Liberalism vs Socially-authoritarian Leftism: Presentism.

There seems to be a strange presentism in contemporary identity politics, in which identity politicians seem to expect the past, even the progressive past, to be entirely open for criticism by today's standards.  The problem with this is that progress, by definition, moves incrementally.  It's all in the name: "progressive".  Progress is, by its very nature, in opposition to the idea that the old ways are best, because that's precisely what conservatism is.  Progressivism is always in contrast to that idea, on the grounds that humanity can always improve itself.  If there's a best way to be, says the progressive, we should constantly strive toward it. 

 

What this means is that it should be no surprise that things were more racist, sexist, homophobic, and generally more prejudicial in the past, because these things needed to be resisted.  Take, for example, homosexuality.  In the 1950's, it was illegal and considered a mental illness.  Now, two people of the same sex can get married.  Progress! 

We progressives should celebrate how far we've come, rather than constantly attacking the old days.  When it comes to truly conservative things, I can kind of understand.  It's important for us to remember how bad things used to be and recognize what progress still needs to take place.  A recent Doctor Who episode about Rosa Parks did a good job of this by having the 21st Century black Brit run into trouble trying to pick up a 50's white southern lady's glove, but he also had a conversation with his Pakistani friend about what's still left to do in our time.  That's not presentist.  It's understanding a history of oppression in which some things have improved, while acknowledging there's more to be done now.

 

What really bothers me is when today's identity politicians lash out at yesterday's progress.  There was an incident a few years ago that I still find incomprehensible in which a school painted over a famous mural from the 1920's, because it depicted the terrible things America has done like slavery, oppression of workers, and the like.  This was made by a progressive artist who was trying to show people the problems with our country.  The objection seemed to be that it portrayed racism.  Yes, of course it did.  How else could the artist make the point that America has done terrible things?  To what end do today's so-called "progressives" paint over yester-year's progress?  True progressives celebrate the history of progress.



I see other things like this.  A lot of the new leftist (the wokeists, the social violence warriors, the social-authoritarians, who are willing to destroy your career if you don't say what you think they should say) will often look expressions from the past and criticize it under contemporary lights.  TV shows that were the cutting edge of progress in the 70's, and meant a lot to many of us as, say, opening out of our westo-centric shell, are now deplored as racist.  Old movies that were meant to portray women as non-conforming to "women's" roles are now looked down on as sexist.  Old novels that meant so much to many of us, as challenging contemporary mores, are now under attack by a new, snarly left.  What I find most surprising is that expressions that necessitated exposing their audience to the noxious behavior they condemned by, say, having the racists use the N word, are now attacked for exactly that.  To use the N word, the three letter F word, the K word, or the B word, in order to show why it's wrong to do so, are now under attack for precisely for violating these contemporary taboos.  Works by progressive white southerners who want to make sure people know just how much we need to fight against the wave of racism they saw in their day, are now condemned for daring to express a white perspective on the subject.  How could anyone who didn't have an inside view on, say, the White Citizens' Alliance (the legal wing of the Klan), possibly know their inner workings?  We can only know by hearing from progessive white folks who were allowed to see these machinations first hand by racists who didn't know they were starting to question racism.

Progressivism, by it's very nature, is impure.  Well, that's true of all nature, but that goes double for progress.  There's always more to do.  Yet, a new wave of leftists are purists, more than progressives.  To complain about its impurities is to complain about change.  To complain about change is to expect humanity to have always have been perfect and admonish all human history for its failure to do so.  Nature made us impure.  Progress takes time.  I wish we would applaud the efforts of the past, forgive the impurities of the present, and move on to the future.