The democratic citizen’s version of Matthew 16:26, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” should read, “What is a citizen profited, if he gains freedoms, and lose his own society?”
Ashok Panikkar
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The basis of all life is stability. Without order and continuity, there is no stability. Change and progress are inherently destabilizing. Hence, even when change is necessary (and inevitable), we change-makers must ensure that the larger system continues. You don’t tear down the house because it needs new plumbing.
Ashok Panikkar
Chapter Summary:
For around 150 years the ancient civilizations of China, India and Europe watched spellbound as the USA, the new kid on the block (a veritable parvenu), strived with extraordinary idealism and seemingly infinite resources to create a prosperous and democratic country. What differentiated the USA (and later the West) from the rest of the world was the unprecedented open and free (liberal) societies that they established, and within which they thrived.
Liberalism, as I explained in an earlier chapter, was a movement that privileged individual reason and autonomy, and stood steadfastly against moral certainty and social orthodoxy. However, at some point liberals decided that in addition to being free and protecting their own minorities, they also wanted to save the whole world and everyone in it.
For the next few decades, this need to develop, change, and transform the world became an obsession, especially amongst the educated elite. The more they invested resources to correct every possible flaw in their own society and those abroad, the more they also gave up on classical liberalism. Which, after all, was nothing but a skeptical and rational mindset —a way of looking at the world shorn of traditional / cultural biases and prejudices. Their enthusiasm for improving the world pushed them towards embracing what we think of today as progressive activism. Progressivism is what you get when you marry liberalism with moral certainty.
The immense ‘progress’ on every front- cultural, social, economic- has taken a toll of society, the nation and the modern world itself. So much so, many are left wondering if the USA (or Germany or the UK) can even survive as a nation. In the rush to change and transform every imperfect institution, rule and norm, the very foundations of American society seem to have come close to being destroyed. In this chapter, I explore the implications, costs and consequences of liberalism, including its natural corollary progress.
THE THIRD LIE THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY - PROGRESS
by Ashok Panikkar
