Epiphanies

An epiphany is a moment when an individual suddenly realises something important and life-changing. It is an almost mystical experience – you encounter something and this experience changes your entire world-view. This type of experience has been recreated many times in art. The modernists, for instance, sought epiphanic experiences. Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time starts when its protagonist eats a madeleine and he subsequently looks back on his entire life.

Many people shape their political world-view after such an experience. Roger Scruton became a conservative in 1968 when he witnessed radical leftists looting and pillaging the streets of Paris. He was twenty-four at the time, when his politics had been ‘vaguely left-wing.’ These leftist activists wanted to stage a revolution and replace it with something vaguely Marxist. Scruton said at the time: ‘I decided, yes, of course there is such a thing as the bourgeoisie and you are it, these well-fed, pampered middle-class students whose one concern was to throw stones at working-class people who happened to be in a policeman’s uniform.’ His politics underwent a volte-face and he has been an arch conservative ever since. The radical leftists were certainly twits, but Scruton decided that they were so bad that he would espouse a world-view that was diametrically opposed to theirs.

P. J. O’Rourke is another example. A self-styled ‘Republican reptile,’ O’Rourke is a libertarian. He believes that government invariably damages and stultifies economy and society and should be limited as much as possible. He claims that he used to be a communist in the 1960s. His own politics took a 180 degree turn when he started his first job, when his income had been taxed. Following this, he came to the conclusion that the U.S.A. ‘had communism already’ and he became an ardent libertarian. He really was a bit naive, since he surely must have known that his income would be taxed. 

Michelle Bauchman is a Republican congresswoman who underwent a similar conversion. She had been a Liberal until she read Burr by Gore Vidal. Vidal has always been on the left of American politics and has always criticised the wealthy, greedy and powerful. Bauchman claimed the following: 'Until I was reading this snotty novel called Burr, by Gore Vidal, and read how he mocked our Founding Fathers. And as a reasonable, decent, fair-minded person who happened to be a Democrat, I thought, 'You know what? What he's writing about, this mocking of people that I revere, and the country that I love, and that I would lay my life down to defend - just like every one of you in this room would, and as many of you in this room have when you wore the uniform of this great country - I knew that that was not representative of my country.’ So at that point she decided to become a small government, conservative Republican.

None of this makes sense. I, personally, correct my views over a long length of time. I read, learn and experience new things. I don’t have one sudden revelation that forces me to radically change my views. Maybe these people are exaggerating, but I am sure that they also form their views after long, protracted and careful consideration of facts and ideas.