The World Moves Left

The arc of the universe bends towards justice

In a previous piece we talked about how justice is eating the world. As Martin Luther King said, “The arc of the moral universe…bends towards justice.” And by justice we mean reducing disparities to bring about a more equitable world. Justice is also used interchangeably with “progress”. The world becomes more *just* overtime, it makes more *progress* overtime. Which is to also say the world becomes more *progressive* overtime, which is to also say the world moves more *leftist* over time. (Which is also to say that Priest Morality stays winning).

People often don’t want to admit the world moves leftist over time because it’s too explicit—they want to believe that there are two equal parties with equal influence since the idea of the left always winning is at odds with its own self image (after all, if one was always winning, there wouldn’t be a need to keep fighting! Which is also why leftism is strongest when faced with a real threat, like Trump).

BUT people are comfortable saying society makes more moral progress overtime, and they’re comfortable saying moral progress is often equated with the progressive party, despite some hiccups along the way, so you still get to the same notion.

Remember, by left and right I don’t mean Democrat and Republican, since those change every few years. As we defined in “What is Left? What is Right?”:

“Leftism is the belief that Society is on an upward trajectory towards greater and greater levels of moral perfection (less inequality) through the process of continuously solving social problems”.

I want to further flesh out this theory that the world moves leftwards overtime. Not exclusively left, of course — after all, abortion and affirmative action just had big shifts rightwards — but a hockey stick growth with some ups and downs along the way. Of course, the right wins elections too, so it isn’t to say that the most left party always wins, it’s that the coordinates on which both parties operate move leftwards as we make progress over time. So even if the right wins electorally, that right is a more left wing version of the previous right wing. 

To emphasize this point, take a conservative, say, Ben Shapiro. Consider the Ben Shapiro of 50 years ago, or 100 years ago. Compare every Ben Shapiro style character of the most recent generations. What you notice is that the most recent Ben Shapiro figure is always to the left of the previous one. So compared to the right of 100 years ago, today is less about the left vs right and more about the left vs the less far left. The left sets the agenda, the right just tries to “stand athwart history, yelling ‘stop!’”

It’s a provocative thesis, the notion that conservatism is actually just liberalism on a lag. For the exact same positions we’d call bigoted today, we would have called them “conservative” 20 years ago, and “liberal” 40 years ago. Consider that the current US president is pro same-sex marriage, where neither Obama nor Hillary were pro-gay marriage 10-15 years ago. They ‘evolved’ on the issue. This shows how much moral progress (or leftism) we’ve made in such short time.

Put differently — a modern right winger today in many ways believes what left wingers believed 20 years ago but no longer do.

For a long time, a right winger was a left winger circa 1930. Then as time passed, that changed to 1960. Then more recently 1980. And now maybe 2010 or something.

Each generation of conservatives thinks that the prior progressive reforms were ok or even good in retrospect, but it’s these NEW ones that are beyond the pale. Repeat forever. 

There was a real dispute over the civil rights acts of the mid 60s. And a huge fight over feminism in the 70s. And etc etc etc. And no conservative today would propose overturning any of that settled law or practices or norms. The civil rights dispute wasn’t just anti-black racism either. It was a big fight over removing freedom of association. Including forced school integration, which sent a lot of middle class white kids to lower class black schools in the name of social justice etc.

So it seems the general model is some extreme reform from the left, some freak out and token resistance from the right, and then it becomes settled law and norms and that’s that. 

And there’s no alternative vision at all other than to go back to the Stone Age which obviously isn’t going to happen.

Consider how left wing the right has become. Tucker Carlson is much closer to Elizabeth Warren on economics than any traditionally conservative economist.

Here are some examples to illustrate how far left the right has become (except on abortion, of course):

Anti-trade, until recently, was a left wing position, in the name of defending American workers. Anti-immigration, until recently, was a left wing position, in the name of defending American workers. Industrial policy, until recently, was a left wing position, in the name of defending American workers.

Higher levels of welfare, which is what UBI is, was a left wing position, in the name of taking care of the American people.

Sweeping restrictions on zoning and development, including homebuilding, is a left wing position, in the name of protecting the environment.

Outlawing charter schools, private schools, and home schooling is a left wing position, in the name of protecting the children.

Outlawing competition in financial services is a left wing position, in the name of protecting consumers.

They're all left wing positions.

So if your typical “national conservative” like a Josh Hawley or for that matter Donald Trump is anti trade, anti immigration, and in favor of industrial policy, and is totally fine with gay marriage, what is he exactly? A democrat in 2004.

Of course, Democrats have also moved far left since 2004, so the battle rages.

There was a time when Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer were demanding a wall on the southern border. There was a time when Joe Biden was anti busing and pro punitive incarceration for crack vs powder cocaine. A lot has changed!

Consider this thought experiment: If you were to ask a conservative from 1970 what they think of the country today, how would they feel? 

Conservatives have lost nearly every issue: Gay marriage. Size of government. Entitlements. Erosion of Christianity as dominant national religion among elites. Western Canon. Nuclear Family. Gender roles. Marriage as an institution. Sexual norms. Church in the schools. Namely, their world was demolished. They ruled in 1950, and now they are the barbarians at the gate, trying to see if they can section off communities to live their lifestyle. They can’t get the country, they'll settle for a little town with their people. 

If you were to ask a liberal from 1970 how they’d feel? They might feel happy about these individual accomplishments, but they’d probably harp on the real battles they’ve lost or the moral progress they’ve not yet made. That’s partly why they keep winning—they care more. Conservatives want to BBQ and watch TV (and hate leftists), leftists want to make the world a better place.

What’s the mechanism by which the world moves left?

There’s no centralized direction, mostly autonomous local communities that somehow all manage to converge on one catechism: You can always care more. And if you don't care as much as the next guy, you're a fascist and a bigot. At bottom it's the Christian ethic, what Nietzsche called "slave morality": Valorization of the weak and vulnerable.

If you put in place a value system that prioritizes the weak and vulnerable over the strong and dominating — which Christianity did — then all moral progress is going to be based on greater and greater levels of valorization of weakness and vulnerability.

And so you will get people more and more claiming to be weak and vulnerable, and more and more claiming to be working on behalf of the weak and vulnerable. So every year that goes by, morality gets identified as caring more and more about the weak and vulnerable.

There's no central organizing point for this, it's a self-reinforcing collective feedback loop. Some people make the mistake and say it’s a conspiracy—a centralized group of actors trying to make something happen. Others make the opposite mistake and imply that just because something is decentralized, it means there’s nothing happening. They don’t appreciate emergent collusion.

To be sure, it’s not just some free floating spiritual aesthetic, it’s an institutional apparatus with hundreds of billions of dollars that helps direct the trillions of dollars the USG has (e.g. Harvard/New York Times/Ford Foundation/Google).

Why aren’t there checks on excessive leftism the same way there are about excessive rightism? Why are there no good movies about the Russian Revolution? Or Mao? or Pol Pot? or Castro? Or the Black Panthers? Or the Weathermen? Or even the campus riots of the 60s and 70s? It’s because leftists are the people who write books and movies and teach college classes and write Substack posts like this one. After all, for the most part, the world moves left, and we move along with it. The arc of the universe bends towards justice.