Velocirapturists

If capitalism is part of the dialectical process that leads to communism and the eventually withering away of the state, why were Lenin and Marx so intent on destroying it? If the antichrist as manifested by the advent of the secular nation-state is the process by which the world is destroyed and the Rapture and Second Coming occur, why try to impede its progress? These are the contradictions raised by Mathew Avery Sutton, a professor of history at Washington State University, in a recent Times Op-Ed piece (“Why the Antichrist Matters in Politics,” NYT, 9/26/11). “Like orthodox Marxists who challenge capitalism even though they say they believe it represents an inevitable step on the road to the socialist paradise,” Professor Sutton remarks, “conservative Christians never let their conviction that the future is already written lead them to passivity.” Both Marxists and Rapturists (or, as I like to call them, Velocirapturists) are species of fundamentalists who have an attraction-repulsion relationship with dialectics. In other words, though both these troglodyte specimens would be great candidates for a reality show called “The Best of Hegel,” both are dialectically challenged. The good news is that this learning disorder is imminently treatable through the use of antipsychotics and experience-based cognitive therapy. Last May 21 came and went with not even a chance to refund our misery, and one only need take one of the battered cruise ships that the North Korean government is running out of Pyongyang as a means of attracting foreign currency to see the pathetic residue of Utopia at work.