167. Book Review | Nineteenth-Century Thought by Richard Schoenwald

A lot of change started happening in the 18th century and by the 19th century it was full steam ahead. With change came a lot of difficulty adapting. Due to that difficulty, a new school of thought arose. Thus, nineteenth century thought was marked by a grappling with change and how to handle it. Political thought went through a transformation in the wake of this new school of thought.

“I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.”
–Charles Darwin

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How These Philosophers Laid the Groundwork of Progressivism

Progressivism preaches an inevitable outcome – that we are marching toward some future state regardless of our choice. However, this is largely unfounded. Thinkers like Darwin and Marx have been largely proven wrong. Although their ideas weren’t completely demolished, their body of work has taken numerous hits. Instead of marching toward inevitable utopia, we have wavered between progress and regress.

“All political revolutions, not affected by foreign conquest, originate in moral revolutions. The subversion of established institutions is merely one consequence of the previous subversion of established opinions.”
–John Stuart Mill