Progressing Into the Abyss

Why are Leftists so obsessed with the continual march of “progress”? Where does this notion originate? These are important questions because this worldview prevents its adherents from dealing with reality, keeping them forever locked in a fantasy world.

The intellectual malediction of seeing history as a linear progression from bad to good has afflicted Western thought for centuries. But it is necessary if one is to engage in constant disruption of society, which is the cornerstone of Progressive behavior. If we are always moving from worse to better, then radical “change” comes with a built-in justification, regardless of its advisability.

The realist, by contrast, scours the past for both good and bad decisions, policies, and thought patterns. History provides a virtually endless laboratory, whose examples, both philosophical and practical, we can evaluate and apply to our own lives. The future is the arena for the application of lessons learned. It holds no intrinsic quality; the future societal landscape could be good, bad, or indifferent. We won’t know until we get there.

This more sober view has been the norm throughout most of European history, up until the Enlightenment. Non-Western cultures, for their part, have never adopted the idea of linear progress. With the exception of the post-Enlightenment West, the world’s various intellectual traditions have most often viewed history as fitting into one of three templates: cyclical; continual decline; or anarchic/indeterminate.

The Hindu tradition is a clear example of the cyclical view. Ancient Greek mythology tended to see the unfolding of history as a steady decline, with the world of the gods taking a step down to a society with demigods, and from there a further descent to a fully human world. Hesiod described the full process of deterioration (though with some interruption) in his Five Ages of Man, starting with the Golden and ending with the Iron. In the Jewish tradition, there is the concept of yeridat ha-dorot, the decline of the generations, with each one being inferior to the one before it.

Seeing the “arc of history” trending downward rather than upward also dovetails nicely with veneration of ancestors. Our predecessors were superior to us—so goes the default case—so it behooves us to admire them and treat them with respect.

Nietzsche gives us the anarchic/indeterminate view:

“Let us not be deceived! Time marches forward; we’d like to believe that everything in it marches forward, that the development is also one that moves forward. The most level-headed are led astray by this illusion … ‘Mankind’ does not advance; it does not even exist. The overall aspect is that of a tremendous experimental laboratory in which a few successes are scored, scattered throughout all ages, while there are untold failures, and all order, logic, union, and obligingness are lacking.”

These worldviews are clearly much closer to reality, as we can see when observing the broad sweep of history. Civilizations rise and fall; tremendous accomplishments are often closely followed by sensational collapse (end of the Bronze age, Rome, contemporary America). And sometimes, as in ancient Egypt, thousands of years pass with seemingly little change.

But then came the Enlightenment, which despite its veneer of scientific approach, ignored all logic and historical evidence when it promoted the idea of continual progress. The notion was expanded and buttressed over time; for example, the view of some Darwinians that evolution implies constant positive development. Just think of the famous graphic representation of man’s progress from hunched-over ape to upright modern human.

In contemporary Western society, the idea of linear progress shackles us with a conceptual framework that is myopic and delusional. We are intellectually handicapped, and I doubt whether anyone is completely free of the bias. The past is scorned, whereas the future becomes a glorious bed of roses, with utopia just around the corner if we could all simply embrace Progress. Remember “Hope and Change”?

​This could be one reason for various outbursts of insanity, such as Trump Derangement Syndrome, which is now morphing into the Elon Musk version. How can a former hero of the Left, champion of the holy electric car, be the subject of such animosity, merely for exposing waste and fraud? Naturally, there are many causes, not least of which is the derailment of the government/NGO gravy train. But I believe that part of the story is the challenge to Progress represented by DOGE. Rolling back any Leftist program, even if it is based on obvious fraud, opens the door for a potential return to the dreaded past. And this can never be allowed to happen.