Years and years ago, on a NARN broadcast at the “Back to the Fifties’ car show at the Fairgrounds, James Lileks made a point that summed up why “progressivism” is so noxious to so many people; there would, and could, never be an electric equivalent of the 1965 Ford Mustang.
Progressivism isn’t about muscle, happiness, abundance. It’s about shared misery – spreading it, virtue-signaling it (and, if you’re one of the “Big Guys”, quietly and flagrantly avoiding it). It’s no accident that it’s the “progressives” that are still wearing masks as they walk their dogs, alone, down empty streets.
The problem is, poor societies don’t solve problems. It takes prosperity to innovate. Leftists never get that.
Not everyone on the left believes in the virtue of wallowing in privation for “the common good”. Ruy Texeira – author, TED talker and public radio regular guest, who describes himself as a committed liberal – writes an excellent piece in the National Review about all the things the Democrats are getting wrong. It’s a longish and excellent read (and might require a subscription, i dunno)…
…and makes a similar point; Democrat disdain for prosperity (among the proles, at least – nobody’s coming for Zuckerberg’s spare yacht) is hurting them among the normies,
Energy is a big fault line:
Closely related to Democrats’ relative indifference to economic growth is their lack of optimism that a rapid advance and application of technology can produce an abundant future. More common is fear that a dystopian future might await us thanks to AI and other technologies. This is odd, given that almost everything ordinary people like about the modern world, including relatively high living standards, is traceable to technological advances and the knowledge embedded in them. From smartphones, flat-screen TVs, and the Internet to air and auto travel to central heating and air-conditioning to the medical devices and drugs that cure disease and extend life to electric lights and the mundane flush toilet, technology has dramatically transformed people’s lives for the better. It is difficult to argue that the average person today is not far, far better off than her counterpart in the past. “The good old days were old but not good,” as the Northwestern University economic historian Joel Mokyr puts it.
Doesn’t the Left want to make people happy? One has to wonder. They show more interest in figuring out what people should stop doing and consuming than in figuring out how people can have more to do and consume. They rarely discuss the idea of abundance, except to disparage it.
Texeira may never do lunch on Nob Hill again, but it’s worth a read.
I’m firmly convinced that if the apocalypse hit, the woke liberals would be the first to die. God forbid they would have to hang their backsides over a log to eliminate their bodily wastes. In fact, I know several of them.
Sheesh, NR seem awfully desperate for pats-on-the-head. Good little doggies.
Might be worth noting that Ruy Texeira is the inspiration behind the a book arguing that Democrats in the United States are demographically destined to become a majority party in the early 21st century. Recent polls of Hispanics (especially) and other non-whites (generally) are indicating the exact opposite.
Retry – but without the explicit canine reference.
Sheesh, NR seem awfully desperate for pats-on-the-head. Good little d0gg1es.
Might be worth noting that Ruy Texeira is the inspiration behind the a book arguing that Democrats in the United States are demographically destined to become a majority party in the early 21st century. Recent polls of Hispanics (especially) and other non-whites (generally) are indicating the exact opposite.
jdm.
You’re correct. The big issues for Hispanics that I know are; unchecked border crossings and amnesty. 99% of Hispanics that are here legally or went through the citizenship process, are not happy with these key items.
boss, the resident immigrants I know who went through the process legally are pissed. Also, I neglected to add that as I understand it, the LGTB… pedo advocacy really pisses them off as well.
I had a discussion with a bunch of lefties who were all save the earth types.
I told them we are 500 miles from a huge source of natural gas that could power all our homes and power plants for centuries to come. We will never be a war with North Dakota. Its not coming from Canada, Mexico, or even Saudia Arabia. Yes, its a fossil fuel, it’s cleaner that coal, and its reliable. It would make reliable power so business would stay in MN.
It just blew their mind that I could think like that.
There are three of the original 4 groups of people still wearing maskies:
1. Feral blacks (They are not wearing them to protect anything but their identities)
2. Low IQ civilians of all races (They still believe)
3. White leftist reprobates (Because they are better than you, and Trust the Science ™ )
The regular (though uninformed) people who wore them early on, have finally become immune to the bullshit coming out of their iPhones and flatscreen teevees.
Progressivism isn’t about muscle…
It is not just “progressivism”, it is every leftist ideology… ever. They just keep changing names, the goals are the same.
Blade;
Let me add a number 4. dumb asses driving alone in their cars, driving 90 miles per hour. These are people that are probably dumb enough to think that they can use the mask to form an excuse.
BN, re #1 – and they are almost always blinged out. Cheaper than grillz.
boss, masks make them immune to photo-radars. They maybe smarter than you give them credit for. Now, the ones driving at or below the speed limit, they are heros!
jdm;
Yup and most black people aren’t excited about the LGBTQ whatever, either.
The progs ARE all about “muscle”, but in the Mafia sense. Virtue signaling is the “nice life you’ve got here, pity if something were to happen to it” part, and if you don’t pay up or shape up, the Cancel Mob and the government functionaries, police, and judges on its payroll will come and take your business, your right to work, your free association, etc.
BH, the nitwits wearing their maskies in their cars are rolled into #2. Low IQ’s are played out in a variety of ways (see also: rAT)
The wealth of a nation correlates closely with the amount of power that nation generates per capita. Correlation is not necessarily causation, of course, but in this case the mechanism (convert power to wealth) is well understood: Power is a substitute for human labor. Without power generation, I can produce 1 human unit of labor to sustain myself. With artificial power generation, I can command hundreds of units of human labor to sustain myself.
In his last book, Suicide of the West, Jonah Goldberg explained that world economic growth was tiny — well less than 1%/year — for all of recorded human history until the development of the liberal society.
I think Goldberg gives the liberal society too much credit. The engine that created the growth spurt in global GDP that began in the 18th century and continues to this day isn’t powered by some amorphous thing called “the liberal society,” it is powered by BTU’s. The liberal society may or may not have a role in increasing the production of BTU’s.
While it is true that the growth in human wealth since the 1700’s is unprecedented in written history, it is not unprecedented in human history. The transition from the paleolithic to the mesolithic, and from the mesolithic to the neolithic, were the equivalents of the industrial age in increasing human wealth. The event that caused the transition from paleolithic to mesolithic was the domestication of animals, the event that caused the transition from the mesolithic to the neolithic was the introduction of agriculture. Neither of these events, as far as we know, required the development of a liberal society.
You are forgetting Renaissance MP. That era can arguably be called the biggest leap, even by today’s standards. Although whether it was spurred by or spawned “liberal society” is debatable.
Can’t see the renaissance on this chart, JPA: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-gdp-over-the-last-two-millennia
No, but the curve started it’s rise during after the renaissance, so one can argue that renaissance enabled everything that came after.