Walk down
any high school hallway or through any university campus and you are likely to
hear discussions about various sorts of “privilege”. Many of the people having
these conversations would style themselves “progressive”. However, many of
those that both support and oppose progressive policies fail to understand the philosophical
underpinnings of progressivism. My purpose here is not to argue for or against
progressivism or to investigate to what degree privilege exists and what should
be done about it. Rather, I want to give a brief “genealogy of morals”—I want
to discuss the philosophical presuppositions that inform these distinct, though
often overlapping, movements.
The modern
progressive movement has its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau rejected
the traditional Christian dogma of an Edenic fall and instead imputed all of
man’s misery on society and education. This resulted in the theoretical
possibility of perfecting man. To wit, if man is the product of his environment
and education, then a perfect environment and education would create a perfect
man. From this it followed, not logically, but emotionally, that if governments
can create perfect men, then governments should create perfect men. But
existing states and institutions like the church and family desire their own flawed
preservation and thereby hinder man’s progress; worse still, they continue to
create imperfect men incapable of seeing their true good. In order for man to
reach his potential all the old institutions that have created imperfect men
must be done away with. As a result of these convictions Rousseau’s progressive
heirs have tended to favor revolutionary change.
Traditional Christian
teaching rejected these utopian impulses—if man was born with a sinful
condition no perfection could ever be reached upon this earth. Instead of
rushing to pull down all existing institutions, Christians have sought to improve
existing institutions. For example, anarchists believe that men can live peacefully
without government while communists believe men can live happily without the
traditional family structure. What is more, these co-heirs of Rousseau believe
that the state and family actually make life worse, not better, and for that
reason they must be completely done away with. Christians on the other hand
know that since men are sinners government will always be needed and that since
the family was instituted by God we should not attempt to abolish it. As a
result Christians, instead of seeking revolutionary change, have sought to reform institutions—to move existing
structures toward their original purpose, knowing full well that, given man’s
sinful condition, all the things men create will constantly be moving away from
their God-ordained purpose.
While the
bases of progressivism and traditional Christian teaching are radically
different, their aims have often overlapped. For example, a reformer and a
revolutionary may both desire higher wages, more humane prisons, improved
schools, and abolition. As they have shared common cause these groups have
indeed worked together. However, their final and ultimate goals—creating a
perfect society as opposed to improving a fallen one—do differ and that is why
a distinction between Christian reform and progressivism must be made. A
Christian can support a number of progressive causes and even call himself a
progressive, but he cannot ultimately be a progressive in the way I have
described without denying traditional Christian dogma (i.e. sin).
Post-modernism
is a loose “philosophy” and for that reason it is alternatively and often ill defined.
To the extent that we can find a core to this nebulous worldview it is the
belief that the subject always puts a part of him or herself into the object
and therefore cannot have any independent, objective knowledge. For example,
when I read the news I don’t do so dispassionately, but as a member of a
certain generation, class, race, religion, etc. and I project these and other aspects
of myself into the object of my study. As I cannot separate myself from the
various facets of my identity, I cannot look at anything beyond myself without
myself clouding the object I seek to know. As a result I am incapable of any
full and certain, objective knowledge of anything beyond myself. In theory,
there may be objective truth, but in practice it is unknowable.
This
philosophical outlook begs a further question: if everyone projects various features
of themselves into the objects they study, which aspects predominate? According
to Karl Marx, “it’s the economy stupid.” Marx believed that the economic
substructure that people inhabit determines
their thought. For example, a man living in a feudal economy would have
different ideas of politics, religion, family, etc. than a man living in a
capitalist economy and that there is nothing either of those men could do to
change their outlooks apart from changing their economies, as he recommended. Most
scholars today have rejected this claim, but neo-Marxists have picked up on
this idea and adapted it to contemporary pluralistic Western societies. Instead
of economies determining all, neo-Marxists believe that our gender, race, and
sexuality determine the content of our thought.
Now it is
important to note that neo-Marxist/post-modern thinkers don’t think that race,
class, and sexuality influence
thought. That is obvious and nearly everyone agrees with that. Rather, they
argue that these factors determine
thought. However, if everyone’s race or gender determine the content of their thought, then there is no such thing
as objective, knowable truth. The only thing one can “know” is one’s own
internal experience and this is of course completely unique to every
individual. This epistemology has huge implications for human communication.
If there is
no knowable truth, then there is no point in debating policy for there is no
truth, no resolution to come to. What is more, if the characteristics of a
person determine their beliefs, then it follows that all attacks must be against
the characteristics of a person as opposed to their beliefs. Anyone with an eye
to perceive can recognize this happening all around. The majority of what
passes as “political debate” is ad
hominem attack. “Of course you would say that [thing about race, sexuality,
or gender], you’re a member of that specific group! How dare you think that you
know anything about [the pay gap, the achievement gap, bathroom rights] when
you haven’t experienced what I have!”
When there is no common, objective truth the only thing left to appeal to is
power. When all that remains is power we get the type of broken political
system that we have as politics becomes increasingly brutal and society becomes
“poore, nasty, and brutish.”
The connection
between post-modernism and the privilege movement is fairly clear. If everyone
perceives a different “truth” based on their gender, race, and sexuality, if
certain classes of people have historically suffered discrimination while other
groups have benefited, and if a core, common goal of politics is to liberate
people from oppression, then many good-natured people will naturally want to
distance themselves from the oppressing class. Combine with this Marx’s view
that the proletariat, i.e. the oppressed, are always correct and you will have
members of some groups rushing to admit their privilege and embrace the
narratives/worldviews of various oppressed classes of people.
It is not my
purpose to discuss whether or not the desire to confess one’s privilege is good
or bad, wise or unwise, but simply to show the philosophical roots of this
movement. Though I will add in passing that, practically speaking, words alone
don’t bring change. Declaring one’s “white privilege” won’t improve inner-city
schools; mourning one’s male privilege does nothing to undermine the multi-billion
dollar semi and fully pornographic industries that objectify and exploit women.
Our words
must be connected with real action if we want tangible change, but before we
can have meaningful action we must have meaningful words and words can only
have meaning if there is an objective, knowable truth for them to point to. Actual
problems have been successfully reformed in the past and we can continue to
have efficacious reforms in the future. But to do that we must reject the
poison of post-modernism and accept the reality of a knowable and communicative
truth beyond ourselves.
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