The Progressive Fear of Traditionalism: A Worldview Under Siege
Any challenge to the precious Progressive narrative sends shivers down their spines.
Look at what Dr Steve Turley, terrified by what he calls this new conservative age, this rising tide of traditionalism across the globe. You see young men in America turning back to Christianity, Putin invoking Russian Orthodox Christianity, various movements in Europe rediscovering their heritage, whether Christian or Pagan.
And let's not forget Islam; the old idea of _Jihad versus McWorld_ argued that jihad itself was a traditionalist pushback against Americanised modernity.
The Iranian Revolution was explicitly a reaction against rapid Westernisation, and groups like the Taliban are clearly reactionary. You could even stretch the argument to include some of the more extreme identitarian left, like black nationalists trying to reclaim things like black science and voodoo – a rejection of modern, Western norms in a way. Perhaps it's a longing for a distinct identity against this homogenising "Melting Pot" that modernity seems to impose.
The modern system, in its ideal form, wants to grind everyone down, dissolving all qualitative differences into a mass of mere quantity.
In the progressive universe, moving backwards is simply not an option.
And when you ask "why not XYZ ?", the answer often boils down to "it's the current year". But this exposes a weakness: the forces of progress often lack a real argument for their beliefs; they simply believe in them because we've arrived "here".
This closes off entire areas of conversation. Take the topic ofSchool Integration – the Lyndon B Johnson government literally forcing children into mixed-race schools at gunpoint – the uncomfortable questions arose. Was that justified? Why was it a good thing? How is forcing people progress? Has it yielded positive results? Is it better than freedom of association? These are questions progressives would rather avoid; they keep a lid on them by invoking "the current year".
We even saw a break in the dam, so to speak, with the Supreme Court's repeal of _Roe versus Wade_. Hence the _Handmaid's Tale_ imagery – the progressive fear that the end result would be women forced to breed, reduced to their reproductive function.
This reveals a deep-seated fear of losing the "gains" of feminism. The nightmare scenario for them is women no longer being "free" toiling away in corporate jobs but, horrors, becoming mothers and part of a nuclear family. The immediate reaction is to demonise and jump to the most extreme, nightmarish conclusions.
It reveals something else too: the progressive worldview is fragile, like a house of cards or a set of dominoes. If you remove one piece, the whole thing might collapse.
There's a real insecurity here, this constant fear that any step back leads directly to Hitler or The Handmaid's Tale or fascist Italy. This fragile worldview is maintained by shutting down inquiry, by being closed-minded, by deeming vast swathes of human experience and ideas unthinkable.
The circle of acceptable thought within progressivism is actually quite small. Anything outside that tiny bubble must be banished, punished, made taboo.
Progressivism is in a death spiral.
They are now pushing so many people outside their acceptable boundaries. The more people who are cancelled and ostracised, the sooner they will lose their mainstream status.
However, progressivism is deeply entrenched, leading to concentric circles. The outer circles are those who have been "cancelled" but are still fundamentally progressive. Think of the JK Rowling effect: someone liberal and progressive in most ways, but with issues regarding woke culture.
Many outside the woke brigade are basically Leftists who have problems with certain aspects of wokeness. So, the defeat of the core woke won't necessarily mean the defeat of progressivism itself.
In fact, once the woke is pushed aside, these outer circles will turn their fire on the more conservative or reactionary right. We're already seeing James Lindsay and Konstantin Kisin picking fights on the right, attacking the real right - trying to manufacture the term the Woke Right.
It's those with these extreme progressive views who are the outliers, not just in human history but even on Earth today. Their beliefs are extreme, though they certainly don't see it that way.