Progressivism is the opium of the privileged
The upper-middle class has suddenly found itself among the proles and it’s turned to political radicalism to salve its pain.
It is easy enough to simply dismiss progressivism as yet another iteration of Marxism. This is not entirely inaccurate, in that progressivism does share certain sentiments with Marxism. But the two are very much not the same thing, nor do they share much of a common origin.
Marxism’s origins lie almost entirely in the intelligentsia. The foundations of progressivism, by contrast, are largely religious—in particular, the tenets of universalist Protestant Christianity. This is likely why progressivism, unlike Marxism, does not place a great deal of emphasis on economics. Certainly, progressives tend to be economically egalitarian. They generally do express solidarity with the poor and favor redistributionist policies of one sort or another. But this is not their primary obsession.
Progressivism’s primary obsession, to the extent it can be fully described, is far more abstract and ambitious. It is a kind of vague belief in the need and capacity to perfect the human soul.
In this, progressivism is quite alien to Marxism. Marx probably did not believe in the soul and he unquestionably considered it largely irrelevant. To the extent that he dealt with the issue at all, it was not in a divine context and he spent no particular time contemplating the problem of evil. He did not ask how a good God could create an imperfect world since he did not believe in God. He believed the world’s imperfections and the suffering they cause are the result of specific, historically determined economic structures. Once those structures are smashed by revolution and remade along communist lines, the world would be essentially perfected and suffering would be greatly if not entirely alleviated.
Progressivism is quite a different animal. While progressives do denounce economic structures they consider unjust, the economics themselves are of little interest to them. They are concerned with injustice itself, not its causes. This is a religious view, and thus not particularly relevant to the Marxist.
Indeed, while Marx believed that all human phenomena are simply expressions of an underlying economic system, progressivism holds precisely the opposite. Progressives believe that economic systems are expressions of the souls of individual human beings. If a system is unjust, it is because those who built and rule it are unjust. They suffer from some malady of the soul like hate, greed, lust for power, racism, homo/transphobia, etc. If the system is to be made just, the unjust who built and rule it must repent, mend their ways, and make restitution. By doing so, they will, as the prophet put it, “cease to do evil, learn to do good.”
Thus, progressivism, like the Christianity from which it emerged, is in the business of saving souls. Though it would not use such terms, it believes in man’s sinful nature. Once the catechism is accepted, however, the sinner is born again and can live a new and virtuous life.
Of course, progressivism has long since amputated the specifically religious trappings of these ideas. For example, it has no interest in most of Christianity’s strict rules of behavior, especially in the realm of sexuality. But Christianity’s understanding of the process of redemption has remained. Also, to a certain extent, have the ethics of the beatitudes, such as “blessed are the meek” and “woe unto those who are rich.” In effect, progressivism has transmuted Christian religious principles into secular political loyalties.
Marx would likely have disapproved of this. However, his views on religion were not as dismissive as many of his critics claim. In his famous comment on the subject, he wrote, “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
It should be clear from this that, contrary to popular misconceptions, Marx did not use the term “opium of the people” to claim that religion is used to intoxicate the oppressed in order to induce their submission. He believed that religion, however untrue its claims about the physical and spiritual worlds might be, is a way to remain human in an inhuman world.
It is unlikely that any progressive could fully accept this. By and large, progressivism does not view the world as inhuman. In fact, its environmentalist wing believes that more or less the entire planet is human or at least a sentient organism. Progressives tend to believe that, since the world is a human one, the problems of the world can only be solved if human beings are solved. That is, if human beings can be purified and redeemed by proper instruction.
As in many religions, however, this instruction tends to become coercion in fairly short order. Universalist creeds, unfortunately, rarely know how to deal with people who do not consider the creed universal. Once people begin to think for themselves, trouble starts. Moreover, universalism always serves the majority over the minority. Something is only universal, after all, if everyone believes it. This means that, at the very least, the dissenting minority will be massively outnumbered.
As a result, universalists are almost inevitably oppressive to a greater or lesser degree. Progressives are no exception.
Progressivism is perhaps closest to Marxism in this regard. They both tend to favor “direct action” over gentle persuasion. Neither is averse to political violence. They usually regard themselves as trapped in a desperate struggle that is largely a product of their own imaginations. Generally speaking, they are intolerant and bigoted. Both hold that one can use “any means necessary” in a just cause, though progressives tend to prefer that others actually use them.
This last point is an important one. Progressives are good agitators and good moralizers, but they are not very good foot soldiers. When law-breaking or violence has to be done, they want others to do it: Antifa thugs, Muslim antisemites, anarchist radicals, and so on. While he may despise his own society, something in the progressive still wants to “get ahead” in it. Indeed, many progressives are quite accomplished in their fields and often fairly affluent. Those who are not rarely remain progressives; they set off in more violent directions.
The reason for this is that however much it may obfuscate the fact, progressivism is a movement of the privileged upper-middle class. Its upward mobility, contempt for the lower orders, distaste for outright criminality, moral arrogance, assumption that privilege is a divine right, general desire not to have to work for anything, complete indifference to where the money is going to come from, and sense of entitlement to power and influence are all quintessentially upper-middle class. Progressivism’s alleged loathing for privilege is ultimately its loathing of itself.
It is also more than that, because if progressivism is indeed a religious movement that has replaced religion with politics—and there is every reason to think it is—then that religion may well serve the purpose that Marx incisively described. It may be that progressivism is the opium of the privileged.
II.
This prompts the question: Why would the privileged need opium? One imagines that many do not, since a large number of upper-middle-class people are not progressives. Nonetheless, even non-progressives find their opium because, to some extent, we all need it. Often, life is unpleasant and the world is not a good world. Suffering is universal and Marx was wrong to think that this could be substantially changed by revolution. Even the wealthiest and luckiest eventually sicken and die or at least know that they will someday. Something must be found to alleviate the inevitable anguish.
A great many people turn to literal opiates and some toward other forms of decadence: Sex, money, luxury, fine food and drink, conspicuous consumption, etc. It is a world full of opium and people willing to sell it for the right price. It is not particularly difficult to find unhealthy ways to enjoy oneself.
There are also forms of decadence that are not usually seen as forms of decadence, such as fanatical religion or the embrace of a particular cause to the point of self-abnegation. A society with a Christian history may admire fervent devotion to a creed more than an essentially Epicurean society would do, but such devotion is still opium. It is an expression of suffering and the need for at least temporary relief.
Given their wealth and privilege, it is difficult at first to see the upper-middle class as a suffering class. Nonetheless, American society has arranged itself over the last half-century or so to make them exactly that.
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