In my observations of progressive policy wonks (as we call them in Australian slang) is the absolute worst thing you can accuse them of is being ‘conservative’. They are so blind to the notion that the past is a) a useful record of things that succeeded and failed, b) people in the past are NOT morons and c) progress is only progress if …
In my observations of progressive policy wonks (as we call them in Australian slang) is the absolute worst thing you can accuse them of is being ‘conservative’. They are so blind to the notion that the past is a) a useful record of things that succeeded and failed, b) people in the past are NOT morons and c) progress is only progress if it’s ‘revolutionary’ so they have to reinvent the wheel all the time to sell it… but they only talk to other progressives, otherwise they’d realise that their idea is not that revolutionary.
Example: Multigenerational households are the ‘revolutionary’ way to solve the aged care crisis! But only to people who thought it was a good idea to section off and warehouse the elderly and infirm to be cared for by ‘experts’, ie poorly paid carers on 12 hr shifts and a few doctors who couldn’t get a better offer. Meanwhile every Asian/Eastern European/Islander/ is laughing at them because they never thought it was a good idea to warehouse their elders away from families in the first place! They never used to be called ‘multigenerational households’ they used to be called families or just households.
That is just one example of how ‘progressives’ can’t admit to themselves that their ‘progressive revolution’ has actually destroyed something good and human and the attempt at engineering has failed miserably so they have to ‘progress’ with new words for a normal human activity and end up looking like idiots to normal people and conservatively dispositioned people (like me). It’s the chief reason I soured on public policy in my undergrad days and went deeper into philosophy and theory. Exasperation is one word to describe this idiotic merry go round and lack of humility to admit that sometimes the truly progressive thing to do when you’ve taken a wrong turn is to go back till you find the right road.
In my observations of progressive policy wonks (as we call them in Australian slang) is the absolute worst thing you can accuse them of is being ‘conservative’. They are so blind to the notion that the past is a) a useful record of things that succeeded and failed, b) people in the past are NOT morons and c) progress is only progress if it’s ‘revolutionary’ so they have to reinvent the wheel all the time to sell it… but they only talk to other progressives, otherwise they’d realise that their idea is not that revolutionary.
Example: Multigenerational households are the ‘revolutionary’ way to solve the aged care crisis! But only to people who thought it was a good idea to section off and warehouse the elderly and infirm to be cared for by ‘experts’, ie poorly paid carers on 12 hr shifts and a few doctors who couldn’t get a better offer. Meanwhile every Asian/Eastern European/Islander/ is laughing at them because they never thought it was a good idea to warehouse their elders away from families in the first place! They never used to be called ‘multigenerational households’ they used to be called families or just households.
That is just one example of how ‘progressives’ can’t admit to themselves that their ‘progressive revolution’ has actually destroyed something good and human and the attempt at engineering has failed miserably so they have to ‘progress’ with new words for a normal human activity and end up looking like idiots to normal people and conservatively dispositioned people (like me). It’s the chief reason I soured on public policy in my undergrad days and went deeper into philosophy and theory. Exasperation is one word to describe this idiotic merry go round and lack of humility to admit that sometimes the truly progressive thing to do when you’ve taken a wrong turn is to go back till you find the right road.