Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. A few weeks ago, the New York Post reported that Gustavo Gordillo, a prominent official in the Democratic Socialists of America, lived in a $1.5 million home owned by his parents, who in turn lived in a 5,000-square-foot home in Boca Raton that's listed for $3.1 million. Even accounting for New York City's high housing prices, it's a pretty lush arrangement for someone speaking up for the oppressed of the country. And then recently, Ohio chocolate heiress Grace Ryan, who has campaigned for radical DSA politicians, posted about the need for socialism from her boat while she was summering at the lake.
And the new self-described socialist mayor of Seattle recently came under scrutiny. When people discovered that at age 43, her professor parents pay for her child's childcare. at $2,200 a month.
Now history's full of stories of children of wealthy elites who adopt radical socio-political causes, coming out as enemies of the system, the system that gave them their lives to begin with. Today they can be dubbed Lulu Lenins and Niemann Marxists. They're modern incarnations of the Champagne Socialists who have the financial luxury of never having to live out the consequences of their own bad ideas. Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zed Young also did not grow up poor, but were comfortably middle class before embracing murderous ideologies. Last week, Ayan Hirsi Ali reminded the world that Muhammad Atta One of the leaders of the 9-11 attacks was not born into an impoverished situation, but studied architecture and urban planning before deciding.
to be radical, and Osama bin Laden was also the son of a billionaire. As it turns out, there seems to be a strong correlation, and at least a lot of stories in human history, between adopting extremist ideologies and growing up in privilege. In more recent days, the new supporters of Islamism and neo communism tend to be college students from relatively well-to-do families. Such is the danger of undisciplined prosperity. George Orwell once quipped that some ideas are so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.
And some ideas are so unrealistic that only those who are insulated by comfort could entertain them, while never facing the consequences of the world views and the ideologies that get reality and the human condition so wrong. This, in addition to an incredible intellectual curiosity, is what makes Ian Hersey Ali's voice so credible. Not only did she experience life in both a family and in nations under the control of Islamic radicalism, but she also walked through the personal desert of trying to find meaning without God. When she reminds us of the true nature of Islamic radicalism and the struggle of secular elites to take seriously true religious belief, We should listen to her. As she so aptly put it, and I quote, 25 years later, the more uncomfortable truth is that the West has become much better at finding, capturing, and killing men like Ada, but still hesitates to confront the milieu he emerged from, the institutions, the networks, doctrines, funding streams, and civilizational ambitions that shape him long before he appears on a watch list, end quote.
Now, there's an obvious lesson here for parents who live with financial blessing. We somehow have to teach our kids to appreciate having what they did not earn without forgetting where it came from and how vulnerable it all can be. We need to teach them what's true, as well as to recognize what's not true, especially when it comes in the form of oppression narratives and false compassion. And teaching truth will have to, at least sometimes, look like letting them fail. And if so, what it means to be resilient, get up and try again.
When done rightly, sports can be one of the most effective means to teach these things, like endurance, self sacrifice, and the hard truth that success won't come easy. But of course, when done poorly, sports can affect how they think about every other part of life. And of course, teaching history is absolutely essential. A generation that doesn't know that socialism failed everywhere it's been tried, or that communist governments murdered millions in the 20th century, or even that Osama bin Laden was actually the bad guy of 9-11? This is a generation that will be easily deceived.
by simplistic and even silly ideas about people and how best to help them. And that would be a double tragedy, since, as I Ann Hirsi Ali put it in her article, we will need the next generation on this essential project of cultural restoration. As she put it, and I quote, Civilizational resilience is not a vague confidence that democracies always muddle through. It is the hard capacity of a people to see its vulnerabilities clearly. Repair them in time and deny its enemies the use of its virtues as weapons.
And by the way, I'm pleased to announce that Ian Hersey Ali will be joining us for the 2027 Colson Center National Conference, June 3rd through the 6th in Charlotte, North Carolina. Please save the date. Registration will open soon. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored with Dr.
Timothy Padgett. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, please leave us a review wherever you download podcasts. And for more resources or to share this commentary with other people, go to breakpoint.org.
