Let us add a little depth to the metaphor.

The human being – and the human race, by expansion – possesses two drives which we in the modern world call “Progressive” and “Reactionary.”

Left and Right, or “To subdue the earth” and “To heed the natural order.”

Now, the metaphor is that of Cthulhu, swimming.  The current pulls everything to the right, toward the natural order, terminating in a sheer fall – certain death.  Therefore, Cthulhu swims left, to escape the turbulence and danger of the natural order.

The further he swims left, the less imminent the danger.  He might finally relax in the water, even become playful.  Yet, dangers still exist, and since he knows everything to the right becomes more threatening, he swims left.

And now the water is much calmer, still pulling but requiring very little effort to resist.  Cthulhu might begin to impose his own design on the river, building a place to be seated by the bank or small dams to break the water.  He will lose the exercise of those muscles which preserved him in the rapids, in favor of skills that enhance his pleasure and comfort in these less troubled waters.

New dangers await.  Stagnant water harbors bacteria.  His muscles have atrophied – if he wanders too far down river, he will surely drown.  Other creatures compete for food, and even as the apex predator he can be overwhelmed by a mass of them.  Moreover, there is an indescribable sense of discomfort, of not quite fitting in one’s environment, which the great beast cannot understand.  That, quite simply, is that he was made to rule in stronger waters, to challenge himself, to conquer mighty forces.

Proceeding left has always brought him pleasure and comfort – progress – and so he swims further left.

The metaphor can continue, but it will become complicated, even convoluted – if it has not already, for your tastes.  Let us look and see something.

There is a sense of melancholy about this metaphor, I think.  That is, Cthulhu – the complete body of a human society – is never finally satisfied and safe.  And someday he will die, his body carried along, ever more rapidly over the edge.

The human restlessness is such that it will want to challenge the rapids at times, but not for long.  Wanting for some activity to challenge his mind and body, imagining even that his survival still depends on it, man swims ever Left, requiring that he impose his will more and more completely on reality.

Somewhere up the river, he thinks, is Utopia.  Then he will be happy.

Now, “up” is correct, but the river is two-dimensional.  The way out of the river is not upstream, but up, out-of-stream.

If this seems like nonsense, or incredible, or the perfect answer – welcome to religion.  Religion is the pull of humanity up out of the river of this world.  It is the third dimension, which might elicit these varied responses from two-dimensional creatures.  One’s subjective response does not render it void.

Indeed, a properly ordered religion must position itself up, out of the river, and from that height throw down a rope.  If Cthulhu – a human society – will grab it, he will be saved both from the dangers of the Left and Right.  And it must be a strong rope, held up by a mighty arm.

We come to some paradoxes then.

If leftism is subjugation of the earth – the drive toward civilization, away from natural order – then isn’t more leftism equivalent to more civilized institutions and behavior?

If rightism is respect for the natural order, then isn’t more rightism a drive toward primitive living, before industry, science, and all the rest?

They seem quite the opposite.

That is, conservatives seem to prefer everything that happened in America from 1776 through the 1950’s, give or take a few years.  Conservatives love ‘murica – liberals aren’t accused of that.

They prefer industry, they prefer making the most of all potent energy resources, they prefer capitalism and business, they prefer social traditions (very orderly, structured).

Liberals, for their part, are more closely associated with the back to earth movement, to doing what one feels, to giving the benefit of the doubt where certain practices go against the cultural grain.

They have been marching since the 1960’s, starting with the sexual revolution and gradually conquering the media, education, and politics.  In many cases, they have undone what existed, rather than build new institutions.  (Same-sex marriage is not a new institution – it is the loosening of an old one).

What gives?

If this big idea is correct about leftism and rightism, we have already alluded to the next layer:  Whatever leftism established a generation ago, rightism is now defending.  Whatever leftism is pushing, no one wished for a generation ago.

There is yet another layer.

In America there is a Christian tradition, one inextricable from its founding.  The Christian religion is properly ordered, so that it forms tight institutions, bright lines, and produces many goods on Earth.

For any progress to be made – and we are in the age of the Progressive – these institutions, this Christian grip on the structure of society, must be undone.  The work of leftism, in this case, is to erase whatever may be attributed to the natural order, or to God, in favor of what man might do for himself.

It is, indeed, a push to subdue the earth.  And men.

Meanwhile, modern rightism looks like a paradox, because it ought to be a drive toward the natural order – but it looks like a drive toward anachronistic technology and social structure, and filthy fossil fuels, and unjust wages.

Think of someone who is not conservative, if you want a true sense of rightism.  Think of a reactionary.

Here is someone who quite seriously would reinstitute a monarchy (with all of its quirks and flaws) and restrict the vote, and champion the formation of socio-economic classes because …

That is what happens in the natural order.  In nature, the fittest survive.  The powerful get what they want first, and the weak receive the crumbs.  If anything.

The natural order, you understand, is not about equality.  The liberal push for equality is necessarily a synthetic effort, because men are not equal.  And men are not equal to women in the natural order.  And no beast is equal to a human in the natural order…and so on.

The conservative is only defending what your forebears installed.  The reactionary looks at at fixed point further in the past, and identifies that as the true balance in human affairs.*

Christians will no doubt have observed something here:  Original sin is a move to the Left.  That is, the original disobedience of God was a play for power on the part of humans.  Humans wished to subdue reality, and know it.  Know it for what purpose?

“…then your eyes will be open, and ye will be as gods.”

It is enough to shudder.  But!

As punishment, God brought down the natural order on humanity – hard.  Women would suffer in childbirth, and man would raise produce only by the sweat of his brow.  And all would die.

Natural death is the far end of rightism.

So, it is correct to say that the Old Testament is story upon story of humanity in dissonance with the natural order, and suffering greatly because of it.  And God, by grace, and mercy and love, saving them.

The New Testament is widely seen – if not in these terms – as a move to the Left, and all of Christianity is sometimes mocked because of this transition.

But they should not spurn the transition so quickly.  By Christ’s sacrifice, God gave humanity an escape from the extreme Right, which was NOT the extreme Left.  It was neither, and both.  Step back and see:

If you were a two dimensional creature, how could we begin to explain the third dimension to you?  You would necessarily flatten all of our words and actions, so that you could understand them in your two dimensions.  We could not really explain it at all.

And you would be right, and wrong.  Mostly wrong.

That’s the role of Catholicism.  At its best, and its core, it says to all the world – “Yes, but none of this is quite right.  Look – you are going to live forever.  Forever.  Now, how does that change things here on Earth?”

It might make you more of a rightist.  And more of a leftist.

But mostly, it would make a resurrectionist, with your eyes cast above you, which neither the left nor the right can comprehend.

* And again, chronology is not critical in and of itself – it is something of a tape measure, to let us know how far left we’ve come.  The Reactionary might also push for things that are in the spirit of a monarchy, but have not ever existed.  In that sense, if he is successful, the Reactionary is looking toward the future, through the past.  Chronology is not strictly useful.

My hope is that you have no idea what I’m about to say.

You may read the subject and leap to social issues in early 21st century America.  You might readily think about the Catholic vote, and the present turmoil, and it might skip across your mind that neither party’s nominee for President is Catholic.  You might be thinking about the separation of church and state, and the role clergy should and shouldn’t have in influencing voters.

Word association is such that I might have no idea what you are thinking.

At any rate, as genuinely entertaining and exhausting as the current election cycle has been, and as contentious as social issues are (bleeding even into economic issues), none of these are my immediate objects.  In medical parlance, I believe they are symptoms of underlying conditions.

So we’re about to get “meta,” to take a deeper dive beyond the turbulence and drama of the surface, with the hope of understanding what fundamental forces are at work.

Now, to parameters and conditions:

• I concede that this is only my view.  Certain parts are drawn from others, because I find them convincing, but the synthesis of the whole (such as it is) is mine, and I am only a man thinking.
• I welcome discussion, correction of facts, and so on.  The condition is that it is non-partisan as possible.  Imagine yourself arriving from the future, or from an alien race.  What do we find here?
• None of this is likely to win you an election.  It’s not tactics, it’s not strategy – it’s a giant step back, to observe.
• The initial Catholic character of this flows from the previous points:  We are in this world, but not of it.  The world is fallen, things are not as they were meant to be.  But all of this world is passing away (and we rejoice at that).  What, then, is such a pilgrim to do?

If you are discontent with the current state of politics, perhaps a deeper understanding will give you peace.  Peace does not sell, but it does satisfy.