Every group of people has a worldview, and every worldview is based on stories that are at least partly mythical. For example, a key part of the progressive worldview is the idea that social change driven by appeals to science and reason is (a) good and (b) irreversible.
Exhibit A is usually the fate of institutional racism: Once upon a time, the story goes, racism was a given. Since the dawn of civilization, the superiority of some races over others was a basic assumption — until at some point in the 19th or 20th century, people, moved by the spirit of the Enlightenment, recognized that racism was false and moved to abolish it. Progress!
This background assumption colors so much of our public debate. For example, when opponents of same-sex marriage warn that social change that is completely unprecedented in the history of human civilization doesn’t sound like a good idea, the race card is inevitably thrown down. Thus, in a recent column subtly mocking Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore for his opposition to same-sex marriage, my colleague Damon Linker rhetorically asks: “Can you point to any socio-cultural revolution — in race, gender, and now sexual orientation — that’s ever been halted or reversed?” and answers his own question: “Me, neither.”
via Gay marriage, racism, and what everyone misses about the inevitability of social change.
