The Problem with Progressivism is Messianism

Evolutionary biologists take pains to teach students that evolution has no direction; it has no preferred path precisely because it has no specific end. As Steven J. Gould used to say, if you rewind the evolution of life on earth and set it back to the beginning, there is no guarantee that it would play out the same way again.

Unlike social Darwinists, who tend to believe that their preferred form of being human is the pinnacle of creation (note the conceptual contradiction here), evolutionary biologists understand that 'fitness' in the Darwinian sense does not imply a more 'perfect' member of a species, rather it defines individuals who can live long enough in certain environment to reproduce. Thus the measure of individual fitness is not wealth or a certain definition of perfection, rather it is the number of offspring one successfully brings into the world.

As a scientist trained in ecology (the science not the social movement) and evolution, it is rather amusing to observe how much the cultural elite really does not understand the theory of evolution; nor do they grasp its principles nor accept the consequences of its reality. To them, as to their creationist opponents, it is a political tool used to force their ideology on others, rather than a scientific idea that serves to illuminate reality.

Less amusing is the use of the theory of evolution as an excuse for the early 20th century Progressive push for eugenics, which appeared first here in the United States. (See for example Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' opinion, when writing for the majority in Buck v. Bell, which enshrined forced sterilization into law in the United States). It was the Progressive movement's goal to build a more compliant, less independent citizen; one who would be willing to subsume his will to that of the State, in order to fit like a cog in the all-powerful and all-knowing State.

The problem with the Progressives is twofold. The first is that they believed that the term "fitness", as used in evolution, implies some quality other than differential reproduction. They believed that they could redefine fitness to mean whatever they wanted it to mean in order to direct human evolution toward what they conceived to be its proper end. And this leads to the second problem, namely, that they believed that evolution has a direction and a goal, and further, that they, by virtue of their vision were privileged to define that goal and direct humanity towards it.

In short, Progressives were (and are) Messianists. They believe that human beings are not good as they are, and should not be allowed to pursue their own ends, but that they must be perfected in some way in order to be made to conform to better ends. The only difference between the Progressives and religious Messianists, is that Progressives proclaim that they themselves are qualified to define the end of evolution and the perfection of the human being, whereas the religious Messianists rely on scripture and tradition, ultimately blaming their own desire to restrict human freedom on their various gods. But both religious Messianists and Progressives believe in some form of original sin--the concept that human beings are inherently evil and that they must be fundamentally changed to accomodate a perfect world. That this unchanging and perfect world would not be a human world is left unstated.

The particular form of Messianism that plagues Western culture began during the time when the tribal Israelite religion was evolving into modern Judaism. The Rabbis of the Talmud were, for the most part, suspicious of the apocalyptic nature of the Messianic goal. Those who espoused it (e.g. R. Akiba), learned the hard way of the danger of it during the third war with Rome (the Bar Kochba Revolt--132-135 C.E.). The Rabbis came to realize that fervent messianism was not compatible with the survival of the Jewish people. Knowing that they could not eradicate it from the minds of the people, they enshrined it as a distant hope in an unattainable future (e.g. Pirke Avot: the Messiah will come when all of [the people] Israel keeps the Sabbath perfectly). They also created a system of law and custom that kept people's focus firmly on their own lives, not on some future immortality. Thus the average Jew was taught to pray for the coming of the Messiah three times a day, but to value his life and the goodness thereof in the here and now. To this day, one notable quality of most Jews is that they have their feet firmly planted on the ground, and do not accept the idea that death is the gateway to a better world.

It helped that Judaism never accepted the concept of original sin. The Hebrew version of the story of creation uses a play on words to make the point that the material world is good, and that the presence of human beings makes it very good. (The play is on the Hebrew word for human being--Adam--which has three Hebrew letters, alef-dalet-mem; rearranged these letters become--meod--mem-alef-dalet, which means very; so with the presence of human beings the universe, which was called tov--good, is called tov meod--very good.) When confronted with the Christian notion of original sin, the Rabbis added this statement to the morning service: "The spirit that you have created within me is a good one, O G-d . . ." Every morning, a religious Jew thus affirms his own goodness.

In Judaism, morality rests on the notion that human beings have free will, and because of their knowledge of good and evil, are constantly required to make choices. No one, neither human nor divine, can save another from the necessity of choice and the consequences that follow. A human being, by his nature, must go through life asking himself: "Right or wrong? Good? Or evil?"

However, Jews, just like other human beings can become lazy and wish to avoid the consequences of free will, though this is quite impossible. Choices must be made and the consequences of those choices follow like night follows day. Nevertheless, people often desire to avoid the painful consequences of their wrong choices, and try to evade their reality.

(This is especially true in times of great difficulty, such as those Jews encountered during the Reformation and Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was actually an en-dark-enment for Jews in Europe, as Christian anti-Judaism mutated into the race-theory of modern antisemitism culminating in the European genocide by the National Socialists).

In modern Europe, socialists and fascists took the Messianic idea out of the religious context, where it was dangerous enough, and decided that certain "enlightened" individuals have the wisdom to determine what the good life and the perfect person ought to be, and to force others (for their own good) toward this goal. They determined that goodness means that individuals must give up their lives and aspirations for the "public good" as Holmes stated in Buck v. Bell:

"In view of the general declarations of the Legislature and the specific findings of the Court obviously we cannot say as matter of law that the grounds do not exist, and if they exist they justify the result. We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind." (Emphasis added).

The emphasized words demonstrate that to the Progressive, individuals exist to serve the interests of a few, who call themselves 'the State' and 'Society'. These terms are really a mask for tyranny.

The real engine of American progress has been liberty. Our founders understood that human beings are endowed by their very nature with individual rights, and that governments exist to protect these rights. That people have the right to their own life, and thus must have the liberty to make their own choices, in order to pursue their own ends. The founders put these ideas forth in Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." (1776)


But Messianists tend to have little regard for the lives and happiness of individuals because their vision of perfection is collective. As the consequences of their evasions of reality pile up, they tend to blame it on everyone and everything but their mistaken ideals, as F. A. Hayek astutely pointed out in The Road to Serfdom. Thus they blame it on the inherent wrongness of human nature (original sin), which they believe requires them to force goodness on their victims. Finally, they come to a place of such embittered hatred of human existence that they'd rather see the whole world enslaved or dead than give up their Vision of the Anointed.

And yet the whole reason that their visions don't work, and that they cause such death and suffering, is because their visions do not conform to reality; it is the realness of matter and the consequences to mortal beings that require individual choice. It is the Progressive vision of humanity that is wrong, and their imposition of it upon others that is evil, not the nature of the human being.

Human beings evolved with all of the aspects of human nature because this enables humans to go on living and reproducing in this environment, on this earth. There is not some teleological perfection that we are missing, no ideal end that we must sacrifice our lives to attain. We are here now. We live now. Our pursuit of the good is the pursuit of our own lives in our own time.

An evolutionary biologist knows that evolution has no direction, no goal.
And she knows that it is the diversity of individual choices and personal ends that can vouchsafe a future for the species on this ever-evolving planet. For a while.

Of course, evolution is not moral. It is an idea, and thus cannot make choices. But people who understand the idea that evolution has no direction and no preferred end can infer from it that life itself is the goal of living, and what is good will always be those choices that maintain life.

Human life on this earth is tov meod. This is very good.

The Sabbatical Year of Marriage

On Monday, June 8, the Engineering Geek and I marked our seventh marriage anniversary.
This year, then, is our Sabbatical year of marriage.

Since the Boychick is at BSA camp this week, we took the opportunity to go out alone together to a very good Greek place, and we splurged on a bottle of wine and dessert as well, since we could linger over our dinner.

We held hands at the table and shared our memories of the wedding and our honeymoon trip to Alaska. We still feel like teenagers in love, but we're old enough to really appreciate it.

Signing the Ketubah:
A Jewish wedding is legal when the Ketubah--the marriage contract--is signed. Ours is traditional, but has also a more contemporary paragraph.

I am already veiled--the bedecken--the veiling ceremony occurred when the EG was led into the chapel where I was was seated, waiting for him to see me for the first time that day.

Under the Chuppah, with our family, bridesmaids and groomsmen around.

The wedding ceremony itself is called

Kiddushin--holiness--for the covenant

of marriage takes us back to Eden.

The Bimah is decorated with greenery

for Shavuot, which occured the day prior.

Shavuot--the Feast of Weeks--when

the Eternal solemnized the Covenant of Sinai,

and the Mountain was our Chuppah.

Now we are in our Sabbatical Year, a time to count the harvest, share it freely, and rejoice in newly creating our covenant.

Hidden Blooms

The ubiquitous "they" still say that this is not an early monsoon season,
but to those of us living in the Sandias it sure feels like it is.

The rains have brought us some hidden blooms. Two more for the One Hundred Species Challenge.

35. Penstamon breviculus. Shortstem pestamon.
We almost stepped on this one in the high meadow.

36. Escobaria vivipara (var. neomexicana). Pincushion ball cactus (also called Coyphatha or Mamillaria varieties).

We are walking very carefully in the high meadow these days. Both dogs routinely jump over the cacti or go around them, as they have learned. So have we.

Happy Summer!

Playing Fast and Loose with History: Obama at Cairo University

I have been thinking about Barack Obama's speech at Cairo over this weekend, and contemplating where to start with a speech that was so full of misinformation and misdirection. As it turns out, others have said much that I might have said, and they have said it better than I would have. Here are some links:

In his post on Obama's Submission, Ed Cline at the Rule of Reason discussions some of the historicial inaccuracies in Obama's speech, which is useful, but his post directly addresses the differences in fundamental values between Islam and the United States. He writes:

"As ideas, America and Islam are mutually exclusive and fundamentally incompatible. There is no reconciliation possible between freedom and servitude, between reason and faith, between progress and stagnation, between the sanctity of property and legalized theft, between individual rights and societies policed by priestly castes. As with reason versus any other faith or religion, it is a matter of “either-or.” Obama repeated what he said in Ankara, Turkey in April, that the United States “is not and never will be at war with Islam.” That may be true, however, Islam has been and is certainly now at war with the U.S. and with the West."

In a post over at The Charlotte Capitalist, Andy Clarkson identifies the true origin of the advances that Obama claims for Islam. He concludes by saying:

"For Barack Obama to deny the reality of medieval Arab history by praising Islam as the tool of modern progress when in fact it is the consistent killer of human thought and action is a disgrace. It is a disgrace because it attacks not only the true tool of human progress (reason), but it attacks the philosophical and historical roots of the country of which he is president."


Finally, the straightforward Carolyn Glick of the Jerusalem Post discusses what Obama's evasion of truth-telling means for Israel, stating:

"In short, Obama's "straight talk" to the Arab world, which began with his disingenuous claim that like America, Islam is committed to "justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings," was consciously and fundamentally fraudulent. And this fraud was advanced to facilitate his goal of placing the Islamic world on equal moral footing with the free world."

Once again, the President of the United States has played fast and loose with history.
Or is it that he consistently plays fast and loose with the truth?

It imperils us all.

Of An Ominous Financial Crash, An Ordinary National Election, A Trivial Tea Party

One of the great pleasures of finally setting up my library (after more than ten years of rooting in boxes), is the pleasure of re-reading old books that I own, after a long absence. One of the most intellectually delightful and challenging aspects of this rediscovery is reading with fresh eyes, from a different perspective in space and time, as well as experience and knowledge. Thus, ideas come together in new and interesting ways, keeping the mind active, and providing much welcome new understandings that can blunt the worry and concerns of our times.

So it is that a book that I had been thinking about came into my hand once again, out of the depth of a box labeled simply: Books (4/06)--Under-stair closet. Most of the books in these boxes had first been packed in the summer of 2000, when the kids and I moved from our rental house in Rio Rancho, to the first house I had ever owned; the one that I thought I would live in for a long time. Never unpacked for the nearly two years we lived in that house, they were moved again in early summer 2002, when the Engineering Geek and I married, and we moved into a house in the Far Northeast Heights of Albuquerque. Three years ago in April 2006, in the process of moving once again to this house in Sedillo, we unpacked boxes of his-and-hers books that had come to reside under the stairs in the walk-out basement, in order to give away about one third of them and move the rest. They were shuffled and re-packed, and I remember seeing this particular book, but neither of us had the leisure to actually read any of them.

So this book came to my hands again last Tuesday, a book that I had thought about quite a bit over the past half-year because of the events that are overtaking our country. The book is called The Fourth Turning, An American Prophecy: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendevous with Destiny by William Strauss and Neil Howe. I stood there, among the half-emptied boxes, haphazardly piled books awaiting some semblance of order, feeling a sense of familiar excitement, as the book fell open in my hands. It opened to a chapter toward the end of the book, "A Fourth Turning Prophecy", and as I glanced down the page, I read:

"Sometime around the year 2005, perhaps a few years before or after, America
will enter the Fourth Turning . . . A spark will ignite a new mood. Today, the
same spark would flame briefly but then extinguish, its last flicker merely
confirming and deepening the Unraveling-era mind-set. This time, though it
will catalyze a Crisis. In retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a
financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party."
(Strauss & Howe, 1997, p. 272).

That last sentence, in particular, jumped out at me, demanded my attention, and sent a chill of recognition through me. "Wow," I thought. "This is an American Prophecy--not in the sense of reading the tea leaves, but in the more traditional sense of those who stand on the tracks and see the train coming from a long way off."

The authors, Strauss and Howe, published their first book together in 1991. It was called Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069.In it, they present a history of the United States and a possible vision of the future drawn in broad strokes, told as the story of generations, each four of which has a particular archetypical "personality." From this Strauss and Howe have developed a theory that the lifecycle placement of these generations (childhood, young adulthood, middle-age, elder) influences the mood of all of them, and further, creates a seasonal cycle lasting 80 - 90 years, that they call the saeculum. This consists of an exuberant High "spring", a turbulent, fertile Awakening "summer", an unraveling social fabric "fall", and a Crisis "winter." They detect just such a cycle operating in Anglo-American history since the Reformation. In The Fourth Turning, Strauss and Howe go on to predict the coming of the new crisis, as the Boomers take their place as elders and the Millenial generation enters young adulthood.

I read The Fourth Turning in 1998, as a Strauss and Howe Unraveling Turning was approaching its end. They describe an Unraveling Turning as "a downcast era of strengthening individualism and weakening institutions, when the old civic order (created during the High) idecays and the new values regime (created during the Awakening) implants." (p. 3). When I read the book, I certainly identified with and recognized the Unraveling mood they were describing, and I had been walking through my life at that time with the strong notion that "this can't last." Therefore, I was receptive to the predictions they were making about a coming Crisis period, and I was interested to see how predictive their theory of the saeculum would be. Thus when 9-11 happened, I thought it might be that "spark", but later thought it was more likely an early warning of a still distant but approaching storm.

As the strange and apparently ominous events of the past half-year have been accruing, I have wanted to re-read The Fourth Turning, but all my rooting in the accessible boxes in the garage came up wanting. So I was anxiously on the lookout for the book as I began the task of making my library as planned in the Chem Geek Princess's old room (now the Guest Room/Library). Thus I was amazed when finally, I found the book and read the page that fell open, and that last, pregnant sentence:

" . . . the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, as trivial as a Tea Party."

When they were writing the book in the mid-90's, Strauss and Howe used these events as examples of the catalyzing spark because they were indeed the sparks that catalyzed the Crisis mood during the Fourth Turnings of one each of the last three Saecula: They identified the Boston Tea Party (1773) as the spark for the Revolutionary War Crisis, the election of 1860 as the catalyst for the Civil War Crisis, and the Crash of '29 as the spark that began the Great Depression-WWII Crisis that ended what they call The Great Power Saeculum.

But from the perspective of this past half-year, it seems that we are entering the Millenial Crisis via sparks pulled from all of these past catalysts. Since September of last year we have experienced a financial crash, a regular but divisive national election (the last of three such thus far), and this spring, tax-protest Tea Parties, the names of which were inspired by that of 1773.

The generations are all in place according to the Strauss-Howe paradigm as well: We have the inner-directed Idealist/Prophet generational archetype (Boomers) entering elderhood, full of fervor and moral certainty; the alienated and pragmatic Reactive/Nomad archetype (Gen Xers) entering mid-life; the outer-directed Civic/Hero archetype entering adulthood ready to be achievers; and just in past decade, a new, and likely Adaptive/Artist generation (Homelanders?) is being born. If these last grow up through a successfully resolved Crisis, they will be protected during the great doings, thus becoming risk-adverse and somewhat conformist in general, as a result of their childhood experience.

The human mind loves to find patterns, and it might be that the Strauss-Howe generational paradigm is just that, except that they provide very good historical evidence of the saecular rhythm in modern Anglo-American history. And now, as a Crisis appears to be catalyzing before our very eyes, the predictive power of the paradigm will be tested. In Generations they say:

"Anyone who claims to possess a vision of the future must present it with due
modesty, since no mortal can possibly forsesee how fate may twist and turn.
Readers who encounter this book fifty years from now will no doubt find [the
predictions it contains] odd in much of [the] detail. But it is not in our purpose
to predict specific events; rather our purpose is to explain how the underlying
dynamic of generational changes will determine which sort of events are most
likely." (p. 15).

Still, that one sentence in The Fourth Turning almost jumped off the page at me in light of the events that are catlyzing the coming Crisis. As I re-read this book, my new place in space and time, and in experience as a leading-edge Gen Xer (and I agree with this placement for me, at least), will likely create more of those "big chill" moments.

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

NEARLY WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

This week, it's a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Outdoors and indoors.

Two more of the 100 Species Challenge, and getting the guest room together--which is what I am doing when I am not teaching, preparing to teach, or doing the regular chores that keep the household from falling apart!

First, we go outside for two more of the 100 Species Challenge!

33. Bouteloua dactyloides: Buffalo grass.

Here mixed with weeds and Blue Gramma grass. (counted last September).

34. Atriplex canescens: Four wing salt-bush. Here, it is a brighter spring green than I have seen in June for a very long time. This is likely due to the very strange monsoon-like afternoon rains we have been getting for the past two weeks.




Now, we go back inside to check on the progress of the Library/Guest Bedroom.



Shayna is excited to “help” as I unpack books and order them on the new bookshelves. These books have been packed for three years, and I feel like I am greeting old, half-forgotten friends with every box.






I brought my rocker in from our bedroom, where it was looking crowded into a corner. We got an inexpensive mattress and box springs for the bed, and the bedcovers were one of those sets on clearance at a Big Box store. The set came with the sheets, shams, and decorative pillows, as well as the bedspread. A good deal indeed, I picked it up last January.



I teach this afternoon and evening, a full three classes, so I must get to preparations for a long day on hard floors! (I did get the sandals . . . and that’s another blog entry).


My small “t”, “c” and “h” are not working on blogger, although they work fine in Word. So I am writing in Word and using copy-paste. That’s enough of that for now!

Oh, My Aching Feet! IRD Reprise

I wasn't going to teach reading this summer.



Last year gave me much "rich experience" and it also meant that I had no summer weekends, and aching feet. My arthritis--part of a larger medical condition--means that standing for hours on the concrete-based floors of classrooms is murder on my feet. After two full days of teaching last summer, I'd come home limping and almost lame. I'd lose whole days off sitting with my feet up. Teaching requires lots of standing, bending, twisting, and walking. Only in the Jewish context is it done sitting at a table with students.

I loved the teaching, but I hated the pain. And the weekends away from my family. And the lost Sabbaths.



So, when the company, the Institute of Reading Development, sent out the re-application paperwork, I studiously ignored it. I filed it in the recycle bin and promptly emptied it.

Not this summer. I was planning a summer of working on my dissertation proposal and getting the guest room/library (formerly the Chem Geek Princess's room) organized. THAT would be enough.



Sigh. I am an accomodating midwesterner transplanted to manana land. It's very difficult to say "no" and stick to it when they e-mail me saying how much they want me. Especially when I believe in the program and know it works for students. And extra-especially when I get such a charge out spending time with kids of all ages and books. It's addictive.



I tried. I e-mailed back to my last summer's teaching supervisor, saying that I liked the work, but that I was unwilling to teach on Saturdays. She e-mailed back saying that, unfortunately, they had already split classes for the first five weeks on Saturday afternoon, BUT that they would work very hard to accomodate my need during the second five weeks.



The next gambit: I would like to teach, but it would need to be part time. By return e-mail, IRD said they needed a half-time teacher in New Mexico, as they had already hired a full-time person.



I caved, glutton for feet-punishment that I am.

It is almost three quarter's time this first term, and I have almost every level of course IRD offers. That's exciting.

I got out the wool socks to cushion my feet. (I know it's summer, but they help). I went through re-training--which was a much more pleasant experience than the marathon first training.



I started Saturday afternoon. I have had full classes with great kids, ranging from the sweet eagerness of pre-K to mid-school age, ones who are shy or social, resistant and/or thoughtful. And now that I understand the IRD scope and sequence, I find that I can focus on them and their issues in ways I could not last year. I feel the flow of the class sequence, and I can enjoy the process with the students, quickly able to ascertain which ones need to move (two so far), which ones need a firm hand, and which ones need to be encouraged to talk.



I am beginning to feel like an experienced IRD teacher.



But, Oh! My aching feet. And this year, Oh! My aching knees.
(RA has the nasty habit of progressing).

The lifting of heavy boxes, the crouching by a table to encourage a little one to speak up, the twisting between desks to listen to a second-grader lisp through an Easy Reader passage: these all take their toll.

Teaching is for young people.

And those who wear Z-Coils.

I am about to be among the latter. The volunteer choir coordinator at our synagogue (and her husband) both swear by them. They say that they can go through a whole day standing and still go dancing that night.



I have been thinking about Z-Coils for a while anyway.

But I have resisted. I don't want to wear "old lady shoes" when I am not yet (quite) fifty.

Never mind that I have already outlived the lifespan of a pioneer woman, and have yet to develop wrinkles! (I keep my fair Eastern European complexion out of the high-elevation New Mexico sun. I have always envied the brown beauty of the easy-tanning complexions. But, alas, I did not choose my ancestors).



But Z-Coils have gone from one or two utilitarian styles, to a range of colors and styles--from sandals, to hiking boots, to walking shoes! I went on line this morning, and saw several possibilities.



So, I'm soon off to Z-Coil. I've got to get me some of these . . .



My grandma never wore shoes like this.
But then, sensible at fifty, she never hiked Sedillo Canyon with two dogs in tow, either!