A Critique of Modern Progressivism
A Critique of societies forward motion
Progressivism is like getting in a car, stomping on the gas, and saying that because you are going in a forward direction, it must be good.
A Brief History Lesson
The Progressive Era of the early 20th century can give us many lessons to apply to modern progressivism.
The lessons won’t be applied, but a man can try.
One of those lessons is an old one. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
The temperance, or anti-alcohol, movement was a significant part of the Progressive Era. While Christian in origin, it also synergized with the women’s and worker’s rights movements that were also occurring.
If people quit drinking, workers would be safer, men would quit beating their wives and children, drunk drivers (already a problem) would be eliminated, and the sin of drunkenness’ and its related misdoings would be driven from society.
We all know what a disaster Prohibition was.
When white women, scared of Irish, Italian, and Jewish drinking cultures, paraded around and called for the banning of alcohol, they didn’t know it would lead to the rise of Irish and Italian organized crime.
Nobody knew Prohibition would lead to an explosion in organized crime.
Nobody knew Prohibition would empower the government to poison its own citizens to curb drinking.
They didn’t know it would lead to figures like Al Capone, who made fortunes off of selling illicit liquor.
We don’t have a preset path. We don’t have a societal tech tree that we are making our way forward on. LGBTQ rights aren’t a point on the tree that takes five turns to unlock. We try to move forward, see what works and doesn’t work, then learn from those mistakes, but often end up making similar mistakes down the road.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
Progress and societal change have side effects, often unintended.
Progress in Education
Banning private schools is a prominent idea, especially among progressives. The argument that private schools perpetuate inequities of class.
The rich can pay for better education and better teachers and tutors. Their children get ahead in life and do better than their poorer peers.
Other countries in the developed world have similar policies. In Finland, there is no private education, and in Germany, homeschooling is outlawed. But America isn’t Finland, and we certainly aren’t Germany. America doesn’t have the culture, history, population, scale, and government of Finland and Germany.
We don’t have a Law of Lante. America doesn’t have culturally enforced egalitarianism. If anything, trying and working to be better than our countrymen is an American hobby all on its own.
I’ll be one of the first to criticize homeschooling. Creating a socially isolated child with zero shared frame of reference with the wider peer group doesn’t create a based and red-pilled child ready to save the west. It creates a weirdo with questionable education, unable to relate to wider society.
If progressives wanted to ban homeschooling to promote socialization and ensure a quality education, but public education is notoriously awful, and public schools have their own breeds of weirdos. This sentiment feels more like dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator.
Which brings us to the concept of equity.
I’m not going to sit here typing up some boomer-esque response about how equity is racist because you’re treating groups differently. That’s been done, and it’s stupid.
Equity is about providing certain people and groups with extra support. While equality applies to everyone, equity focuses on certain groups.
We are supposed to be building up certain segments of society; ideas like banning private schools feel more like tearing everyone else down.
The freedom of choice, the freedom to do with your money, and your success as you see fit are stripped from you in an attempt to bring everyone up.
But you can’t bring everyone up. When up is private tutors, private lessons, private schools, smaller classes, and student success, and down is large classes, the bureaucracy of government, outdated materials, poor funding, and the nightmare of teachers unions, everyone ends up getting dragged down.
It’s not only about the kinds of schools, but also what they are teaching in them. No, this isn’t about LGBTQ people, but math and literacy.
The article above (archived here) outlines the dumpster fire that is California’s new math program. It’s meant to promote and help students of color and women gain an interest in mathematics. It’s designed from the ground up with equity in mind.
In the interest of trying to help and bring students up, the reverse has happened, everyone is dragged down, and the students it was meant to help are harmed.
You can’t teach and promote interest in math by teaching what is essentially “appreciation of math elements.” If you want to do that, you’ll have to change the curriculum, pay teachers more, improve teachers abilities to teach math, and communicate why learning math is important.
You can’t brush over or simplify the importance of math. As I outlined in Americans Don’t Care About Education, you can’t brute force this. You have to lay out why math is important beyond “because you have to.” Dumbing it down helps no one.
If California students who do take the state's new “data science” course end up liking math and want to pursue a field in actual data science, you’ve fucked them. They didn’t take algebra II and are now behind compared to their peers. Equity, the domestic job market, and the student are fucked because someone tried to promote equity.
It gets worse.
Recent data suggests California also has the worst literacy rate at 76.9%.
The literacy rate and rate at which students read at grade level are terrible, with more than 75% of students of color reading below grade level. This means third-graders can’t read books designed for third-graders.
The richest state in our country, and the students can’t read.
Do you want an example of equitable education working? Take a gander at a school in Alabama. No, I’m not kidding.
Schools improved test scores by looking at areas where students were performing poorly and taking time to focus on those areas, allowing them to improve. This is due in part to the small scale and smaller classrooms. The school district has about 1,100 kids. (The larger the scale, the harder it’s screwed, a lesson California could learn.)
Harm Reduction
Harm reduction saves lives.
Harm reduction helps people.
These are some common sayings heard in relation to drug abusers. It's the thought process behind free, clean needles and other supplies. If drug addicts can get clean supplies, they’ll be better off. They will inevitably get the supplies; it is better if they are clean.
Without an active road to recovery and some sort of sobriety, this enables harm and addiction. Giving out free needles, spoons, lighters and other paraphernalia helps reduce harm from disease and infection, but that’s it.
Some harm reduction programs have a road to recovery to help people.
Some don’t believe it would shatter the trust built between organization and person.
What’s the point, then?
What Portland attempted was admirable and worked on paper. Instead of throwing drug users in jail, there would be attempts at rehabilitation. Which was all well and good until people were just left doing drugs with little to help them other than clean needles and words.
Again, the path to Hell is paved with good intentions. Progressive beliefs and ideas are filled with good intentions. Drug users are people, too. They are people whose brains have been hijacked by addiction and trouble. But they are also slaves to their addiction.
Harm reduction and other kinds of help for drug users require a road to recovery—a road to recovery that comes first, not last.
Some Closing Thoughts
Another lesson from the Progressive Era was that while government can do good, it can also commit incredible evil.
Theodore Roosevelt created the Food and Drug Administration and helped foster wildlife conservation. He was also a warmonger and helped set the stage for American intervention in Central and South America.
Woodrow Wilson presented himself as a progressive Democrat. He went on to become one of the worst presidents this country has ever seen. The damage he caused rivaled Ronald Reagan’s administration.
The National Guard was often brought in to shoot striking workers. The government poisoned people during prohibition to curb illegal drinking. The police regularly beat protestors and striking workers as well. Government is government, no matter the age or how “forward-thinking” it may be.
We can see figures emerging that wear the progressive mantle but end up being horrible people.
Ibram X. Kendi was the founder of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University. He rode the wave of Black Lives Matter and wrote the bestseller How to Be an Antiracist. He wrote up an idea for “Department of Antiracism” that almost made it into this piece. (It was awful and would’ve brought the already slow gears of government to a grinding halt. Link here)
He was a fraud. Dr. Kendi was fired after mismanagement allegations emerged about the Center. According to professors who worked at the Center the money came in and vanished. A current allegation is that he funneled the money to an expensive vacation house for his brother.
In the age of Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, and social change, who did we elect as president?
Joe Biden, a senile career politician who authored the 1994 Crime Bill.
Who is his vice president?
Kamala Harris, a prosecuting attorney, a cop and an atrocious human being. Her track record is stained with innocent people being locked away, withheld evidence, and jailed people held long after their sentence was up.
She famously smoked weed on a podcast, boasting about how she smoked weed as a young adult. Then went on to lock people up for the exact same crime.
Another progressive era indeed.
This article serves to air some frustrations. There are many examples I left out, and some I didn’t feel knowledgeable enough to speak on.
I am also an outsider looking in. It’s why I brought up so many articles and examples.
If you are a progressive reading this article, I hope you understand that I’m not attacking you. I’m not some Fox News boomer shouting at the sky. I get where you are coming from, and I see how much you care (or pretend to). Furthermore, I also see the unintended consequences that come with choices.
Until I post next time, this is Michael Vincent Hawthorne.