The chapter starts out by defining what a progressive in its many forms. Molnar says that the term progress is an emotionally charged one because “The modern concept of progress is the most immediately available term when people want to speak of history as openness on infinite improvement, social emancipation, higher living standards. The adjective form “progressive is a label under which any blatant nonsense of sentimental trach may pass without inspection. He gives another definition of progressive as an ideal of everyone and makes up history itself because it is shared by everyone, “all of mankind.” A Progressive intellectual believes that in order to be a human being is to believe in progress and have no limitations of any kind.
Modern Progressivism comes out of nineteenth-century radicalism. Molnar says that there is a double origin of progressivism. The philosophical origin: in which is grew out of a particular image of god, the universe, man and human nature, so more of a secular image. The other one is the Historical origin which has been an attempt to reconstruct the social and poplical unity of mankind after the Renaissance. Progressivism, therefore, becomes a secular concept and is no other order in the universe except the human order
Then Molnar goes into what I would describe as what it means to be a good citizen in a way. The “social man” who lives up to the standards of his environment is also a good man and in order for him to prove himself he must show this attachment to society with its goal and methods. The society itself that man lives in represents goodness and Molnar says that leaders much show that they and the people are attached to it and it fulfules their aspirations.
He talks about how Rousseau and his 19th century followers maintain that because of man’s essential goodness, any society or group, it left alone without outside pressure, finds a way of getting along
His mind is guided by general Will – which is the basic assumption of democracy, as it it interpreseted by the progressives which then becomes the elimination of power from human affairs.
Progressive assumes that freedom, being the absence of power, is a moral good in itself, used only for noble goals and in self-restraint
Americans have their own democratic system → the assumption is that free men are good and honest but will always be tempted to transgress morality
On the other hand, the progressive intellectual is willing to the use the coercive political power of the state when he wants to carry out his plans or when they are threatened
This type of person follows ideas of Robespierre – he does not pass up any opportunity for seizing power and settling a the command post
“ to speak in the name of a progressive” they voices the right of self-expression and of individual search for inner treah the free flowering of personality”
Talks about schools briefly and teachers
Molnar says my task is to analyze the philosophy, mentality, and attitudes of progressive ideologues to show their debt to a certain kind of world-view they have in common.
Identify the progressive intellectual in some of his protean (frequently changing) forms
Gives us a definition of progressivism – which is the ideological formulation of the philosophical belief in Progress as the Enlightenment presented it
Progressives share Marxist veneration for history as a mechanism guiding the ages and guiding mankind on the road to betterment
History then is one of the evolutionary forms. (123)
The progressive believes in the progress of history, man, society, of God Himself who is not a person but a product
Everything is in motion and has direction
Involvement of the progressive intellectual with the contemporary world
Molnar defines three categories according to background, aim and method
Discussion of the progressive intellectual as
- A liberal-humanist who secularizes the values men hold dear and seeks for the conditions of their realization in individual and social existence
At the basis of the progressive world view there is a misunderstanding of human nature
Where Humanitas comes from – Greco-roman idea, used by renaissance scholars to stress the rationaloty of man against the supposed irrationality of the Middle Ages (125)
This who section is on humanism and Molnar gives a bunch of examples
Molnar says that with the eclipse of humanism two things happened - Why that sense further reduced and diminished the image of man that humanism has deprived of its sacral character and left in a mutilated state
By the 18th century, the humanist became the scientist and the organizer of the scientific society (126)
“Man, regarded by the consistently reasoning progress as a remarkably good mechanism, but far from possessing the excellence of his descendants a million years from now, or the perfection of the mechanism that engineers are now about to construct. (127)
How does a humanist escape the dilemma of justifying good as well as evil
Using existentialist humanism and scientific humanism
Recognize that everyone shares this experience of being a stranger with him
Revolt (129) - The emphasis on values (128)
- A fellow-traveler of socialism and communism, for whom these values have coalesced into the primary one of the “perfect society” from which, in turn, these values will obtain a new life
The progressive as a liberal humanist is still distinguishable by the vague and vacillating tribute he pays to the individual and to the concept of equilibrium between the individual and the community. (138)
The progressive is confronted with a system and he becomes fascinated with its brutal affirmations, particularly when the system displays a logical approach and consistency
The progressive is bound to be seduced by the doctrine that preaches the necessity
Lots are written about the flux of the liberal intellectuals to the camp of Marxism; the fellow travelers and their lives
Two main reasons for the option of progressive intellectuals for socialism in its Marxist forms, for Communism and for support of Soviet Russia - That communism is a short cut to Utopia
- It brings the progressive intellectual closer to the history-making part of society → the masses→ the proletariat
For the communist society of a nonalientated man – the short cut is not a shortcut but a freely chosen route
For the progressive has a dual allegiance to western humanistic values and the Perfect Society
The progressive only chooses the communist shortcut temporarily (will either get rid of the communist alliance or that the communism itself will become more amenable to the values of liberalism and humanism) Molnar said this is unclear (page 140)
The force of the true Marxist’s conviction acts as a temporary stimulant on the progressive fellow-traveler (144)
Molner talks about Merleauponty (who was himself a traveler) = who wrote that “marxism is not just a hypothesis, for which tomorrow, another may be substituted. It is the simple statement of the conditions without which there will be no mankind in the sense of the reciprocal relationship between human beings, nor will there be rationality in history… Beyond Marxism, there are only daydreams or adventures.. (144)
In the revealed marxists truth, the fellow-traveler develops the same double standards as the Communist intellectual himself..
Other groups hold that Marisms is a short cut to the ideal community such as the Christian intellectuals
Tillich’s – “Belief-ful realism” – contains the negation of every kind of romanticism and utopianism, but it includes the hopes of a social and economic life in which the spirit of capitalism,- the symbol of self-sufficient finitide- has been overcome
Socialism = selflessness – work for the common good
Dual nature of the progressives’s attraction to Marxism
One element follows from his extreme rationalism and the dreams of rationally organized society and the other from his equally extreme sentimentalism
The people, the masses, the proletariat - An esthete who finds no rational order in the universe and therefore no relationship between values and who, as a result, cultivates those – in preference beauty- which, although precarious, may be torn away from the general meaninglessness to become the exquisite flower of the day
The progressive intellectual’s natural habit is Utopia → antipolics
He is essentials an optimist who believes in the uninterrupted progress of mankind, leading the individuals to more freedom and society to a state of definitive ideological cohesion
There are some progressives who not not have the same nation of progress and they find themselves in mechanization in teh way of life imposed by the industry
They connact generate in themselves the progressives undivided enthusiasm for such transformation of natural beauty and character into th flatlands of “improved conditions”
Life and death
Under different costumes and set agaisnt different backgrounds the protrait is of the same man