Dregs of the ages -- the worst timeline.

in #political5 years ago (edited)

inan-the-worst-timeline-15036400.png

I have often observed parallels between the United States today and the Old Regime in France. Here is one that's oddly specific.

In the Old Regime, as with us, there is a great tension between two theories of history. One holds that progress is real, and quantifiable, and that we know at least enough to permit it to continue: ours is an Enlightened age, or at least an age of Enlightenment.

The other view holds that progress is an illusion, and we live in what the French called "les lies des siècles" -- that is, the dregs of the ages.

In our own day we know much more about the progress of humanity, and we know that we have made an almost incomprehensible amount of it. We still think, though, that we live in the dregs of the ages -- in the worst timeline, as we all say.

In the French Revolution these two tendencies, toward optimism and pessimism, merged strangely into the conviction that a small band of supremely enlightened people could remake their wholly corrupt and otherwise worthless society. Neither aspect of this synthesis was true, and it likely will not be true in our case either.

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