NEWS

Understanding the Lure of Socialism

Film: There's No Place Like Utopia

By Jack Cashill | November 16, 2016

Joel Gilbert has found a nearly perfect (and fun) metaphor for understanding the lure of socialism: the Jungian hero trip as distilled in the American consciousness through the ever popular Wizard of Oz. Leaving home, the individual is seduced by the utopian promises offered by Oz only to discover that the Wizard is a charlatan and his promises are empty. The challenge for those seduced is to find their way home to the metaphorical Kansas, the place where faith, family, hard work, and self-fulfillment are still the norm. Our cities, as Gilbert shows all too clearly, are filled with people who learned too late that they had been had and no longer have a home to return to.