It sometimes appears that progressives want us to notice that they’re a bunch of idiots. They’ve rolled out the 1619 Project, with its (literally) incredible claim that America’s true founding was in 1619, when the first black African slaves arrived in Jamestown, Virginia. They’ve claimed that slave labor built the country, and that the Constitution of the United States was written specifically to protect the institution of slavery. They’ve called for the abolition of the police because, you know, American policing originated as slave patrols. They’ve claimed that slavery invented capitalism. They’ve claimed that when black police officers kill a black man, that’s white supremacy.
In short, progressives inhabit a bizarre alternate universe where slavery is the Theory of Everything.
But how can people, mostly sober and responsible in private life, swallow and promote such nonsense? Many of them are graduates of elite universities with glittering resumes, often highly accomplished in their chosen professions. So how can they sit quietly, nodding along, while Robin DiAngelo, Ibram X. Kindi and Nicole Hannah-Jones shovel out their garbage?
One reason is that however accomplished they may be, many members of the progressive elite are poorly educated. It’s been a long time since a degree in history from a top-tier university has been worth the paper it’s printed on. Nowadays, what passes for education in the social sciences and the liberal arts is mostly political indoctrination, based on trendy theories plucked out of thin air by celebrity academics on the make: intersectionality, critical race theory, white privilege. But theory qua theory is not knowledge. It’s an interpretation of the facts. And the less credible the theory, the more inconvenient the facts. So the facts are not mentioned.
Added to ignorance is the desire to appear enlightened, progressive, on the right side of history. The underlying assumption here is that things old and existing are bad and corrupt, while all things new are virtuous. For instance, the traditional family is bad and therefore it’s the responsibility of a progressive, enlightened public education system to deconstruct it. Or the “gender binary” is oppressive, and it’s the duty of progressive elites to replace it with a postmodern ideology of many genders. Or American society is corrupted by an invisible force called “systemic racism,” and therefore existing societal institutions and norms must be abolished in the name of “anti-racism.”
Yet despite the obvious, indeed glaring, intellectual charlatanism and falsity of these ideologies, they offer one great psychological benefit: endless opportunities for their adherents to parade their virtue. Calling for the abolition of the cops, or reviling the Founding Fathers as racist slaveowners, or turning one’s state into a “safe space” for the mutilation of children without their parents’ consent or even knowledge, makes lots of progressives feel good about themselves.
Just now, for example, the Disney+ streaming service is targeting American children with 1619 Project-inspired propaganda about the horrific racist roots of the American founding. Among its many fabrications, the Proud Family series asserts that American slavery created American capitalism—a claim impossible to reconcile with the historical record. But boy, does it give progressives a virtual thrill up the leg!
Let’s briefly review the historical record. Capitalism developed pari passu with the Industrial Revolution, first in Britain and Western Europe, then in America, and on the eve of the Civil War an early-stage capitalist economy existed in the United States. But that economy was located in the North, particularly in New England, New York and Pennsylvania. As for the South, in 1860 its plantation economy accounted for a mere 4-6% of gross domestic product—this despite the fact that 75% of the world’s cotton came from the “planting states.” Even before succession, America presented an appearance of two countries under the same government, one forging ahead, one stagnating.
If slavery fostered American capitalism, it certainly failed to do so in its American heartland. Nor did “King Cotton,” supposedly so vital to the economies of the North and of Britain, arm the South with the leverage it needed to make good on its bid for independence. In short, the claim that slavery, specifically American slavery, enabled capitalism is simplistic and stupid. Far more important was the Scientific Revolution and the great technological advances derived from it: steam power with all its applications, the railroad, the telegraph, etc.
No reasonable person denies that slavery was a significant factor in American history, nor that its legacy remains with us today. But slavery is not, as Disney and the 1619 Project would have it, the sole story of America. Indeed, no one familiar with American history would be so foolish as to isolate one single factor as the most important factor—history is never that simple.
But progressivism is addicted to simplicity, hence its race-obsessed interpretation of American history—which is junk history, laughable in its fraudulence and malice, long overdue for consignment to the shredder. The only thing buoying it up is the self-satisfied ignorance of the many and the calculated dishonesty of the few who know better.