Now days inclusiveness, diversity, lgbtq+... are all associated to corporations, governments, and all those nasty power structures. How did this happen?! Those things should be against the system, power, and control. Why are powerful people and power structures using these things for their own use? Why are the same people claiming to be against the power rejecting certain subgroups of the working class? Shouldn't it be the working class against the ruling?! To answer these questions here is a very rough overview of progressive history.
Quite a ways back in europe thinkers started to come together and ask questions and search for answers. They looked back at philosophy from way before their own time and started coming up with new ways of thinking themselves. This was a world controlled by kings and churches and the new ways of thinking brought their power into question. Instead of blind faith people started to use logic and reason. Science, art, and technology took off. Growing distaste for the old ways and conditions for a new way brought about revolution in many places some notable ones being the french revolution and the american revolution. Its a common misunderstanding that the french revolution was the poor against the rich. What really happened was there was a growing middle class known as the bourgeoisie. They were once small in numbers and power but were quickly becoming a economic and intellectual force ready to take on the world. The growing dislike towards the kings and aristocrats, a new up and coming class, and poor people in need of better conditions lead to the bourgeoisie uprising. After generations of bourgeoisie in power they ended up replacing the kings and aristocrats they destroyed. People who once talked about logic and reason, freedom and liberty... are now the ones aiming to keep working class people others dumb and compliant. Even though democracy and liberty wise we are back on square one all this didnt happen in vain. New technology and ideas have been brought into the world that can bring about things far greater than what the enlightenment age thinkers could ever imagine. Its just a manner and leveraging new conditions in the favor of freedom and liberty.
The enlightenment thinkers nearly set the framework for history following that time. A lot has happened since than. Some notable thinkers after them are Darwin, Hegel, and Marx. Darwin changed the way we understand species and biology. Hegel improved the way we understand the mind, the world, and the way everything you observe interacts. Marx applied those concepts among others to understand the problems of post enlightenment society and created a framework for understand historical change. Since the cycle of new ways, new rulers, and new ideas improving things only to take hold and turn to shit been observed the question now is how do we break free of that cycle? If society evolves and changes in the same manner that biology does than the hope is society will one day evolve to fulfill material needs, freedom, and liberty. How do we ensure this future?
A growing dislike of the bourgeoisie, and these new ideas lead to a new movement. Workers unionized and went on strike, laws against child labor got made, company towns got taken down, food regulations got put in place to stop food companies from poisoning everyone. One of the greatest (least shitty) american presidents of all time, Theodore Roosevelt himself helped the movement with his admirable amount of stubbornness. The game monopoly was created by a anti-landlord activist and follower of Henry George. Around the world the seeds for socialism, communism, and anarchy were being planted.
"Thinking is the best way to travel" - The Moody Blues.
Many were feeling that people aren't smart enough for democracy. They felt that free-market and worker controlled means of production are just two sides of the same coin. They wanted to go back to the world of kings, mono-cultures, and state churches. They saw the working class as a bunch of dumb chaotic people who need someone bigger and smarter to think for them. Many looked at darwnism and thought that maybe the same can be said for rulers. That the strongest best leader takes control and its their duty and right to rule. They also looked at the masses and thought about selective breeding them to be more compliant like farm animals. The enlightenment thinkers left a hole. Their ideas of free will and logic didn't include everyone. Under their framework you can quite easily say not everyone can think with free will and logic and those who don't should be lead and controlled by those who do.
Around the around those authoritarian and progressive ideas didn't always clash. Sometimes they merged. People were growing distrustful of new ways because of economic and social issues but were still tired of the old. New fears gave people with answers power and control. Fascism and nazism started spreading. In russia the communist movements to played into it. They decide instead of breaking the pattern of control to leverage the pattern of control. Freedom and liberty were no longer seen as important. The nazis and new age communists (they weren't much like the originals) fucking hated each other for this. Each one demanded a level of control that multiple empires can't all have. The driving force behind fighting nazis wasn't a moral one but a practical one. After everything was over the same people fighting nazis shared similar ideas. America used the war to gain alliances with other nations and grow to a economic and military power even though it didn't do much of the fighting. A lot of americas felt like they fought the wrong enemy though admitting that is dangerous after all the nazis committed so many unmoral actions. American ideas, nazi ideas, and a wall of lies lead way to neoliberalism.
All the american solders who fought a war that wasn't theirs returned home as the good guys but with the ideology of the bad guys. The most powerful of both worlds. Why just beat the nazis when we can replace them is what they ask. Nationalism, christianity, eugenics, racism, sexism, ablism... were all given a place to grow. German scientists who created nazi weapons were brought to america to finish were the nazis left off. The new enemies were the communists. In russia they were also leveraging post war conditions. The weapons became so advanced that now any powerful nation can destroy the entire earth with a press of a button. In the past if a nation had a super powerful weapon they would use it gladly. Now that a weapon that can destroy the whole planet existed and all sides had them war leaders had to reframe from using their most deadly weapon. This gave birth to the cold war. Meanwhile in america there was a rising middle class and countries being rebuilt under american investments would soon follow. This middle class being made up of that ex-solders.
The middle class of ex-solders had a hell ton of children. These children were born and grew up in the most calm time period in a long time yet the pattern of control was more clear than ever to anyone watching from the side lines. The world they grew up in was completely different than the one past generations knew. New ideas and technology radicalized pulled the entire world into a new age. As they grew up they slowly learned they lived in a world built on lies but they couldn't quite put their finger on it. Pointless war and pointless violence everywhere. Easier access to psychedelics interacted with a growing awareness of the pattern of control. Better education served as a double sided sword for the new control. It needed smart people to operate the new complex technological world yet education can lead to new enlightenment and breaking free of the rulers of the world. The young started creating their own culture. One of new music, new ways to get wasted... The old get drunk in bars while the young got high at rock concerts. They concluded the issues with the world to be a cultural one. The powers of the world spread a culture of control and violence. Instead we need a culture of peace and love. The civil rights movement, women's rights movements, gay rights movements all hit center stage. Every action the leaders did to counteract the new movement only verified what the hippies already knew.
The hole with counterculture is it saw things through a more cultural lens and lacked more economic and historical ones that other progressive movements had. It was a grass roots movement that as a whole lacked much of the deep philosophy progressive thinkers been coming up with and improving upon since the beginning of written history. Counterculture was simply glue of peace and love holding together a bunch of hippies and activists. Counterculture was still deeply capitalist since it was only a cultural revolution that it pushed for. Wood stock was all profits and business under the hood. All the counterculture artists spreading peace and love were feeding back into the capitalist system. All the hippies were plucked from the fields and put in the corporate offices. The system can't defeat them so it joined them and profited off it. The businesses and governments were painted colorful yet its still the same walls underneath. Steve jobs was a hippie tripping on LSD on a farm before he started apple. The military now spreads democracy instead of take over countries. Yes, this is very america centered but everything an empire does spreads. Counterculture crossed the sea back and forward many times. With the hippies in control of the world its now seen as good to be a little progressive but pushing for ideas progressive enough to actually do anything is labeled extremest. A company only has to be moral enough to not be boycotted. Slavery was out sourced far away. Out of sight out of mind. Making the pattern of control less painful is encouraged but breaking the pattern is fought against just as much.
A system dominated by strong white men was being replaced. Women, black people, gays... were making their way into the governments and corporations. This was seen as a threat so many doubled down on the post-war version of the status quo. They saw new capitalism as weak and blamed all their issues on it. Nostalgia as we know it was born. "Things were better before insert anything here". "If the hippies like peace and love than lets spread hate and violence". The reactionaries never think deeper than that. They only think about what is instead of what can be. They concluded that if the present sucks than we should go back to the past. They fail to envision a better future. That's the whole point behind "make america great again". How they see it is the pattern of control was in their favor but now its out of their favor. Removing the pattern of control is out of the question.
Make sure to spend time going outside, learning new skills, reading cool books, and listening to good music. Don't fall for the traps the system has set. Things will not improve much until we break this pattern. I call for a new type of revolution. This blog post was partly inspired by this video . Do check it out (: Love you all stay safe and keep your eyes open :D