A Conservative looks back at the past in a posture of filial gratitude, reverence, docility; at an event, messianic figure, dramatic narrative, body of literature, code of morals, litany of saints and heroes, system of ritual, way of life; that provides meaning, order, direction, and hope to life. This legacy is received, cherished, pondered, protected, celebrated, elaborated, and shared especially with blood descendants but with others as well.
A Progressive, by contrast, looks to the future with optimistic expectancy for liberation into happiness and release from a past seen as oppressive, ignorant, superstitious, and scientifically unenlightened. Three streams of thought flow into contemporary progressivism or liberalism as "wokeness":
- Marxism sees history as always an oppression by the stronger of the weaker party: capital over labor, men over women, white over black, heteronormativity over LGBTQ+ people. In this view the present and past need always to be overcome as the victim needs to resist and overthrow the dominator. Everything...culture, religion, family, economics...is viewed through the prism of the oppression of the victim. So every dimension of human life is either reinforcing this tyranny or resisting it: "you are either part of the problem or part of the solution."
-Darwinian, Scientific Evolutionary Theory applies the Darwinian understanding of biological evolution to human history and expects positive, virtually inevitable development through scientific advances. This approach denies any original sin or fall from grace; it is a more positive view of human nature than that of the Marxist or the Conservative. It sees the astonishing advances in technology, science and medicine and places a Messianic trust in the power of reason and science to eliminate suffering by overcoming a past of ignorance/superstition.
- Sexual Liberation expects personal happiness in the release of sexuality from the restrains of traditional religion, especially its reservation to the spousal union as heterosexual, procreative, unitive, exclusive, permanent. Human nature, in this view, is entirely positive, not wounded by sin, but unhappily repressed in its free expression by religion as guilt-inducing, shaming, repressive, moralistic and hostile to the sexual, human body. The happiness of humanity lies in sexual liberation including: contraception, abortion, homosexuality, deconstruction of gender roles such as paternity/maternity, pornography/masturbation, divorce, cohabitation, and unrestrained sexual experimentation especially by the young.
These three distinct streams blend well together, without contradiction, in what we know today as Cultural Liberalism or "Wokeness."
The Cultural Revolution exploded in our society in the late 1960s in what may have been the most drastic, profound, rapid and devastating change in human history. Within a few years this revolutionary ideology gained control of our elite, powerful institutions: especially the university but also entertainment, media, law, medicine, the Democratic Party, mainstream religions (Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Lutheran and the liberal wing of Catholicism). In recent years it has permeated big business and even the military.
As the pervasive ideology or belief system of the upper tiers of society, the affluent and educated, our liberal elites, it is resisted by religious conservatives, especially devout Catholics and Evangelicals who find in the Republican Party a counterweight to the now radically progressive DNC. This political realignment was profound, rapid and in some ways surprising. In 1965,when I graduated high school at the age of 18, if we were told that within a decade the two parties would reorient themselves around sexual license, sterile sex and abortion against traditional marriage, morality and care for the unborn, most would have predicted that the RNC, party of the rich and of individual libertarianism, would have endorsed the first against the highly Catholic, working class Democrats. That the opposite unexpectedly occurred is a sadness and a puzzle. (Good topic for another essay but here is a spoiler: the passivity, deference and compliance of the Catholic base of the party.)
This Culture War has been raging for over 50 years and is now intensifying rather than abating. It is (in my view) the single most significant historical development of my lifetime. It is in large part a class war: the powerful, affluent liberal class against the religious and resentful lower tiers. Progressivism dominates society through its hold on the affluent and powerful. Religious conservatism remains stronger at the lower echelons of society: the poor and working classes. We have seen a class reversal in politics with the liberal-Democrats now more wealthy and the conservative-Republicans drawing more of low-income people. The Trump base votes consistently against their own financial interests which clearly are defended by the Democrats. This is dismissed by the later as ignorance and racism. It is in fact a triumph of the cultural/moral over the economic. Progressivism, as non-religious, entails a soft materialism in its conviction that money is everything. The conservative coalition brings together two quite distinct groups: religious conservatives on one hand and on the other the angry and unemployed who sense the contempt and indifference of those in power, Republican and Democrat both. The "deplorable" proletariat and the pious unite against affluent liberals.
It is a strange and malicious irony however that the lower, not the higher, classes have been devastated by the sexual revolution. Despite their embrace of sexual sterility and liberation, the rich are smart enough to realize that the primary path to affluence is sexual restrain: do not conceive before marriage, avoid divorce and stay married, hand on all your privilege to your one or two children. By contrast, the lower classes, while they largely retain conservative values, have in large part submitted to the culture of contraception/cohabitation, divorce, pornography, and infidelity. A perfect storm of unemployment, lack of opportunity, and a degradation of marriage/morality after the Sexual Revolution has thrust large sectors of the lower class into a Culture of Despair. They are swallowed by a Culture of Poverty that is rooted in a degraded culture and a hostile class structure. The black community has been especially devastated by this combination, rather than by the alleged continuation of systemic racism.
Philosophical Contrasts Between Conservatives and Progressives
Eternity or Utopia-on-Earth.
The religious conservative believes in the eternal, the transcendent, the supernatural, the kingdom of heaven. The eternal has visited this earth and saved us from evil; it dwells even now among us; it is leading us to eternal life. Earthly life is transitional, a journey, a test, a contest. Our eyes are on the eternal so that everything finite here below is relativized in relation to the broader narrative.
Progressives believe only in this life. This has profound consequences: finite realities take on an ultimacy. This includes physical fitness and wellness ("if you have health, you have everything"), financial security and comfort, global warming, and flight from suffering. Heaven becomes reconfigured into a future utopia on this earth: science will overcome suffering (Darwin), sexual freedom will bring happiness (triumph of the therapeutic), and overflow of the oppressor will bring liberation (Marx). Since these are ultimate, any resistance to them (BLM, gun control, restrictions to experimentation, moral judgment about sex, etc.) or even disagreement is construed as evil and absolutely intolerable. So we have cancel culture, Trump-derangement-disorder. By contrast, the conservative who sees things in view of eternity enjoys a more relaxed, tolerant, live-and-let-live approach to political (but not inherently, morally evil) issues.
Evil.
The conservative has a deep, philosophical understanding of the Kingdom of Darkness as an "axis of power": the world, the flesh and the devil. Already prior to human history Lucifer, in freedom, led a revolt of angels against the reign of the Trinity. Adam and Eve, in freedom, joined this rebellion; as did every one of us in our particular sin. The result is that systemic evil permeates all our social orders and the compulsion to sin operates in every heart and soul.
The progressive denies such ontological evil and personal sin. The Darwinian identifies human suffering with religion-based ignorance and seeks release in developments in science and technology. The Marxist identifies evil with the power exercised by the dominant class over victim groups so that support of the vicious status quo is the essence of evil. The sexual liberator finds the source of unhappiness in guilt-and-shame-inducing religion and its alleged hostility to sexuality. The three thrusts work well together as the LGBTQ agenda aligns with ethnic politics and together they clothe themselves in a faux-scientific righteousness. Ironically, this has become the ideology of the liberal power elite as they maintain the current class structure but present as messiahs of liberation for victims.
The Human Individual
For the conservative each person is created in the image of the Tri-Personal God and is of inestimable worth (regardless of size, competence, status) and inherently, essentially in relationship: with God; with mother/father and family; as male or female; with a broader family/community; with previous and subsequent generations; with the angels, saints and suffering souls. That one exists at all is GIFT and every breath, every second, every encounter, every relationship is pure GIFT; is engagement, in time and place, with Eternal Love.
For the progressive each is an isolated, autonomous individual; the center of his own universe; free to determine his own meaning and purpose. CHOICE, as subjective, interior, unconditional, undetermined agency is the absolute value. One who lacks the capacity for choice and agency, the unborn or feeble, has no intrinsic worth and can be disposed of as useless waste. There is no broader moral/ontological order into which the person fits; rather, all value, purpose, connection and flows from the individual subject. Therefore the Self creates its own personality, gender, sexuality, family, community and value system. In this world there is no obedience or reverence; loyalty is pledged only to the Self.
Sexuality and Gender
For the conservative the human person is sexual/gendered as a gift, that is to be given, and received, in the image of the Tri-Personal God. Sexuality is sacred, personal, fruitful, exclusive, loyal, permanent, donative to the community and glorifying of God. Gender as male/female is intrinsic to the human person, reflective of the difference-within-unity-of-Trinity-as-Event-of-Love, and generous and generative.
For the progressive, sexuality/gender is, like everything else, untethered from any broader moral order or purpose, but entirely the unrestrained preference of the desiring Self. Every individual is set off from every other. The only restrain is the extrinsic contract: I will not violate your autonomy if you do not violate mine. Gender is a personal option like choosing your ice cream flavor. Sex can be romantic, expressive, relieving but has no interior purpose or limits. Sex is itself sterile, meaningless and futile.
It is worth noting that few people are consistently, firmly conservative or progressive, but some mixture of the two. Whatever the issue (abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia, artificial intelligence, woman's rights, etc.) you will usually find perhaps 10% are firmly on one side of the cultural divide, and roughly the same opposed. For example, the vast majority favor some restrictions on abortion but allow exceptions. Most might want access to contraception for all but don't want to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to provide it against their Catholic conscience. The Culture War is in large part waged between these two adversarial minorities. And every personal intellect/will is also a battleground between these two.
However, the underlying moral logic of the two are mutually incompatible and absolutely contradictory. Eventually this is a binary choice: to be a hybrid conservative/progressive is as coherent as being a man/woman, or a bird/fox, or dead/alive. If every human life is infinitely precious than we cannot decide on our own to carve out exceptions for the very small or the very old. If sexuality is spousal of its nature we cannot carve out exceptions for pornography or homosexuality and honor them as wholesome and privileged.
Progressivism as Illusion; and Nietzsche
Progressivism is entirely an illusion: human happiness will never come from technology, sexual license or the Revolution. We are created for communion with God and with each other in God. That is the one and only path to lasting happiness. Sin, separation from God, is our enemy; not ignorance, systemic oppression or sexual repression. These last three are real enough; they are not nothing; but they are not major players in the real Spiritual War in which we finds ourselves engaged. Eventually progressivism, even in its milder forms, is sterile, futile, isolating and despairing. The fantasy concocted out of Marx, Darwin and a reconfigured-liberational Freud (the real Freud was sober, minimalist and realistic) is eventually unveiled, like the Wizard of Oz behind the screen, and we must deal with the true Master of Suspicion. Friedrich Nietzsche.
Nietzsche presents as the only real alternative to Christ. He famously announced the death of God. He is singularly a Luciferian figure that champions the Imperial Self against the claims of the Creator. He is the tireless antagonist of mediocre, bourgeois Christianity. He unveils the cowardly underside of piety as well as the pretensions and falsehoods of Pollyannaish progressivism. He lived his last years lonely and miserable, afflicted with mental illness. A cautionary tale.
Nietzsche is The Master of Suspicion. His shadow over modernity vastly overcomes the combination of Darwin-Marx-Freud. He is a singular voice of Truth: unveiling the weakness of bourgeois Christianity as well as the pretensions of progressivism. He shows the final, ultimate binary: suspicion and death by despair...or Trust in Eternal-Tri-Personal-Love!
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