Against Progressives and Progressivisms
July 20, 2005
It has been said here and there, in response to some of my recent observations, that I (presumably along with Eliot and MacIntyre) wish to abandon the western democratic project entirely; perhaps I even sit in my study pining for the fall of the present order. These commentators make the same convenient error of assuming that if one is not for something, one is against it. This dictum is true in at least one case*, but not in many others. Other times, this error is expressed along the familiar lines of involvement versus withdrawal–that if one rejects the liberal premise of public involvement, one must by necessity become a mountain recluse mailing explosive packages to university professors. Of course, as I have heard remarked in connection with St. Elizabeth Seton, “the paradox of detachment and involvement is completely resolved only in the saints.” The more practical minded may note that strategic retreats have salvaged many a lost war.
What all this amounts to is an implied critique of pessimism, and the mistaken belief, at least in the Christian context, that if one is not sufficiently hopeful concerning the prospects of this age, one is not being faithful. To think this way is to think that a “negative” view is impermissible–to say that the system doesn’t work, it’s probably destined to fail, and that this isn’t the end of the world is out of bounds. For most there is at the least cognitive dissonance, and more commonly a complete incapacity, to accept that things fall apart. For hesitant progressives such as Fr. Neuhaus, it is enough to stand in the widening gap with dour expressions insisting that, yes, this all can be saved. Well and good, I suppose, so long as such action is buttressed with a Machiavellian understanding of the use of power and an uncompromising internal honesty about the likely impact of such action upon one’s own soul. Deeper problems are likely to arise, however, as progressivism is not apt to remain hesitant, or it will cease to be progressive. Thus Neuhaus and others attract to themselves the radically progressive elements of the right (or left) such as Michael Novak (or Jim Wallis) who, as often as not, remain cultural modernists.
Novak went so far recently as to make the absurd claim that the onset of a global economy has demonstrated that “it need not be the case that ‘you always have the poor with you’ [quoting our Lord]” and “that it is a moral obligation of societies as well as individuals to overcome poverty.” It is central to Novak’s progressive gospel to believe that, in his words, “the chains of poverty [can] be systematically broken” and there is a “moral imperative that they must be broken.” Perhaps Novak will soon turn up authoring a UN declaration that progress in human enlightenment has reached such a point that “it need not be the case that ‘all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God’” and that now it is incumbent upon society to break the yoke of human sin. But of course this is the logical outcome of the modern liberal state as developed and analyzed so clearly (and tragically) by Nietzsche’s self-salvific proposal to deal grace to himself. Conservatives and Christians simply don’t pay enough attention to Nietzsche
The real lesson is, as someone has said, halfway from modernity is not far enough.
* Qui non est mecum, adversum me est; et, qui non colligit mecum, dispergit. Luke 11:23 Nova Vulgata
This is Against Progressives and Progressivisms in The Japery, a part of The New Pantagruel. Previously: Spud Guns and The World’s Most Dangerous Parishes | Next: Embracing the Same Old Thing | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)
Trackback Pings:
TrackBack URL for this entry: