The late, great G.K. Chesterton reflected, “But the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist.”
Chesterton happened to believe, as America’s Founding Fathers did, that revolution can be good and even necessary. Thus, Christianity was a revolution, as shocking and disruptive of the pagan world and pagan morality as a massive earthquake is. The American Revolution changed not only our continent but the whole world forever, both politically and culturally. But the ironic part is that there are not only also harmful revolutions — as for instance the French Revolution or the Democrat-launched Civil War — but there are some people who reduce revolution to revolt and become incapable of anything but hatred.
Indeed, the French Revolution is rather an instance of this. Whereas the American Revolutionaries aimed to guard their existing rights, expand their liberties, and build a new nation blending the best of the political past and present, the French Revolutionaries were mainly interested in destroying everything that came before them, both good and bad, with nothing positive to offer in replacement. The Reign of Terror was a revolt, not a revolution, and its aftermath was correspondingly revolting.
This is what Chesterton meant by saying modern rebels are so skeptical and so lacking in loyalty to any truth that they only destroy. That is a good description of Marxists, from the Chinese Communist Party to the Democrat Party — they have no core morals or principles, only hunger for power, hatred for freedom, and a passion for destruction. That is why when they actually try to argue, they never win. As Chesterton put it, "And the fact that he [the modern rebel] doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it."
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Marxists so often turn to violence partly because they have no appealing or true doctrines. Their espoused beliefs are as contradictory as they are poisonous. Chesterton reflected:
The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines.
In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.
Indeed, if Marxists of this school of rebellion were not so dangerous culturally and politically, they would be comic, for their arguments are weak, contradictory, and puerile. Like the first rebel Lucifer, who had no loyalty and no morality, and so fell down into Hell, modern rebels revolt against everything and so accomplish nothing of value.
