- An essay that proposes that the idea of progress is a myth; I disagree;
- Quick takes on politics, and crackpots.
OK, I can’t help but follow the political news, but for today’s post I’m sinking links about that to the bottom. Let’s start with something more thoughtful. Here’s a discussion of a serious long-term issue. Is progress a myth? No doubt it depends on one’s definition of progress.
OnlySky, Dale McGowan, 13 Nov 2024: Letting go of my last big myth, subtitled “Burying the myth of god was easy compared to freeing myself from the myth of progress.”
The writer begins by discussing his reaction to the 2024 presidential election, compared to his reaction to the 2016 election.
Like most people I know, I spent last week recovering from the election result. But I’ve heard a number of those same people quietly expressing surprise that they didn’t feel worse—that 2016 was somehow more of a gut-punch than 2024.
Same here.
Intellectually, this makes no sense. The situation is almost inconceivably bad and the danger much greater than it was in 2016. Four years of planning by Trump’s acolytes and enablers plus the popular vote mandate plus another government trifecta and a compliant Court and virtual immunity for anything he does will make disaster so much more likely. The lives of vulnerable people will be made even worse, and every divide in the country will be intensified. I’ve consumed enough good analysis to see all of that in excruciating detail.
So why is my emotional response more blunted than it was?
Personally, I’m more disgusted and alarmed by this year’s result than by 2016’s. That’s because, as I quoted a few posts ago, this time everyone knew — or *should have known* — what they were getting into. Somehow everything despicable about Donald Trump was forgotten or forgiven, because, what, the price of groceries is too high?
The writer reflects on being raised “in the myth of Jesus,” then the idea of progress through MLK’s famous line “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” And then Star Trek TOS, and The West Wing, as visions of “progressive wish-fulfillment.”
Like most beloved myths, sustaining the myth of progress is largely a matter of what you choose to notice and how far back you stand.
Well, exactly, and this is how we can see how to undermine his thesis.
He goes on with current events, and events of… the past century.
The pandemic erased nearly a decade of improvements in life expectancy, and future gains are likely to be constrained by climate change and other challenges. After 30 years of progress in poverty reduction, The World Bank has now warned of a “historical reversal” in development for the world’s poorest nations. And the jury is decidedly out on the benefits of recent and pending technological leaps.
In US politics, every progressive era has been followed by a conservative backlash. Attempts by Republicans to extend civil rights to formerly enslaved people led to the restoration of white supremacy, largely by Democrats, and eventually Jim Crow. FDR’s New Deal was followed by the rollbacks of the Conservative Coalition in Congress. The civil rights and women’s rights achievements of the 1960s and 1970s gave us Reagan and the Moral Majority. And everything about Obama led to a conservative resurgence, culminating in our current hellscape.
There’s no reason to expect the future to break free of that pattern.
Yes, the past century. In the US. (And he’s confusing his political parties here, perhaps unaware of historical events.) He does acknowledge this:
If the myth of progress continues to dwell in your heart, you may be preparing a comment that can be summarized as “two steps forward, one step back.” I love that for you. I would prefer it for myself, I guess. But eight years ago, that reflex broke in me.
And he goes on about his 23-year-old daughter, and her almost indifference to the results of this year’s election, even though she had favored Harris.
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So: yes, it’s all about a matter of perspective. Things change from election to election, from decade to decade, but I think it’s inconceivable that anyone cannot acknowledge that some kind of “progress” has been made over the course of human history. Over the past two centuries, humanity has discovered that the universe, both in extent and age, is vastly larger than what our ancient ancestors supposed. We have come to understand the actual bases for the diseases that people used to ascribe to demons, or vapors. People today live longer and are healthier than they have been in any previous century. How else would anyone define progress? Than the gradual expansion of understanding, and of human welfare?
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Quick takes on today’s political developments.
- The Atlantic, David A. Graham, 13 Nov 24: The Thing That Binds Gabbard, Gaetz, and Hegseth to Trump, subtitled “The president-elect’s most controversial Cabinet picks share one crucial tie.”
- What brings them together is not just fidelity to Trump, but a shared sense of having been persecuted by the departments they’ve been nominated to lead. Trump and his administration isn’t about governing, it’s about power and revenge.
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- Slate, Fred Kaplan, 13 Nov 24: It’s Pretty Clear Why Trump Wants Total Crackpots to Run the Military and Intelligence Agencies, subtitled “Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard are bananas Cabinet picks. But don’t overlook the CIA nominee.”
- “In his first few picks for Cabinet secretaries, President-elect Donald Trump has made it clear—even clearer than many had predicted—that his main criterion for selection is blind loyalty. Qualities such as competence or experience have no bearing whatsoever.”
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- Slate, Mark Joseph Stern, 13 Nov 24: No Matter How Bad You Think an Attorney General Matt Gaetz Would Be, He’ll Be Worse, subtitled “Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Justice Department would destroy the agency, quite possibly forever.”
- “What makes Gaetz’s nomination for attorney general so deeply Trumpian is the fact that Gaetz himself is under investigation for serious misconduct right now. He is just about the last person that a rational citizen would want to put in charge of the nation’s law enforcement apparatus. (He also has no qualifications for the role, which is somehow not even in the top five reasons to oppose him.)”
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- Robert Reich, today: Matt Gaetz as AG would be laughable if it weren’t so horrific and dangerous, subtitled “The nomination is really Trump’s loyalty test of Senate Republicans: If they go along, there’s nothing they won’t agree to.”
- “Gaetz’s nomination is really a test by Trump of how far he can go intimidating, bullying, and generating fear among Senate Republicans.No Senate Democrat will vote for Gaetz, so Trump and his allies are viewing the Gaetz nomination as a test of loyalty to Trump.”
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- Slate, Ben Mathis-Lilley, 14 Nov 24: The Trump Cabinet Is a Clown Car So Far. Thank God., subtitled “A Fox News himbo running the most powerful military in world history. The recent subject of a sex-trafficking investigation supervising the FBI. It could be … worse?”
- Running down the list, “in rough order of LOL/Oh God.” Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Kristi Noem, Elise Stefanik, and Marco Rubio.
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And then some links about crackpots
- JMG, 14 Nov 24: Beetleboob Vows To Expose Underwater Space Aliens (about Lauren Boebert)
- Right Wing Watch, 12 Nov 24: David Barton Says D.C. Is Under the Control of ‘The Biggest Ever Demons’
- And about the same guy: JMG, 12 Nov 24: Christian Nationalist Leader Calls For Moving Congress From DC Because It’s Controlled By Literal “Demons”
