Linearity - The condition of having historical continuity without significant fluctuation or deviation.
Progressive - A person implementing or advocating for social reform or new, liberal ideas; moving forward or onward.
Why does time have a direction? Time’s arrow posits that time moves asymmetrically — we cognitively recognize this, and intuitively understand any deviation from this direction as being nonsensical in relation to our perceived world.
While we understand that time moves asymmetrically, what are the implications of such for concepts of history, or the perception of the sequence of events and existence, and our predictions for the future? This births the issue of chronology, and the human understanding of time and its passing. Time as a sequence of existence, continually moves forward, but is there some logic to our perception of an irreversible succession from the past?
The philosophy of chronology has been an academic fixation of humanity since time immemorial. Ancient cultures supposed a cyclical notion of time and history, organized by repetition of eras (or ages). This is seen in Eastern cosmologies, and seen in the indigenous cultures of North and South America. In the Abrahamic world, the linear conception of time dominates. With linearity, time and its chronology of events orient itself with eschatological concerns, on which fundamentally rests the premise that there is some “end” to which humanity is progressing.
This translates in Western academic traditions, varying from Newtonian absolute time to Einstein’s theory of relativity, sharing the fundamental premise of time’s direction and the unanswerable question of subjectivity and objectivity in event chronology.
Linearity has offered the Western world a basis for improvement, where society is defined by collective goals (material or moral) to be progressed towards. Time and its events are solidly chronological with each next event original, and the journey through never repeating. The Puritans arriving on the shores of Massachusetts brought this from Europe to North America, with Winthrop situating their new community as “a city upon a hill” and warned of Christian sin derailing the chronological development that was held as the new settlement’s destiny.
In the 19th century, “manifest destiny” was the driving belief of westward expansion — American exceptionalism rests upon the premise that there is some moral or material goal to be pursued for what is American “destiny”. In the 20th century, exceptionalism evolved, thrusting the American establishment into an era of global ideological confrontation, arguably defined as communist versus non-communist, where the primary American destiny was to squash their ideological/geopolitical opponents. The future as a “straight-line extrapolation of recent past”1 is unpredictable, reliant wholly on human action and decision. This worldview has dominated American political thought even before the country's formal organization.
Contemporary American politics has organized itself around a broadening of the culture wars emanating from the early 20th century. The social conflict between traditionalists/conservatives and progressives/liberals is an overwhelming fixation in the United States. The differing views of what America’s future should look like, and what steps should be undertaken to progress to that future, are a source of massive contention, particularly seen in the battles for policy change (or preservation).
While conservative linearity rests on the desire to preserve what is, or return to what once was, progressive linearity desires to continue the social development from what is or once was. In progressive thought, there is a constant movement toward an improved state: material, moral, or otherwise. The chronology of American history is a persisting struggle of reform, with the goalposts moving along with the continuous social progression of society.
To the American progressive, the American historiography is organized by continual social and moral reform over time and naturally must continue. Particularly now that progressivism leans exclusively secularist, it acts without an internal theological eschatology (as a natural condition of progressing away from the rule of religious establishments). There is no objective end goal because the understanding of the timeline is quantic and removed from religious destiny.2
To some degree, goalpost moving is inherent to the ideological structure of American (or broadly Western) progressivism because it proposes that improvements in social and material organization are better for the human condition. As those changes are made, a new status quo is established, and from that status quo, a new movement to progress forward. In this sense, the progressive umbrella of goals expands with time, as measurements of progress develop to higher standards.
By progressive logic, progress is a natural product of human enterprise and socio-cultural evolution, while to the conservative this is an illusion. An illusion of synergy, an idea that all progressive social reforms interrelate, validate, and reinforce one another (as seen in progressive intersectional theory). An illusion of imminent danger, an idea that all progress is framed by the threat of urgent devastation, only mitigated through immediate progressive change (as seen in Green New Deal rhetoric). An illusion that there is historical justification for progressive action, an idea best exemplified in the paraphrased Martin Luther King Jr. quote, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” To the progressive, seeking out social reform from the status quo places them on the right side of history, as individuals in support of some conceived future status quo (one more adequately socially progressed and liberal).3
Conservative linearity operates under several conditions of progress: that purposive action to remedy XYZ societal issue only serves to exacerbate another systemic condition; that social transformation is ultimately futile, with natural and prevailing social hierarchies continuing to order interaction; and that the proposed cost of XYZ change jeopardizes some previous progressive accomplishment.4
With the Internet, the circulation of information is both hyper-accelerated and curated to the individual. Progressive narratives have evolved from their 20th-century predecessors in both ideological depth, expansiveness, and “intersectionality”. This accelerated expansion has contributed to discord within progressive movements themselves, with disagreements on what is progress, and narrative incoherence as disagreements become ideological fragmentations.
Feminism itself, as a progressive ideology, is a perfect example of ideological fragmentation with time and expansion. Fourth-wave feminism is fraught with arguments as to the domains of its new, progressive theories of gender identity and its implications for the accomplishments of preceding waves of feminism. Similarly, racial equity movements suffer from internal discord — to what degree must racial minorities (and broader society) reject the white establishment and status quo, and to what end?
There is no answer to this proposition. There is no end that progressivism needs to meet in order to have been justified in its perpetual and fractious demands and narrative reconstructions. It is an omnipresent tragedy-state in which progressive linearity enables future generations to look back in righteous horror at the state of the past, while themselves moving forward into a future they neither understand nor make serious attempts to reconcile with their present.
Differences in political views on an issue-by-issue basis between progressives and conservatives are tangential to the root of their opposition. Their respective intuitions of time as a perpetual righteous struggle versus a cyclical force of nature leave the two sides incapable of meaningfully interacting within present-day political discourse. The only serious questions that can resolve this divide are ones that cannot, by definition, be answered in the present. Does time’s direction enable a linear progression towards an opaque end? Does it enable cyclical truths that re-emerge over and over again? Will we even be able to recognize which side is right once we get to our undefined future checkpoint, and look back on the present?
Probably not, but who knows.
Strauss, William, and Neil Howe. 1998. The Fourth Turning : An American Prophecy. New York: Broadway Books.
Strauss, William, and Neil Howe. 1998. The Fourth Turning : An American Prophecy. New York: Broadway Books.
Hirschman, Albert O. 2004. The Rhetoric of Reaction : Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy. Cambridge, Mass. Belknap Press.
Hirschman, Albert O. 2004. The Rhetoric of Reaction : Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy. Cambridge, Mass. Belknap Press.
If the topic claims the mind again in a genetic theoretical manner --since there is much more to be said--Karl Löwith's classic 'Meaning in History' would be a worthy read, as would Erich Voegelin's Anamnesis. And since we're on classics R.G. Collingwood masterful 'The Idea of History " is in part a right-Hegelian salvo against Whig History, which progressive and neoliberal rightist engage as if nature).
I've been thinking about this a lot while reading Hayek and listening to James Lindsay discuss Hegel. There is this perception of History that is like a deity. Progressives of the current sort operate as if there is a perfected future that we are destined for and they want it now. Taking time to understand the present before implementing changes is of little note. They see an issue, make a value judgment, insist it can only be reconciled one way. Conservatives on the other hand are historically lazy. They propose little except to slow the speed of what progressives propose except in rare cases. Classical liberals, what few there really are, are frustrated with both. They are aligned with opposition to certain policies of the progressives, but they want things to still get done.
There are so many threads to pull at.