A little more than a year ago, I wrote a post in which I argued that a great deal of the attraction to progressive ideals is rooted in erroneous assumptions that contemporary progressive movements actually deliver 'progress' - in both the positive, betterment sense and in the forward-moving, linear sense of the word. More specifically, progressivism resonates because it signifies improvements and benefits for all, improvements and benefits that advance forward in time and space, thereby leaving the past and the oppression it contained firmly behind.
Though a case could be made for successful and beneficial progressive movements of the past (mostly from the 1890s to about the 1920s), most of what accounts for progressivism in the past century or so has failed to follow the advancing improvement framework of progress and has instead slipped into the framework of leftist revolution, which is marked by a seeming move forward that eventually curves back around and finds its end point at the revolution's starting point, albeit under far more degraded and brutal conditions.
George Orwell captured the development of this leftist-revolutionary movement perfectly in Animal Farm, which was, of course, modeled after the real world example of the Russian Revolution. In both the cases, the oppressed liberated themselves from their perceived oppressors, but gradually fell victim to those who had promised them emancipation through rebellion. In my previous post on the subject, I referred to this movement as a demonic circle, which can be summarized as an attempt to escape hell to create heaven that ends with imprisonment in the same hell under more hellish conditions.
The recent explosions of mob protest and violence has been framed by some as an opportunity for progress. A terrible and prevalent social injustice has (once again) been thrust into the light, urged on by angry calls for improvement and 'structural reform.' These calls have been met with placating promises to initiate societal changes and do better as a civilization, leading many to believe that some sort of positive revolution is currently taking place.
Nevertheless, what we are seeing now is neither positive nor revolutionary in nature. As Dr. Charlton pointed out in a recent post, the revolution is already behind us; it took place mostly behind the scenes while people around the world were forcibly confined to their homes for being walking biohazards. The essence of the largely undetected revolution was an immense consolidation of global elite power. The mob violence over the past week is an example of this consolidated power flexing its additional, newfound muscles.
The events of past two weeks are being framed as an opportunity for progress - a chance for society to make drastic improvements and move positively forward in both time and space, but the nature of the events do not belie anything positive or forward-moving. Nor do they hint at the further development of anything revolutionary, not even in the negative 'demonic circle' sense. When the lockdown came into effect, I suspected the powers-that-should-not-be would use it as a demonic circle blueprint to build an atomized surveillance society over which they would have complete and uncontested control, but this objective appears to have fallen by the wayside. Systemic control seems to be giving way to systemic failure.
If this proves true, then the coming weeks and months will feature very little 'putting together or building up' to offset the 'taking apart or tearing down.' This not only negates conventional notions of social and civilizational progress, but it also negates the 'demonic circle' movement of past revolutions because there will basically be no starting point to curve back around to and "end at".
I have heard some argue that this is actually the better scenario in the end, especially for Christians, but I imagine this only applies if Christians face this challenge properly (for lack of a better word).
Though a case could be made for successful and beneficial progressive movements of the past (mostly from the 1890s to about the 1920s), most of what accounts for progressivism in the past century or so has failed to follow the advancing improvement framework of progress and has instead slipped into the framework of leftist revolution, which is marked by a seeming move forward that eventually curves back around and finds its end point at the revolution's starting point, albeit under far more degraded and brutal conditions.
George Orwell captured the development of this leftist-revolutionary movement perfectly in Animal Farm, which was, of course, modeled after the real world example of the Russian Revolution. In both the cases, the oppressed liberated themselves from their perceived oppressors, but gradually fell victim to those who had promised them emancipation through rebellion. In my previous post on the subject, I referred to this movement as a demonic circle, which can be summarized as an attempt to escape hell to create heaven that ends with imprisonment in the same hell under more hellish conditions.
The recent explosions of mob protest and violence has been framed by some as an opportunity for progress. A terrible and prevalent social injustice has (once again) been thrust into the light, urged on by angry calls for improvement and 'structural reform.' These calls have been met with placating promises to initiate societal changes and do better as a civilization, leading many to believe that some sort of positive revolution is currently taking place.
Nevertheless, what we are seeing now is neither positive nor revolutionary in nature. As Dr. Charlton pointed out in a recent post, the revolution is already behind us; it took place mostly behind the scenes while people around the world were forcibly confined to their homes for being walking biohazards. The essence of the largely undetected revolution was an immense consolidation of global elite power. The mob violence over the past week is an example of this consolidated power flexing its additional, newfound muscles.
The events of past two weeks are being framed as an opportunity for progress - a chance for society to make drastic improvements and move positively forward in both time and space, but the nature of the events do not belie anything positive or forward-moving. Nor do they hint at the further development of anything revolutionary, not even in the negative 'demonic circle' sense. When the lockdown came into effect, I suspected the powers-that-should-not-be would use it as a demonic circle blueprint to build an atomized surveillance society over which they would have complete and uncontested control, but this objective appears to have fallen by the wayside. Systemic control seems to be giving way to systemic failure.
If this proves true, then the coming weeks and months will feature very little 'putting together or building up' to offset the 'taking apart or tearing down.' This not only negates conventional notions of social and civilizational progress, but it also negates the 'demonic circle' movement of past revolutions because there will basically be no starting point to curve back around to and "end at".
I have heard some argue that this is actually the better scenario in the end, especially for Christians, but I imagine this only applies if Christians face this challenge properly (for lack of a better word).
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