<Font size=5>Modernity and the Progressive vs. the Regressive <Font size=3>
Modernity
A little less than three decades ago, it was my good fortune to be invited to the home of a mutual friend, for an extended conversation with Margaret Meade. Being somewhat introspective, I played back the mental tape of that conversation, gleaning what insight I could from the experience. One of the more significant ideas was that because of technological changes in transportation and communication, we were dwelling in a time of an emerging world culture. This perspective has proven invaluable to me in providing a framework for understanding a diverse set of circumstances during the last quarter of the twentieth century - and now into the twenty-first.
Attempting to build upon Margaret’s idea, I have toyed with the thesis that this emerging world culture is what is frequently called Modernity. Long considered as a final flowering of western culture, this alternative view has Modernity embracing a more catholic <note small c> range of ideas and concepts (memes). This is not say that western culture isn’t a predominant component of Modernity, but rather to emphasize the ability of Modernity to absorb, transform and utilize ideas and approaches from non-western sources. Moreover, this partial separation of Modernity from western culture, renders less surprising the fierce battle that yet rages between Modernity and Traditionalism in even the most “advanced” western countries.
While it would be trivial to trace Modernity to say the renaissance, the knee of the curve in its growth trajectory was in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The explosion of new ideas and technologies that occurred during this period, not only changed people’s lives, but their way thinking. For want of a better time hack to mark the beginning of this period, I use 1859 – the date Darwin’s Origin of the Species appeared. The furor that this work can still engender among certain traditional centers of thought is testimony of its singular significance. While Darwin, Maxwell, Hamilton, etc (a very long list) were revolutionizing our scientific understanding, philosophers like Charles Sanders Pierce <pronounced Purse> (see peirce.org ) were establishing a rational foundation for epistemology – i.e. how do you chose what to believe.
Progressive vs. Regressive
At the same time this ferment in academe was occurring, the lives of ordinary people was undergoing a metamorphosis. The industrial revolution, begun a century earlier was transforming the lives of all strata of western countries. In the US, this change produced what is commonly referred to as the Gilded Age. But as the word Gilded implies, the glitter of this Plutocracy was superficial. Behind the wealth that produced mansions in the Hamptons was a spreading sea of appalling misery. From child labor to life threatening working conditions for a barely surviving wage, there was no dignity in work – only existence.
In Europe, this “Hell-On-Earth” produced a utopian collectivist reaction, the most celebrated of which was Marxism. In the US, although the union movement tried to curb the excesses of greed that resulted from unfettered capitalism, the real success came with the Progressive movement. This movement can be traced through the Populists of 1892 (see commondreams.org ) to its amalgam with the Democrats – the Demopops. Perhaps best exemplified by Bob LaFollette (see grolier.com ), this movement had a profound influence on the political thinking of the twentieth century. Neither the trust busting of the first Roosevelt, nor the social safety net of the second would have been conceivable without the Progressive movement.
No better manifestation of the success of the Progressive movement can be offered than the rise and continued existence of the middle class. Economics isn’t some simplistic zero sum game. By limiting the most offensive abuses of the Plutocracy period, and spreading the wealth of the capitalist cornucopia across a wider base, the size of the economic pie was greatly magnified. Education, from the limiting of child labor to the post WWII G.I. Bill, has amplified the productivity of the workforce beyond anything conceivable in a Plutocracy. By providing the stepping-stones of a vibrant middle class, the energy of the mass of the society can be harnessed to productive goal of improving the lives of all by improving the lives of each. The Plutocracy alternative would have resulted in a futile cycle of revolt and repression. – not dissimilar to what the last 150 years have produced in too much of Latin America.
In Hegelian fashion, thesis and antithesis continue to march in an action – reaction drumbeat. Just as the sins of the Gilded Age Plutocracy resulted in the Progressive movement, so the limitations of Big Government Socialism (BGS) has produced a reaction. Now, if this reaction were to simply correct the excesses of BGS, it would be a welcome change. By the late ‘60s, the success of the Progressive movement resulted in overreaching. In some circles, it was apparently thought that any of societies woes could be eradicated by simplistically throwing massive amounts of government money at the problem. No (or little) thought was required, just money. Need more money, raise taxes.
Since this approach makes no sense – economic or otherwise – it didn’t work and produced a reaction. Unfortunately, the conservatives fumbled the ball. Rather than imaginatively formulating a new thesis that preserved (conserved) the best of what had occurred in earlier decades, and use that as a basis upon which to build a better future that could properly revere the best of the traditional verities, they chose to be reactionary. Adopting a blinkered romanticized view of the nineteenth century, many conservatives decided that the twentieth century was a mistake, and wished a return to the Plutocracy. Conservatives are right to question the belief that all change is progress, but wrong when they assert that no change can be progress. Such a view isn’t properly called conservative, instead it’s regressive. So, in America, excesses in the Progressive movement produced not a Conservative reaction, but a Regressive one. Anyone who doubts this formulation should consider that Karl Rove’s hero, and the man he tries to emulate, is Mark Hanna – advisor to William McKinley, the last president of the Plutocracy.
Conclusion
Lets review the two significant Republican presidencies of the late twentieth century – Nixon and Reagan. One was characterized by a cynical thuggery (Nixon). The other by a simplistic romanticized view of nineteenth century Plutocracy (Reagan). It’s challenging to say which did more harm. One sought controlling power through the most immoral crooked means; the other attempted to reverse history for the enrichment of the oligarchs. Neither squarely faced the country’s problems, and tried to deal with them.
Now we have a Bush administration that exhibits the worst of both of these earlier presidencies. The Novak-Plame flap is indicative of the cynical disregard of law. But where did the forged Niger documents come from? Surely, they were first palmed off on the Italians, but who made them. A set of documents, that just happened to perfectly fit this administration’s needs, suddenly appear. Magic. Too amateurish to have been concocted by the CIA or MI6, and to perfectly tailored to have come from a disinterested party, where does the finger of suspicion point? And the tax cuts that during the election campaign were to reduce the burgeoning surplus, just happened to be the perfect response for a looming recession. That they were a big step in eliminating a progressive income tax, and returning the country to Mark Hanna’s Giled Age was purely a coincidence. The Bush administration has melded the crookedness of Nixon with the regressiveness of Reagan in attempt to plunge this country into a new dark age.
Has the powerful thrust of modernity been thwarted? Hardly. All of the driving forces are still intact. Moore’s Law hasn’t been repealed. No, the pace of modernity hasn’t stalled. If anything, it is accelerating. What has stalled is this country’s ability to cope with modernity. If it continues to wax nostalgic for a romanticized past, and ostrich-like fail to face the realities of the twenty-first century, history will soon pass it by. Sorry, but nineteenth century Plutocracy just isn’t competitive. In a world changing on an internet time scale, obsessive nostalgia is fatal. Any true patriotism will honestly face the country’s challenges and meet them. A foolish attempt at a military hegemony with a foundation of a failed economic view (Plutocracy) can only hasten the country’s plunge. The Regressives have had their day - and been found wanting. It is time for the true patriots to stand, and demand their country back. It’s time to formulate an enlightened path to the future, not to regress into some imagined past. Ossama wants to fight Modernity. Why are we allying with him, rather than opposing him? Modernity will triumph. The only question is will we be relegated to history’s scrap heap with OBL?
JMO
lurqer |
