The German Connection (Part 1 of 2)
American progressivism is not very American. It’s more German, imported into the United States and derived from the same German school of thought that produced fascism and national socialism.
In this two-part essay, I will attempt to demonstrate two propositions: First, that our (post)modern United States, today, is thoroughly progressive, certainly more progressive than ever before in American history.
Second, that American progressivism is not very American. Rather, it’s a very German way of thinking, imported into the United States and derived from the same German school of thought that produced fascism and national socialism in Germany a century ago.
For the sake of clarity, consistency, and coherency, let us begin by sketching out a working definition of progressivism.
What Is Progressivism?
Progressivism is more than a body of ideas or concepts. It is more than what some call an “ideology.”
Progressivism is a movement—intellectual, moral, political, economic, and cultural—in the sense that its main purpose is social reform, or change. To borrow a line from one of the thought leaders who inspired progressivism—Karl Marx—the point of progressivism is not merely to understand or interpret the world; the point is to change it.
Progressivism revolves around two orbital poles that are not entirely compatible with each other: Scientific social engineering and the emancipation of the human will.
Science
Progressivism first emerged, in the 19th century, with great optimism fueled by modern science, especially engineering and the technology it can produce. The hope of progressivism was and remains this simple idea: If technological science can solve all kinds of engineering problems, then why not view society itself as merely another engineering problem?
The modern technological world features scientists who can harness and make useful electricity, steam, the internal combustion engine, antibiotics, and all kinds of other wonderful modern inventions. Why not place into the hands of those same scientists the good work of rectifying social injustices, eliminating economic inequalities, and improving or possibly even perfecting human nature?
If scientists can design a better clock, then they can design a better society, too. Early progressives trusted those who have demonstrated an ability to achieve technological progress to take control of social, moral, cultural, and economic progress.
This was the first and most rooted part of progressivism, the welcoming of government bureaus staffed with scientists and other experts who can solve all social ills through economic central planning and social engineering, including eugenics when and where improving the human gene pool assists the cause of progress.
The question then becomes: What should modern human beings do after progressive bureaucratic experts have solved all our problems? What concerns do human beings have after the problem of necessity has been solved by the progressive administrative state?
The answer forms the second half of progressivism: Remove all constraints from the human will so that human beings, for the first time ever, can be truly free to do whatever they want and live however they please.
If the first part of progressivism—social engineering and central planning—was on full display for the world to see during WWII and the 20th century totalitarian tyrannies without which there would have been no Cold War—the second goal or pole of progressivism—the fully emancipated human will—has fueled the Culture Wars from the 1960s until now.
Emancipating the Human Will
The progressive understanding of emancipating the human will requires far more than mere political freedom. Here in the United States, we achieved political freedom in large measure by abolishing legalized slavery via the 13th Amendment within a mere two generations after the American Founding.
For progressives, that’s not enough, not even close. So long as there is a general social acceptance of moral standards—including sexual morality—and principles of logic, reason, and reality itself—including the rational “laws of nature”—then there remains constraints on the human will.
Shame and guilt often prevent people from doing what they otherwise want to do; fear of embarrassment is a limiting factor in the calculus of how human beings make choices. The progressive cultural solution: Eliminate sources of shame and guilt and embarrassment, especially the morality rooted in the natural family.1
Alternative sexual preferences must not only be accepted, but openly celebrated as a virtue—as a noble achievement deserving parades, awards, and public honors—while the work of heterosexual parents raising and educating their own children is seen as passé, pedestrian, mundane, unworthy of remark, and oh-so-unprogressive.
If any part of the LGBTQIA+ acronym applies to you, then you are by definition interesting, progressive, worthy of a celebratory meme on social media. You deserve an award simply for your sexual desires. Any accomplishment for which you are noted will be prefaced by your sexual preferences. You’re not a football player, author, or singer. You’re a gay football player, a transgender author, a lesbian singer.
Emancipating the human will requires even more than abolishing, redefining, or forgetting moral standards. Logic, reason, and reality itself are problematic because they represent limits on the will.
It matters little what is real; it matters much how an individual “feels” about or “defines” reality.
It matters little what math is; it matters much whether you “identify” with Afrocentric math, Eurocentric math, logocentric math, emotive math, or some other “progressive” form of math. There is black calculus, for those who don’t know.
It matters little whether you speak or write well; you need not learn the rules that used to be common in elementary English grammar books, you can simply speak Ebonics.
The authors of The Federalist Papers, for example, observed that human beings, by nature, are not and never will be angels and therefore government—“which is to be administered by men over men”—will always be problematic because the same human beings in government who are supposed to protect our rights will always be tempted to abuse their power and violate our rights.
The progressive response: Then let’s turn men (and women and non-binary beings) into angels—or let’s imagine they are angels—let’s identify them as angels—and solve the problem!
The Progressive Contradiction
The famed German author of nihilism, Friedrich Nietzsche—another thought leader for the movers and shakers of progressivism—explained in his book The Will To Power:
[To those who insist] there are only facts, I say: No, facts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations—Perspectivism.
Progressive empirical science is incompatible with the progressive demand that there is no objective truth, only perspectives, prejudices, and points of view.
Here we see the rub, or contradiction, between the two goals of progressivism: The commitment to science, on the one hand, demands respect for the formal methods of scientific investigation, mathematical rigor required for technological innovation and engineering success, and an acknowledgement of the limits of what is possible found within nature itself.
In short, reality matters. Truth matters.
On the other hand, emancipating the human will requires ignoring all limits, an effort often assisted by mocking and ridiculing those who remind us of physical, natural, moral, philosophic, or any limits whatsoever. When someone points out that a nation cannot tax itself into prosperity, for example, the progressive answer is to laugh at that person—that’s why Jon Stewart’s shows are popular!—and then launch ad hominem attacks. The laws of economics, too, are limits on the will that must be ignored.
Reality doesn’t matter. Truth doesn’t matter.
Thus we find ourselves in our postmodern, progressive United States—we now live in the Age of Progress—where those who boast that they “believe in science” cannot distinguish a man from a woman; they believe there is no objective or rational basis for moral right; and they have unwavering, deep pious faith that the same progressive central planning and social engineering programs that have failed spectacularly in the past will be successful “next time.”
Progressives lecture the rest of us on how we are supposed to “follow the science”—when the science is coming from lifetime progressive bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci and following his edicts serves the progressive political agenda. Of course, those same progressives will ignore many branches of science the moment science does not serve their political agenda.
At the same time, progressives label math racist; they redefine racism to mean anyone who disagrees with them; and they view history not as a record of past events, the experiences of those who are now dead, and the lessons to be learned from them, but as a statement about how the living “feel” about the imperfect dead from the past.
Progressivism, in sum, is a complex movement, a combination: It is pious faith in the power of science to engineer a better future combined with an attempt to live beyond science—beyond truth—beyond good and evil—beyond constraints of any kind—simultaneously.
Age of Progress
On both counts—the progressive project of using science to plan and engineer the future, and emancipating the human will from all constraints of morality, reason, and reality itself—the United States today is more “progressive” than ever before.
We now have more bureaus staffed with more scientists and experts who regulate, license, and permit (or prohibit) our activities, our properties, and our businesses more than ever, all in the name of “science.” In my state of Colorado, it is now a violation of law to walk someone else’s dog without a government-issued license to do so.
At the same time, we are thoroughly culturally progressive.
Large numbers of students in American schools cannot read at grade level, yet they know all about the sexual preferences of their teachers, what excites cross-dressing adult men, and why sometimes they should call a woman “he.”
Within Hollywood, corporate board rooms, universities and colleges, legacy media outlets, professional sports, chambers of commerce, government bureaucracies, and growing numbers of churches and synagogues, one finds a culture of progressivism fueled by new norms of progressive “morality.” At no point in American history has this nation been more progressive than it is now.
The question is: How did we get here? How did a nation that justified its own independence by reference to the “laws of nature and of nature’s God” come to think it’s unenlightened to make one’s own choices, shameful to keep what one earns, and immoral to a call a woman “she?” Whence did this progressivism originate?
The answer is: Germany. That’s why this essay is titled, “The German Connection.” To the German sources of progressivism we will turn in Part 2. Please watch for it.
It is a sign of our Age of Progress that we must now define what the natural family is: An adult human male, an adult human female, and the children they produce through mutually voluntary procreative sexual activity and for whom both parents, by nature, are responsible.