It Was Ever Thus ...

 Whether we are considering the Gnostic kernel-thought of cosmic revisionism; or the Marxist-Socialist doctrine of social rehabilitation; or the current global warming hysteria which aims for the restoration of a pre-industrial planet; or the mental sedatives known as the doctrines of “social justice” and “universal human rights” which, as Daniel Hannan elaborates in The New Road to Serfdom, have nothing to do with new rights but with institutional centralization and international organizations that “get to determine what our rights are”; or the Obamantra of “hope and change” and all that it implies of redistributive economics, what we are observing is the perpetual march of human folly. It will stop at nothing — neither dogmatic ignorance, nor cultivated nihilism, nor imaginary resolutions, nor planned upheaval, nor destructive violence — to construct a pristine simulacrum of the Gnostic hallucination as if it were a viable alternative to the world as it fundamentally is and always will be. 

This is by David Soltay, who is, among other things a poet.  I find it oddly comforting, because, as Frank has pointed out here many times, the complete and utter failure of our Ruling Class is astonishing, he acquiescence by the Ruled Class is insane, and -- to me -- both have happened so quickly and universally.  As Soltay points out here, it is a battle about Articles of Faith, and it has happened many, many times before.

And on a related note I absolutely think there has been progress in all sorts of ways, empirically verifiable. Just look around. We would be dead, most of us, without the progress that has been made. You may want FASTER progress and that is good for you. But I think the average person is far better off than they were twenty, forty, sixty, one hundred etc. years ago, or even further back, where people lived till 40, or not, when children died at birth or soon after, so couples would have many children just to make sure some survived, when the rich and powerful had a stranglehold on all. And you can claim now that they still do, as we sit, far better fed than people throughout history, and far more comfortable, communicating over an electronic marvel, but that just isn't right I think -- and to claim it is I think diminishes the actual truth of suffering today. 
Of course, as in all things, that is my perspective -- that of a transgendered person who has been kindly granted a platform here by Frank.   In the old days, my kind would have been killed a long time ago, or I would have killed myself cause of the rejection I would have faced ... and now I still have my stunning and glorious partner of twenty five years, our four kids, my law practice, and my life, within one mile of where I grew up.  So yes, I see things through my own prism...