GIVEN the prevalence of materialism in the modern world, it is not too unusual to stumble across examples of ruling class triumphalism, particularly when it involves imperial conquest or vastly accumulated wealth. However, it takes a far more arrogant and condescending form when a little known Jewish author – in this case Ron H. Feldman – claims that biblical terminology such as ‘Lord’ and ‘King’ affects “our egalitarian and feminist cultural sensitivity”. Furthermore, he says, it’s all “quite alienating”.

Had this presumptuous comment been uttered within the confines of some delusional Marxist collective down at Clapham High Street it might seem less inappropriate, but Feldman’s remark appears in a 1999 text on Jewish mysticism and is designed to serve as an observation about society in general. For the past eighteen years, therefore, at least if Feldman’s words are to be taken literally, it appears that our cultural sensitivities have been “egalitarian” and “feminist”. Not only is this statement ridiculously idealistic, even for a committed believer, but it is also an exercise in wishful-thinking and Feldman clearly has no right to assume that his distorted vision has been so readily accepted by others. Not then, not now.

In fact the current willingness to resign oneself to life within an imagined leftist utopia is part of the problem. The capitalists undoubtedly rule the roost in an economic sense, but methods of social control such as political correctness, gender-based ressentiment and pseudo-egalitarianism will only gain a foothold if you allow it to happen. Assuming that such a dystopia has already come to pass, at least in an all-encompassing and universal fashion, is like walking into a Nigerian call centre and handing over your bank details and the keys to your house. Acceptance is not always passive, meaning that whilst you may still complain about these forms of self-policing it is still possible to convince yourself, deep down, that we have already been defeated and that somewhere along the line we must ultimately conform with certain behavioural precepts. This, unfortunately, is the price that certain sections of society are now beginning to pay for the fact that some of the more bizarre theories of the looney left – greeted with some hilarity back in the day – have already worked their way into the consciousness of the mass and thus managed to frame the parameters of socio-political discourse.

In some ways, perhaps, it can even affect the individual’s mental sovereignty in the way that lingering notions of sin might continue to nag the long-suffering conscience of the Christian apostate. Rather than go out with a “whimper”, as T. S. Eliot once said, we must resist this process and fight back with everything we have.