Sunday, September 8, 2019

Found in Wikipedia Article About Progressvism

Here.  Aldous Huxley defined progressive theory in his novel Ape and Essence as:
Progress -- the theory that you can get something for nothing; the theory that you can gain in one field without paying for your gain in another; the theory that you alone understand the meaning of history; the theory that you know what's going to happen fifty years from now; the theory that, in the teeth of all experience, you can foresee all the consequences of your present actions; the theory that Utopia lies just ahead and that, since ideal ends justify the most abominable means, it is your privilege and duty to rob, swindle, torture, enslave and murder all those who, in your opinion (which is, by definition, infallible), obstruct the onward march to the earthly paradise. Remember that phrase of Karl Marx's: 'Force is the midwife of Progress.' He might have added -- but of course Belial didn't want to let the cat out of the bag at that early stage of the proceedings -- that Progress is the midwife of Force. Doubly the midwife, for the fact of technological progress provides people with the instruments of ever more indiscriminate destruction, while the myth of political and moral progress serves as the excuse for using those means to the very limit. I tell you, my dear sir, an undevout historian is mad. The longer you study modern history, the more evidence you find of Belial's Guiding Hand."[27]
And in  Ernst Breisach, American Progressive History: An Experiment in Modernization (1993):

Yup.  That idea that mankind is essentially sinful is not true.  Humans can progress beyond that medieval Christian idea.  So why not trust the government with power unrestrained by fears of abuse by sinful officials?

2 comments:

  1. Government: the OTHER invisible friend, all powerful, all knowing and yet somehow, all merciful.
    Everyone has an invisible friend whose name starts with "G".

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  2. You might like The Great Debate by Yuval Levin, which I'm in the process of reading now. It looks at the intellectual conflict between Eddie Burke and Tommy Paine back in the late 18th century, spurred by the issues raised by the French Revolution. Fits right in with the excerpts you posted here.

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