I am coming to the conclusion that many progressives -- and many populists -- have the goal of doing away with the rule of law altogether, and live in a realm of pure power. It seems that law's impartiality is now considered, not a feature, but a problem. If a white supremacist or an Islamist shoots up a synagogue, then whether that act is condemned or valorised depends on the political power of the perpetrator, according to his or her social identity. The act, and indeed the victim is an afterthought.
I think we need 'The Rule of Law -- What it is, its History and Why it is a Good Thing' as a required subject for several years for elementary school students. It will be instructive to watch who comes out _against_ such classes.
This is my fear, Laura. In my submission, I say, “It is unacceptable to physically threaten and intimidate individuals and commit torts which threaten bodily integrity. I hold the same view regardless of whether protesters or counter-protesters target a Jewish person, a Palestinian person, or any other person. I take the rule of law as my lodestar. It is necessary to have clear boundaries to prevent wrongful conduct, preserve order, and to maintain civil society.” This identitarian view is a real risk to the rule of law. I too would want a subject teaching the importance of it.
It is also troubling that while in the past it was the identity of the _victim_ that was the guiding principle, these days it is the identity of the _perpetrator_. Neither focus gives you real justice, but the people wanting to overturn the rule of law to benefit actual victims at least are working out of some sort of shared moral order. The new version has exchanged the sacred victim for the holy avenger, who operates outside of the rule of law and whose actions are good by definition. There is no room for such people in my moral order. I am astonished at the number of people who have no problem with it.
One of the most successful rhetorical tricks in modern politics is the appropriation of the word progressive. It is an impressive piece of political branding. To call oneself progressive is not merely to indicate a policy preference. It is to claim alignment with history itself. The label suggests not just that one favours change, but that one favours the right change — the change that carries society forward, while opponents merely obstruct the march of progress.
That way of thinking did not begin with today’s self-described progressives, and it did not even begin with Marx. But Marx gave it one of its most powerful modern expressions.
Marx did not invent the broader notion that history moves in a meaningful direction. That idea was already present in Enlightenment thought, with its confidence in reason, science, liberty, and human advancement. But Marx transformed that general optimism into something far more muscular: a theory of history as a structured process, driven by material forces and class conflict, moving through intelligible stages toward a final social resolution. Feudalism gave way to capitalism; capitalism would give way to socialism; socialism would culminate in communism. History, in this view, was not simply unfolding. It was progressing according to an inner logic.
That matters, because Marx helped entrench a habit of mind that still survives even where Marxism itself does not: the habit of treating one’s own political preferences as the next stage of history.
To be clear, that does not mean today’s progressives are Marxists. Many are not. Some would reject Marxism emphatically. The point is subtler, and in some ways more important. It is that modern political rhetoric often borrows from the same deeper assumption: that history has a moral direction, that society is moving toward a more enlightened state, and that those who oppose the latest approved causes are therefore not merely wrong, but backward.
This is the real force of the word progressive. It does not merely describe a viewpoint. It flatters it. It wraps ordinary political preferences in the aura of historical necessity.
Yes it assumes that there is a telos to history. My long study of history indicates - no, not necessarily. Some people have said to me, “At least you know you’re on the right side of history.” Actually, I don’t, and that’s the point. All I can do is try to be the best person I can in the circumstances, and stand up for what I believe is right.
I wonder if we could do some good by demonstrating that 'identity politics', far from being the latest step in the march to the ordained future, is instead a regression to the state of affairs before the Enlightenment, and in some cases before Feudalism. Since I don't believe that history has a telos, I have thought that this would be a bad-faith argument for me to make, but things are dire enough now that I may reconsider.
Of course, the part you can't say is that most people who think of themselves as progressive are basically incurious idiots (one can say it more nicely but given that many of them are not stupid, that is what it boils down to) with no idea of what progress is (i.e. widely-spread substantive improvements in daily life) or how to create it (more wealth), and as a result, whose concrete policy ideas are far more often inimical to progress than they are conducive to it, whilst many classically "conservative" (at least in Australian discourse) policies are rather conducive to progress.
Closely related: hard times make hard men, hard men make good times, good times make soft men, soft men make hard times.
I am afraid that I regard some of these supposedly progressive analyses as “colour by number”. You can tell exactly what someone is going to say on a given topic: crank the handle, out comes the expected opinion. It is supremely boring.
Katy, I will be interested to read your submission to the Royal Commission. I am writing one of my own. My theme is that the Australian arts community, including writers festivals and the ABC, is heavily biased against the State of Israel, sometimes crossing over into antisemitism. Writers can write whatever they like, but the ABC and writers festivals are publicly funded in whole or in part, and therefore need to be more balanced.
I am coming to the conclusion that many progressives -- and many populists -- have the goal of doing away with the rule of law altogether, and live in a realm of pure power. It seems that law's impartiality is now considered, not a feature, but a problem. If a white supremacist or an Islamist shoots up a synagogue, then whether that act is condemned or valorised depends on the political power of the perpetrator, according to his or her social identity. The act, and indeed the victim is an afterthought.
I think we need 'The Rule of Law -- What it is, its History and Why it is a Good Thing' as a required subject for several years for elementary school students. It will be instructive to watch who comes out _against_ such classes.
This is my fear, Laura. In my submission, I say, “It is unacceptable to physically threaten and intimidate individuals and commit torts which threaten bodily integrity. I hold the same view regardless of whether protesters or counter-protesters target a Jewish person, a Palestinian person, or any other person. I take the rule of law as my lodestar. It is necessary to have clear boundaries to prevent wrongful conduct, preserve order, and to maintain civil society.” This identitarian view is a real risk to the rule of law. I too would want a subject teaching the importance of it.
It is also troubling that while in the past it was the identity of the _victim_ that was the guiding principle, these days it is the identity of the _perpetrator_. Neither focus gives you real justice, but the people wanting to overturn the rule of law to benefit actual victims at least are working out of some sort of shared moral order. The new version has exchanged the sacred victim for the holy avenger, who operates outside of the rule of law and whose actions are good by definition. There is no room for such people in my moral order. I am astonished at the number of people who have no problem with it.
One of the most successful rhetorical tricks in modern politics is the appropriation of the word progressive. It is an impressive piece of political branding. To call oneself progressive is not merely to indicate a policy preference. It is to claim alignment with history itself. The label suggests not just that one favours change, but that one favours the right change — the change that carries society forward, while opponents merely obstruct the march of progress.
That way of thinking did not begin with today’s self-described progressives, and it did not even begin with Marx. But Marx gave it one of its most powerful modern expressions.
Marx did not invent the broader notion that history moves in a meaningful direction. That idea was already present in Enlightenment thought, with its confidence in reason, science, liberty, and human advancement. But Marx transformed that general optimism into something far more muscular: a theory of history as a structured process, driven by material forces and class conflict, moving through intelligible stages toward a final social resolution. Feudalism gave way to capitalism; capitalism would give way to socialism; socialism would culminate in communism. History, in this view, was not simply unfolding. It was progressing according to an inner logic.
That matters, because Marx helped entrench a habit of mind that still survives even where Marxism itself does not: the habit of treating one’s own political preferences as the next stage of history.
To be clear, that does not mean today’s progressives are Marxists. Many are not. Some would reject Marxism emphatically. The point is subtler, and in some ways more important. It is that modern political rhetoric often borrows from the same deeper assumption: that history has a moral direction, that society is moving toward a more enlightened state, and that those who oppose the latest approved causes are therefore not merely wrong, but backward.
This is the real force of the word progressive. It does not merely describe a viewpoint. It flatters it. It wraps ordinary political preferences in the aura of historical necessity.
Yes it assumes that there is a telos to history. My long study of history indicates - no, not necessarily. Some people have said to me, “At least you know you’re on the right side of history.” Actually, I don’t, and that’s the point. All I can do is try to be the best person I can in the circumstances, and stand up for what I believe is right.
I wonder if we could do some good by demonstrating that 'identity politics', far from being the latest step in the march to the ordained future, is instead a regression to the state of affairs before the Enlightenment, and in some cases before Feudalism. Since I don't believe that history has a telos, I have thought that this would be a bad-faith argument for me to make, but things are dire enough now that I may reconsider.
Of course, the part you can't say is that most people who think of themselves as progressive are basically incurious idiots (one can say it more nicely but given that many of them are not stupid, that is what it boils down to) with no idea of what progress is (i.e. widely-spread substantive improvements in daily life) or how to create it (more wealth), and as a result, whose concrete policy ideas are far more often inimical to progress than they are conducive to it, whilst many classically "conservative" (at least in Australian discourse) policies are rather conducive to progress.
Closely related: hard times make hard men, hard men make good times, good times make soft men, soft men make hard times.
I am afraid that I regard some of these supposedly progressive analyses as “colour by number”. You can tell exactly what someone is going to say on a given topic: crank the handle, out comes the expected opinion. It is supremely boring.
Katy, I will be interested to read your submission to the Royal Commission. I am writing one of my own. My theme is that the Australian arts community, including writers festivals and the ABC, is heavily biased against the State of Israel, sometimes crossing over into antisemitism. Writers can write whatever they like, but the ABC and writers festivals are publicly funded in whole or in part, and therefore need to be more balanced.