Because that's how Liberalism and Liberals behave, as if nothing that they or anyone else does to our civilization can really harm it. That it is the natural state of the world, eternal unchanging and unchangeable. It does help explain their rage, they demand change and it seems to them that the world does not change. Which might strike those of us on the Right as a bit bizarre, we have seen the world change more often than we care to think about. What's going on?
How can they have this strange idea?
I think the answer lies in Presentism, which is the idea that the present is the most important time to think about and that the past and the future are both unimportant. Liberals like to think of themselves as people of the future, but they do not respect the future at all. They view it as simply a wish list, what they do not see it as is a real place. No matter what year it is, if that is when you are living then it is the present. Today is the present and tomorrow it will be the present and in a hundred years time it will be the present. We live our entire lives in the present, not in the past or the future. So the here and now is where Liberalism lives. Certainly it has plans that it puts in place for the future, but they look at it like this. Whenever those plans come about it will be the present. The future is a destination, not a place.
The present isn't just today, Liberals live in a 30 year window, 15 years into the past and 15 years into the future. That is the present. Anything that happens outside of that window is no longer relevant or to far in the future to matter. Which means that their view of our civilization is a very small one. To them it seems as if nothing has changed, or that any change that has taken place has been so slow as to be barely noticeable. Which fuels their rage and makes them unable to see how destructive their ideas are.
But there also exists another idea that is central to Liberalism that at first seems to contradict Presentism and that is the Cult of Progress. This is the idea that history has an endpoint, it is inevitable and everything is always moving from worst to best. In other words things are always getting better. How can Presentism and the Cult of Progress be compatible?
It is the endpoint that makes them compatible, because it is like the tracks that a train travel upon. They stop the train from moving in odd directions. The train must remain on the tracks for it to arrive at it's destination. The Cult of Progress means that Presentism is always moving, even when it seems to be moving. It also means that any change is a good change. Which encourages positive thinking, everything will work out for the best, everything is heading in the right direction. How could something like that be harmful?
The destructive ideas that Liberalism pushes do not register at all as destructive to Liberals. We can see them twisting things out of shape and then saying that they are being forced to fix things that others broke. They lie, including to themselves, the self lies are very important. It allows them to do what they do. It makes them see things that a breakable as things that are unbreakable and that includes our civilization.
Men of the Right have been saying and writing since the 1800's about fragile our civilization is and that if we continue to treat it badly it will end. Liberalism has ignored those voices because it does not see the world like that at all. Instead they believe that they can change everything, including human nature but at one and the same time that that will affect nothing. It is a most peculiar idea.
The French have a saying 'the most things change the more things stay the same', maybe it should become the motto of Liberalism!
To Help Support My Work
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditionalist Future
Another Article You Might Like?
Which encourages positive thinking, everything will work out for the best, everything is heading in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteIt's the Whig view of history. It's remarkably similar to the Marxist view of history even though liberalism and Marxism are polar opposites.
History is moving inevitably towards a destined endpoint (a kind of New Jerusalem) and because it's inevitable nothing can possibly go wrong.
It's a very religious way of looking at things. The endpoint is not just inevitable, it is morally righteous. Anyone who opposes "progress" must therefore be morally wrong.