The Shadow of Progress

“Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes. History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead.”

~Voltaire

We are at war with the past. What began as a stand against state-sponsored violence has metastasized; it has spread to every facet of politics and culture and has spiraled to the brink of complete moral frenzy. The anti-racism Left—still well in the throes of George Floyd’s death—has moved away from the police, politicians, and partisan prejudice towards a new (or, rather, not-so-new) nemesis: the pages of history themselves.

In its crusade against racial and social injustice, Black Lives Matter and its ideological peers are making no exceptions for neither the ancient nor the antiquated. They make no distinctions among those who lived 50, 100, or even 1,000 years ago. Indeed, from the indignant throngs of recent weeks, we have stood witness to a second wave of statue removals—ranging from democratic campaigns to criminal defenestrations—across the United States and beyond, in what can only be described as some desperate attempt at historical redaction. In a worldview that prizes purity above progress, the flawed and erroneous are stains to be expunged. Their remembrance is not only deplorable but damning by association.

It is this latter sentiment that should have us most concerned. While it is the nature of cynical traditions to deny progress and its many achievements, it is an entirely new form of pessimism to deplore its very existence. If one’s worldview is a mixture of mistrust and misanthropy, it should come as no surprise that one’s past appears populated by villains and reprobates. It should come as no surprise in principle—as we shall see—but it is a novel and enfeebling mistake to bear such wickedness as one’s own. In reaching so deep into the gutters of the past, we are finding ourselves sullied with regard to the present. We find ourselves sickened by the legacies of evil. In merely perceiving the long-since departed, we find ourselves shackled—and, in many cases, sentenced—by the sins of our fathers.