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Fr. Dwight Longenecker
Today’s blog post is an excerpt from my book Beheading Hydra: A Radical Plan for Christians in an Atheistic Age
The idea that progress is always good springs from the enlightenment thinkers of the eighteenth century. Voltaire (d.1778) believed science and rationalism would inevitably bring about material progress. Immanuel Kant (d.1804) was less optimistic, but believed humanity was involved in a long, gradual struggle upward.
The philosopher Hegel (d.1831) saw progress in terms of a struggle between opposing forces. There was a proposal—what he called a “thesis.” This was countered by an opposing idea—the “antithesis”. The advocates of the antithesis clashed with the proponents of the thesis and out of the conflict came a new solution—a “synthesis”.
Later in the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin (d.1882) applied Hegel’s ideas to his observations in the natural world. The fittest survived the clash of species. The English thinker Herbert Spencer (d.1903) grabbed the baton from Darwin and ran with it. He applied Darwin’s ideas on evolution to human society. Spencer saw the theory of evolution as a model for a great, inevitable ascent not only the natural world, but also in the human mind, culture and history.
According to progressives, it is this clash within nature and human society which is inevitable and (despite some pain) always creative and positive. Furthermore, true progressives believe it is legitimate to intentionally create the clash in order to bring about the synthesis (the desired new order) because the clash is natural and the synthesis that comes out of the clash is always new and that’s “progress” and progress is always good, right?
This assumption accounts for the unbelievably naive and resilient optimism amongst progressives. They may witness umpteen revolutions and racks, guillotines, gas chambers, gulags, imposed famines, torture chambers and firing squads, but they shrug their shoulders. “It’s just the survival of the fittest. That’s the way nature works. It’s okay. There are some bumps in the road, but we’re always moving onward and upward!” If you stand in the road when the progress bus is hurtling toward you don’t be surprised if you get run over. Hard luck!
Continued below.
dwightlongenecker.com
Today’s blog post is an excerpt from my book Beheading Hydra: A Radical Plan for Christians in an Atheistic Age
The idea that progress is always good springs from the enlightenment thinkers of the eighteenth century. Voltaire (d.1778) believed science and rationalism would inevitably bring about material progress. Immanuel Kant (d.1804) was less optimistic, but believed humanity was involved in a long, gradual struggle upward.
The philosopher Hegel (d.1831) saw progress in terms of a struggle between opposing forces. There was a proposal—what he called a “thesis.” This was countered by an opposing idea—the “antithesis”. The advocates of the antithesis clashed with the proponents of the thesis and out of the conflict came a new solution—a “synthesis”.
Later in the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin (d.1882) applied Hegel’s ideas to his observations in the natural world. The fittest survived the clash of species. The English thinker Herbert Spencer (d.1903) grabbed the baton from Darwin and ran with it. He applied Darwin’s ideas on evolution to human society. Spencer saw the theory of evolution as a model for a great, inevitable ascent not only the natural world, but also in the human mind, culture and history.
According to progressives, it is this clash within nature and human society which is inevitable and (despite some pain) always creative and positive. Furthermore, true progressives believe it is legitimate to intentionally create the clash in order to bring about the synthesis (the desired new order) because the clash is natural and the synthesis that comes out of the clash is always new and that’s “progress” and progress is always good, right?
This assumption accounts for the unbelievably naive and resilient optimism amongst progressives. They may witness umpteen revolutions and racks, guillotines, gas chambers, gulags, imposed famines, torture chambers and firing squads, but they shrug their shoulders. “It’s just the survival of the fittest. That’s the way nature works. It’s okay. There are some bumps in the road, but we’re always moving onward and upward!” If you stand in the road when the progress bus is hurtling toward you don’t be surprised if you get run over. Hard luck!
Continued below.
Progress or Progressivism? | Fr. Dwight Longenecker
Today's blog post is an excerpt from my book Beheading Hydra: A Radical Plan for Christians in an Atheistic Age The idea that progress is always good springs from the enlightenment thinkers of the eighteenth century. Voltaire (d.1778) believed science and rationalism would inevitably bring...
dwightlongenecker.com
