IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
1mo ago
This used to be the position of progressives back when racism was the norm, if you remember.
Colonization, eugenics. These were specifically progressive projects justified by the "white man's burden". There are many a memory holed passionate tirades about how us moral Europeans have a duty to civilize barbaric peoples for their own good.
If you want a taste of it you can go look at the career and writings of one John Stuart Mill, colonial administrator at the East India Company and fervent proponent of "benevolent despotism...provided the end is improvement". All as he was the ur-social-liberal that we all know.
So on one hand it is not at all difficult to imagine progressives pivoting to a paternalist form of compassion, even though it's so antithetical to their current beliefs (they already have this stance vis à vis Islam), but on the other hand this has been tried and has had problems of its own, not least the shame of it being the cause and justification of their current denial of anything approaching biological essentialism.
It therefore seems like a dead end to me. If anything a compassionate acceptance of biological realities would have to pair itself with a humility about our understanding and ability to shape nature that I see few people truly exhibiting.
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Notes -
This used to be the position of progressives back when racism was the norm, if you remember.
Colonization, eugenics. These were specifically progressive projects justified by the "white man's burden". There are many a memory holed passionate tirades about how us moral Europeans have a duty to civilize barbaric peoples for their own good.
If you want a taste of it you can go look at the career and writings of one John Stuart Mill, colonial administrator at the East India Company and fervent proponent of "benevolent despotism...provided the end is improvement". All as he was the ur-social-liberal that we all know.
So on one hand it is not at all difficult to imagine progressives pivoting to a paternalist form of compassion, even though it's so antithetical to their current beliefs (they already have this stance vis à vis Islam), but on the other hand this has been tried and has had problems of its own, not least the shame of it being the cause and justification of their current denial of anything approaching biological essentialism.
It therefore seems like a dead end to me. If anything a compassionate acceptance of biological realities would have to pair itself with a humility about our understanding and ability to shape nature that I see few people truly exhibiting.
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