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- Kirby Olson
- Upstate, NY
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9 comments:
Progressive is the word for taxes that aren't designed to punish people who haven't capitalized on capitalism, a system that's more fun for the participants when the distinction between capital and capitalists isn't determined exclusively by birth.
Is "exclusively" too strong a word? I wonder if we don't have at least ten thousand millionaires who've come from the middle classes. Half the fun would be starting behind the starting line, wouldn't it? I can't imagine the fun of just collecting a check, as they do in Cuba, and everybody makes the same amount, while the economy slows down to next to nothing.
The fact that our system may permit a more fluid exchange or movement among classes doesn't suggest that we have a classless society, just that there's greater mobility on average. But it's still ten times as hard to rise from the bottom as it is just to tread water at the top.
Progressive is obviously a loaded word which has multiple interpretations, depending upon context. The idea that society "progresses" or that civilization "progresses" is a very 19th Century idea. Is there "progress" in the arts? The politically correct multi-cultural textual relativists certainly think so--or at least they believe progress in the arts, as in society, may be an ever-rising phenomenon.
Progress may be an illusion. There are certainly more people suffering more deprivations and hardships today, than there ever were in previously recorded history. Is this progress?
In certain respects, the lives of those living at the upper echelons of Western society live better lives in some ways than their predecessors. But this too may be an illusion. Was a prosperous French farmer in the middle of the 20th Century less well off than a working couple in a Chicago suburb (say, a doctor and a professor wife) in 2011? The answer isn't simple. What are your criteria?
Certainly we have the "potential" to be more prosperous, more healthy--to savor more of the earth's bounty, and to live longer. Yet is the complexity and stress of modern life really an advantage?
Start over with Plato, KO.
Post your critique of the Republic, and Socrates conceptions of justice.
Soc.--progressive, circa 400 BJC.
Kirby, I agree with Faville that the Whiggish idea of "progress" in civilisation may be an illusion, and especially in the arts. For example, when I'm forced to gaze at WPA-era Diego-Rivera style murals in our train stations and post offices, it makes me deliciously nostalgic for the achievements wrought by aristocratic, royal, and papal patronage.
I think some self-identify as "progressives" as a form of self-flattery in congratulating themselves on their "enlightened" opinions that inevitably will and ought to prevail whenever traditionalists' and hidebound reactionaries' spirit of opposition can be vanquished once and for all. On the other hand, I've never considered the term "reactionary" necessarily synonymous with something not generally desirable.
I see the sophists as the multicultural progressives of their day, to respond to J's post. They didnt' think there was one truth, they thought man (rather than God) was the measure of all things, they were the progressives. Socrates and Plato were very reactionary bluebloods, holding to one truth for all, and were the Athenians in the picture. The sophists were stateless, and most had never fought in the army, and were filthy nuts for the main part (Diogenes being the worst in that regard, actually masturbating in broad daylight in Athens according to Diogenes Laertius' account of him.). Plato and Socrates had fought for Athens (Socrates famous for being among the last to retreat against the powerful Spartan line.) They were patriots, willing to fight for the truth. They weren't Christians, but they were as good as it got back before Christ was born. The only place better than Athens (that I know of) was Jerusalem (for the time).
Wittenberg is yet another step forward.
America as a city on a hill traces its lineage at least as much through Jerusalem, and even Bethlehem, as it does through Athens.
I'm not terribly familiar with the Whigs (I've seen their wigs), or with the Federalists (I've seen their books, but haven't read as much as I should have read), but I've seen NYC, and it's a great town. I've seen Paris, and I've seen Helsinki, and many other cities, and I'm proud to say that New York -- some say it's Hamilton's legacy, is the equal of any place on earth (especially the financial district, which I just love).
Kirby, I was using "Whiggish" in the general historical sense used by Herbert Butterfield in his "The Whig Interpretation of History" rather than the more confined political sense. Lincoln was a political Whig before the inception of the Republican Party.
I don't know the book The Whig Interpretation of History. I think I saw it once on a shelf, but I thought it must have meant British history, which I thought would be 17th century wags waxing wittily.
I'll try to google and get a Wiki summary so I can figure out what you mean by the phrase.
JADL, I just read the WIKI on Whiggish views of history, and history of science, and saw the truth conveniently laid out for me there. Marxism is certainly a triumphalist form of Whiggery in the American format. I saw a copy of this book in a country bookstore at one point, and may get it. My sense of British history is fairly shaky.
Thanks for filling this gap in!
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