Hereafter, a thesis recently articulated by the publication Harvard Salient will be discussed. Stemming from the tragic murder of the conservative polemicist Charlie Kirk, it seeks to diagnose the nature of the evil afflicting contemporary society. The aforementioned article posits that "Leftism" is not merely an alternative political program but a "mental illness" characterized by a systematic hatred for institutions, a taste for moral monstrosity, and a bloodlust that sanctifies obliteration. It is argued that Kirk's moderation, focused on debate rather than annihilation, was insufficient to protect him, proving that there is no neutral ground in the culture war. The thesis concludes with a call for conservatives to abandon the illusion of a private, apolitical life, converting despair into a "militant diligence" to defend civilization.
This analysis, while correct in identifying the symptoms of hatred and destruction, fails fundamentally in its diagnosis. By classifying the evil as a psychological pathology ("mental illness"), the thesis remains on the surface of the problem, offering a naturalist explanation for a phenomenon whose root is eminently theological and supernatural. The murder of Charlie Kirk is not the symptom of a mental infirmity but the logical and inevitable consequence of a mortal sin against the faith: Liberalism.🤔A Mistaken Diagnosis: The Superficiality of Psychological Analysis
Attributing the actions of a revolutionary to a "mental illness" is to resort to a modern, secular category that obscures the true nature of evil, reducing a drama of a spiritual order to a mere mechanical derangement of the psyche. The disorder in question does not reside primarily in the psyche, but in the soul. The hatred of inherited institutions, the celebration of death, and the inversion of morality are not delusions of a sick mind, but manifestations of a will deliberately rebelling against the divine order and committed to its replacement by an immanent and human order—a true Gnostic inversion that seeks to achieve paradise on Earth through force (Carvalho, 1998). Evil is not a condition to be treated clinically, but a sin to be condemned theologically.
Liberalism, in its essence, is the negation of God's sovereignty over the individual and society. By emancipating human reason from all supernatural authority, it constitutes the universal and radical heresy that encompasses all others. Therefore, its fruits are not mere behavioral deviations, but acts that directly offend God. Liberalism is a sin, and, by attacking the foundation of the entire supernatural order—the faith—it is the greatest of sins, more grievous than blasphemy, theft, or homicide, for in it all sins are contained (Sardá y Salvany, 1884). To call a mortal offense against God a "disease" is to capitulate to the language of the enemy, replacing the catechism with profane science and inadvertently practicing a form of "spiritual materialism" that seeks to cure the soul with the tools of the world (Carvalho, 1998).
🌱The Root of All Evil: Liberalism as a Universal Heresy
The thesis under analysis makes a second crucial error by isolating "Leftism" as if it were a distinct and autonomous phenomenon. In truth, so-called "Leftism" is nothing more than Liberalism taken to its ultimate and inevitable consequences. Between the moderate liberal who defends "freedom of thought" and the revolutionary who murders in the name of "progress," there is no difference in nature, only in degree and in self-awareness of the historical mission.
The liberal system is one and logically interconnected. Once the fundamental principle of the absolute autonomy of individual and social reason is accepted, everything proclaimed by the most advanced demagoguery follows by a perfect chain of consequences (Sardá y Salvany, 1884). The liberal who values "debate" has already conceded the premise that truth is not absolute and divinely revealed, but something to be discovered or negotiated by human criteria. The revolutionary who kills simply applies this logic with greater rigor: if the only law is human will and if the goal is the complete replacement of the real world with a projected utopia, then the physical elimination of the adversary becomes a perfectly legitimate and even necessary act to impose that will and to carry out this work of psychic engineering on a universal scale (Carvalho, 1998).
Charlie Kirk's murderer is not an anomaly of the liberal system; he is its most obedient child.
🐺The Fallacy of Moderation: The Tame Liberal as the Most Dangerous Enemy
The thesis laments Kirk's moderation as a virtue that, tragically, was not enough to save him. This is the most dangerous of illusions. Kirk's moderation, his willingness to engage in "debate" and "dialogue" with error, was not a virtue, but the very poison that killed him. He embodied the figure of the tame liberal or, even worse, the Catholic-Liberal, who, under the pretext of conciliation and urbanity, serves as a bridge for the revolution.
These individuals, who attempt to forge an alliance between light and darkness, are more dangerous and disastrous than declared enemies. Confining themselves within certain limits and presenting themselves with an appearance of probity, they deceive the imprudent and seduce honest people who would have fought manifest error (Sardá y Salvany, 1884). Liberal moderation is the mask that makes error palatable. The "debate" becomes a theatrical stage where one side seeks rational persuasion, while the other only uses the opportunity to corrode the adversary's symbolic immunity, preparing the ground for their physical destruction (Carvalho, 1998). Kirk's murder does not prove the failure of moderation, but rather that moderation is a necessary stage in the process of destruction. It was the "dialogue" of yesterday that armed the hand of the murderer of today.
🛡️The True Combat: From Militant Diligence to Catholic Intransigence
The thesis's final call for "militant diligence" points in the right direction, but with an imprecise objective. The struggle is not merely for the survival of "inherited institutions" or a "free and ordered society" in secular terms. The combat is a crusade for the restoration of the social sovereignty of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
True charity does not consist in dialoguing with error, but in fighting it without truce. Charity obliges one to shout "Wolf!" when it enters the flock (Sardá y Salvany, 1884). The response to Kirk's murder cannot be a generic political militancy, but an absolute Catholic intransigence. This implies:
1. Total Rejection: To repudiate Liberalism in all its shades, from the most radical to the most conservative, recognizing it as a mortal sin.
2. Separation: To avoid all alliances or association with liberals, treating them as one would treat carriers of a spiritual plague.
3. Open Combat: To publicly unmask error and its defenders, using vigorous polemics and, if necessary, personal discrediting, following the example of the Apostles and the Church Fathers.
The illusion that it is possible to lead a private life, aloof from the spiritual war, is correctly debunked by the thesis. However, the alternative is not just civic militancy, but the acceptance of our role as soldiers of the Church Militant, whose sole objective is the glory of God and the salvation of souls through the submission of all society to His law. In this sense, the thesis that private life becomes unsustainable is the inevitable conclusion of this process. The project of reconfiguring the "moral architecture of the nation" is, in essence, the project of establishing a new "civil religion," a totalizing power that seeks to absorb all spheres of human existence under its domain. The modern Empire, or Cæsar Redivivivus, does not tolerate autonomous domains. The family, individual conscience, inherited morality, and spiritual life that does not submit to temporal power are seen as direct threats to its sovereignty (Carvalho, 1998). The murder of Charlie Kirk must harden us, not for politics, but for holiness and the combat for the faith against the rise of this religion of the Empire.
📜References
Carvalho, O. The Garden of Afflictions: From Epicurus to the Resurrection of Caesar: An Essay on Materialism and Civil Religion. 2nd ed. rev. Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 1998.
Sardá y Salvany, Félix. Liberalism is a Sin. Sabadell, 1884.