia’s Wagner Group operated as a semi-legal entity backed by the state. In Israel, illegal settlers in the West Bank have transitioned from being fringe actors to being embraced within mainstream politics. Even in the United States, groups like the Proud Boys oscillate between official condemnation and tacit manipulation by figures like Donald Trump.

This collapse of legal and ideological coherence should worry us. It reflects a broader crisis of civilization in which existing systems can no longer reproduce themselves within their own terms. The future is uncertain, and as with quantum collapse, we do not yet know which reality will emerge.

Adding a philosophical lens, I draw inspiration from Hegel’s concept of retroactivity: the idea that history is constantly rewritten in light of the present. Once a particular outcome is realized, we reinterpret the past as if it led inevitably to that point. Karl Marx alluded to this when he compared human anatomy to the anatomy of an ape—capitalism allows us to retroactively understand earlier stages of history, not because they were destined to lead to capitalism, but because the present reshapes how we view the past.

This retrospective rewriting reminds us to focus not only on what happened but also on what might have happened but didn’t. Unfulfilled possibilities do not vanish; they linger as either reactionary nostalgia or progressive aspirations. Recognizing these unrealized alternatives can provide valuable insights into our current predicaments.

Today, one of the most pressing debates revolves around artificial intelligence. Many frame the discussion by asking whether AI can think like humans. I find this framing flawed. It assumes that human thinking is the standard by which intelligence must be measured. But what if AI develops an entirely different kind of intelligence or spirituality, one that defies human norms?

More provocatively, there are aspects of humanity that AI might never replicate. Two examples come to mind. The first is our attachment to seemingly meaningless rituals. These habits—such as compulsively checking whether a faucet is dripping or, in my case, eating something sweet before bed—have no practical function. They are simply a way to impose structure on the chaos of existence. The second is the act of swearing. Swearing is more than vulgarity; it is a uniquely human response to the frustration of being unable to fully articulate our emotions within language. It reflects our perpetual discomfort with language, even though language is central to our existence.

This inability to fully “be” in language is a profound element of humanity. Even at moments of spiritual or existential crisis, we often express ourselves not through lofty proclamations but through raw, unfiltered outbursts. This tension between our aspirations and the limitations of language is, I believe, central to understanding what it means to be human.

What truly troubles me about the present is the receding of embarrassment. It has recently occurred to me that the common full-on display of private life (through social media) is a marked turn in the way we have breached the boundaries of private life. We could list out the emergence and public significance of what was, until recently, private phenomena like mental health, gender identity, and the like. What is important is that what was once sheltered by significant others seems to have become fodder for public interaction.  

With this in mind, we ought to be doubly alarmed that public discourse has reached levels of indecency that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago. This is not limited to the vulgarities of figures like Donald Trump or Boris Johnson. Consider recent events in Israel: debates in the Knesset over the torture of Hamas prisoners were marked not by condemnation but by arguments justifying the actions. Similarly, when an Israeli soldier took his own life after being ordered to bulldoze bodies, the official response was not empathy but a directive to train soldiers to suppress ethical qualms.

This erosion of embarrassment is emblematic of a deeper societal malaise. In an era of permissiveness, the lack of embarrassment leads to what Jacques Lacan called “universalized perversion”—a state where individuals pursue their fantasies without any regard for ethical or social boundaries. Paradoxically, this unbridled permissiveness is far more oppressive than the repressions it claims to liberate us from.

It seems to me that we live in a time of radical uncertainty, a time between past and future. The choices we make now will determine whether we move toward a new form of solidarity or descend into barbarism. History does not guarantee progress; it demands our active participation. Perhaps, by reclaiming the forgotten virtues of humility and by allowing ourselves to again be embarrassed, we can begin to navigate this precarious moment with greater wisdom and care.