The 'original' progressive legacy

This blog is called "A TRUE Progressive" based on C.S. Lewis' observation that progress sometimes means admitting one started down a wrong road, and retracing steps to correct the situation. Much like the old saying "I don't know where we're going, but we're getting there fast," today's idea of 'progress' seems to be to jettison old ideas as fast as possible, under the mistaken notion that new is always better. This is the natural outgrowth of a mindset that holds there is no objective, and therefore timeless, truth.

The original "progressives" in the U.S. are highly praised in the history books. But few ever stop to examine the underlying shift they orchestrated to our philosophy of governance... or whether, in the long run, that shift was for the better.

That's why this is an excellent read.

Of course, persuading many Americans that Progressivism initiated a struggle over the soul of America is a hard sell. For decades, liberal scholars and politicians have attributed the 20th-century growth of government to changes in the mere material circumstances of American life. The Progressive era’s progressive reforms, we have been told, were the necessary and inevitable response to problems created by the closing of the frontier, the rise of huge corporations and a transition to large-scale factory production, population shifts out of the countryside and into the city, large waves of immigration, etc. The New Deal, in turn, was simply a response to the economic hardships caused by the Great Depression. By attributing these periods’ reforms to America’s changing material circumstances, the orthodox view implies that there was no change of philosophical or moral import likewise under way. More to the point, it implies that the Progressives’ reforms were guided by the principles of the American Founding.

And yet this is demonstrably false.

(HT: Vox)