House of Eratosthenes

“…into the soul of progressivism.” Jonah Goldberg, author of Liberal Fascism, expounds on his research into the leadership and background of President Woodrow Wilson:

Wilson’s racism, his ideological rigidity, and his antipathy toward the Constitution were all products of the progressive worldview. And since “progressivism” is suddenly in vogue — today’s leading Democrats proudly wear the label — it’s worth actually reviewing what progressivism was and what actually happened under the last full-throated progressive president.

You want a more ‘progressive’ America? Careful what you wish for.

The record should give sober pause to anyone who’s mesmerized by the progressive promise.
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The old conception of absolute truths and immutable laws had been replaced by a “Darwinian” vision of organic change.

Hence Wilson argued that the old “Newtonian” vision – fixed rules enshrined in the Constitution and laws – had to give way to the “Darwinian” view of “living constitutions” and the like.

This is a period of America’s history that, for all of its influence on subsequent events, doesn’t get a lot of attention. That span of time between the two Roosevelts; to a casual and passive observer of history, it’s a dark foggy period.

There is a reason for this. If more Americans had a better understanding of this time period, they’d also have a better understanding of the true conflict between the right and the left. And the left, for the most part, represents those who have the incentive and the resources to get the final word in about what “history” has to say. They have the time to make sure they get to win all the arguments. Their opposition is busy living in that history, providing products and services to other people, which frees up the lefties to write up their essays and get them published as documents of record. Whatever might make lefties look good, is not only true, but “history.” Whatever might make lefties look bad, not-never-happened. Down the memory hole it goes.

On the teens and twenties, they haven’t got anything to say. So you have to take the initiative and study it yourself. Schools won’t teach it. They’ll insert a blurb about Teapot Dome Scandal, call it good, and move on to FDR saving the economy and defeating Hitler.

To be that horribly pendantic guy for a sec (pleeeeease don’t ban me!)….. this is a time where reading primary sources is useful and sorta fun.

If you want to see where every limousine liberal anti-“corporate” lifestyle argument in history came from, give Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) a go. It’s a bit dry, but it’s fascinating — like listening to John Lennon’s demo tapes or something.

For pretty much all the rebuttal you need to “Progressivism,” then and now — no, I’m not kidding — check out William Graham Sumner’s What Social Classes Owe Each Other (1883). Their crap is so old, they were spewing it when the “Progressives” were all Republicans, and the biggest grievance group in the land was made up of Union Army veterans.

Both are free online.

These were the founding documents. The Proggies of the Wilson Era were their kids, raised in Dewey schools, who were the first generation in history to grow up in a world of “experts.”
- Severian | 01/17/2015 @ 09:08
Yeah, Wilson and FDR were really, really bad. Fascists in fact, if not in name. And we (The Republicans, RINOs and all) stepped back from that brink WITHOUT a Civil War. I don’t think that’s been pulled off anywhere else in the world……
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 01/17/2015 @ 10:58
An interesting point, Robert Mitchell Jr. And it’s really worth pondering why that might have been the case — why, if socialism is so great, did we immediately do a political 180 at the very first opportunity?

It’s really weird when you think about it. In the first two decades of the 20th century, America was considerably more liberal / leftist than any European nation. European countries had louder / more violent leftist political parties, but in terms of actual policies (= size, scope, and intent of government programs), the US was hands down the most “progressive” country in the world until 1920… when we elected Warren “Return to Normalcy” Harding.

And then there’s FDR. You could do a blind taste test on his policies vs. Hitler’s — yes, including rearmament — and not find much difference at all (fascism is just Keynesianism in jackboots). And this, we are assured by all Goodthinkers, is exactly what the Greatest Generation intended. And yet, when the GG actually came back from overseas, the very first person they voted for was… Ike. You know, in the paranoid, uber-conservative, Red Scare, McCarthyite Fifties.

If Americans really wanted “Progressivism,” in other words, it was there for the taking. At least twice. Dismantling Wilson’s War Socialism — yes, they explicitly called it that — and the New Deal took a lot of work, a lot of deliberate choices. We had two good, long, hard looks at Progressivism…. and comprehensively rejected it.

No wonder they don’t talk about it much. To Our Betters, the last 150 years of American History is a series of big jumps: from Haymarket Square to “I Have a Dream” to Clinton to Obama.
- Severian | 01/17/2015 @ 11:22
Well, we do have some more dismantling of the New Deal to go, but yes, we really dodged a bullet both times, and those times were FAR worse then now, under Obama. Now if we could just get all the “Eeyores” on the Conservative side to see that. Rather scared that the next time an FDR happens, we will fall, because of all the “Let It Burn” people on our side preaching defeat…….
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 01/17/2015 @ 13:20

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Saturday, January 17th, 2015