There is now,
strangely, a “progressive” theme among “conservatives” that
goes along the lines that society is getting better, people are
getting nicer, that we have surmounted racism and sexism, and that
there is such a thing as Progress in human affairs.
There is this
astonishing popularity among them of Stephen Pinker and his book,
saying how much better things are today. Maybe that's even where they
are getting the theme.
Normally,
conservatives deny the possibility of progress, and are fond of
Stop!, taking us back to the way things were, taking back their
country, citing how human nature doesn't change and what it was that
ruined Rome.
So what's going on
with this?
Is it simply that
the present inured state of inequality and degradation of
the poor so flatters themselves?
And then, strangely
enough too, I find myself (a Progressive) thinking from time to time
that, yes, the Viet-Nam war fifty years ago pretty much exposed the
reality and what we are seeing now, even in this instance, is
evidence that things don't really change in any fundamental way.
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