The old adage seems apt: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And, as it turns out, utopian ones at that.
The emergence of Progressivism began in earnest around the turn of the 20th century. It was, in general, a secular version of an earlier Protestant movement known as the Social Gospel.
The Social Gospel sought to Christianize society’s institutions based on the fanciful notion that Christ’s Second Coming would not happen until we humans first eliminated all of society’s ills (postmillennialism).
These ills included economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean environment, child labor, lack of unionization, poor schools, and the dangers of war – of which there was no small shortage.
The earlier transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy had convulsed the nation. Any number of our cities were flooded with those from the countryside looking for employment. Living conditions, in many cases, were simply intolerable.
At the same time, large numbers of immigrants also arrived, contributing not only to overcrowding, but racial tensions and the exploitation of labor. Movements such as unionization, women’s rights, and increasing calls for socialism and communism reflected the intensity of social unrest. Society, in short, had become unstable.
Politically, the democratic process had come to be dominated by monied corporate interests (think “Robber Barons”) and corrupt party bosses who did the bidding of these same interests.
Enter the early Progressives, with their not-so-modest plan to address these maladies. Just as science would tame and order the natural world, Progressives would use reason and the newly established social sciences to tame and order society, i.e., human nature. [These, it’s important to note, would supersede the time-honored authority of history, culture, community, political process, law (both natural and civil) as well as religion.]
Newly empowered science and reason would maximize human flourishing. Employing these new tools, Progressives would take the reins of power away from the old order which was thought hopelessly self-interested, parochial, antiquated, and corrupt.
This new order, the “new Republic,” would be guided by a new cadre of the “best and brightest,” those with the best education and schooled in the latest forward-thinking, “pragmatic” theories that would bring forth disinterested, unbiased, intelligent direction to an otherwise chaotic and benighted culture.
The idea, or bargain, was that the superelite capitalists would cede a little bit of their power to this newly emergent class of professional managers and bureaucrats in exchange for social harmony and greater economic equity. In so doing, the new Progressives would help America transcend its divisions, redeem its soul, and bring peace and prosperity to all.
It’s essential to note, however, that these professional managers and bureaucrats would attain their influence at the pleasure of the superelite capitalists. “Speaking truth to power,” in other words, would have its limits. After all, in truth, these managers and bureaucrats ultimately would serve the interests of the superelite, as they still do today.
In any event, Progressives saw themselves primarily as champions of the poor and dispossessed. Altruism, in other words, was baked into the cake, as was an innate sense of superiority – morally, spiritually, intellectually. These technocrats would restrain nepotism, exploitation, and unjust discrimination by means of merit and clearsighted professionalism.
Not insignificantly, as it happened, this also led to a slew of new employment opportunities in the emergent managerial, clerical, and technical fields – in the governmental as well as private and nonprofit sectors. Though Progressivism claimed to oppose profit and prestige, and to work strictly for the benefit of the public good, these new careers quickly became a path to economic success and elite acceptance.
Thus, a funny thing happened on the way to utopia. As statistics show, the transfer of wealth went not from the top to the bottom, but primarily to the very same managers and bureaucrats whose sole raison d’être was to bring relief to the disadvantaged.
In the end, these “symbolic capitalists” – as Musa al-Gharbi calls this new professional class in his brilliant new book, We Were Never Woke – ended up taking from the rich and giving to themselves. Though presenting themselves as altruistic, they ended up pursuing mostly their own self-interest. “Expert” judgment increasingly benefited these same symbolic capitalists, even as their pay, prestige, and influence skyrocketed.
Perhaps it would help to define who these “symbolic capitalists” are. As a class, al Gharbi suggests, these “professionals” typically are clustered within three prominent categories – politics, academia, and culture.
Politics, as al-Gharbi puts it, is the art of gaining “trust, goodwill, relationships and institutional authority” in order to “mobilize others toward a particular goal.”
Academia, on the other hand, involves convincing others to defer to one’s judgment “based on special knowledge, intellect, skill, or expertise – derived from credentials, degrees, formal education, etc.”
Finally, cultural capital entails being seen as “interesting, cool, sophisticated, charismatic, and charming,” which would include how one talks, dresses, one’s manners, expressed opinions, education, socioeconomic background, ideological and political alignments, place of origin, etc. This category implies “the luxury of cultivating the right dispositions of body and mind.”
In general, symbolic capitalists traffic in “symbols, rhetoric, images and narratives, data and analysis, and abstractions.” Think journalism, the media, universities, Hollywood, etc. Not to mention, sadly, our mainline churches. This, in contradistinction to those who actually make things.
As al-Gharbi sees it, symbolic capitalists, their rhetoric notwithstanding, generally seek status, affluence, and prestige, and not, mind you, the good of the “downtrodden, vulnerable, marginalized, and impoverished.”
It is here that al-Gharbi makes his boldest claim – that the various historical uprisings allegedly pursued in the interests of social justice aren’t really about justice at all, but about the careerist aspirations of symbolic capitalists.
He identifies four “Great Awokenings” over the last hundred years or so (the early 1930s, the 60s, the late 80s to early 90s, and 2010 to today). Each Great Awokening, he persuasively argues, occurs whenever there is a downturn in employment and/or economic prospects for these aspiring symbolic professionals (mostly educated, upper-middle class to upper class whites).
Which is to say, such “woke” uprisings are actually aimed at the “superelite” – those within the establishment who hold the real power – and have little or nothing to do with the issue on offer – antiracism, feminism, LGBTQ rights, poverty, injustice, etc.
The protests, that is, have more to do with fear and jealousy, as adverse conditions jeopardize the symbolic capitalists’ prospects for entering the ranks of the elite, positions to which they feel duly entitled. They mask their ambitions, says al-Gharbi, by falsely claiming to speak on behalf of the [fill in the blanks].
One major discrepancy can be seen in the ways the interests, worldviews, and priorities of these symbolic capitalists are out of step with those for whom they claim to advocate. It is rarely the “dispossessed” who lead woke campaigns, but aspiring cultural elites.
Not only that, these ”Great Awokenings” tend to peter out as soon as economic conditions improve and as symbolic capitalists eventually secure positions in the newly reconstituted power structure (think the DEI-industrial complex). There they guard their sinecures jealously and, not without irony, work to keep others out. In effect, their protests end once they have been successfully incorporated into the system.
But most significantly, as al-Gharbi argues at length, the once despised system, after all the Sturm und Drang has subsided, ends up largely unchanged upon their having joined its ranks. The only thing that has changed is the fortunes of the symbolic capitalists themselves.
Referencing the work of Robert Putnam, al Gharbi writes, “…the transition to the symbolic economy in the 1960s – and the ascendance of symbolic capitalists – has been accompanied by stark declines in equality, social cohesion, and civic participation.”
In fact, again referencing Putnam, the advances from 1860-1960, those “broad-based gains in socioeconomic equality, civil rights, trust in social institutions, religious attendance, union membership, and other forms of civic participation” today have all shown “shocking reversals.”
He even goes so far as to suggest that, in many respects, the year 2020 has come to resemble the United States of the Gilded Age, the very era, I would argue, the Progressive movement was hellbent to fix and replace.
As I survey the cultural landscape today, I find al-Gharbi’s analysis to ring true. I see all kinds of wealthy, educated, white symbolic capitalists virtue-signaling “woke” mantras that betray and contradict the very traditional, bourgeois values and lifestyles they and their families actually pursue.
Such woke sentiments appear to serve more as “luxury beliefs,” as class-markers that advertise who’s who among the elite, while simultaneously doing little to nothing to address concretely the conditions of those about whom they claim to be so concerned. Their rhetoric is akin to wearing the right handbag with one’s outfit. It’s about making a fashionable statement broadcasting one’s status and superiority.
Elitism, in and of itself, is problematic enough. But what seems worse is elitism that masks its elitism by pretending to be “down for the struggle,” that feigns altruism in its headlong pursuit of status and wealth. The resultant smug intellectualism and assumed moral superiority can only be understood as both counterfeit and disingenuous.
So here’s a thought. Perhaps now is the time to put this whole Progressive ideology out of its, and our, misery.
After all, haven’t they been in charge long enough?