In the New York Times article “The Failure of Progressive Movements,” Senior Writer David Leonhardt explains that some recent progressive movements—#MeToo, BLM, and Occupy Wall Street, specifically—have all fallen short of systemic change. Why? It’s easy to compare the hierarchical structure of the Civil Rights movement, dutifully commanded by MLK, to the anarchal BLM administration hodgepodge; the specific grievances of the Stonewall Riots to the imprecise, uncoordinated interests of Occupy Wall Street; or the coordination of Women’s Suffrage to the internal schisms [1] of the #MeToo movement that never really left the internet. These are all useful comparisons that contrast the flailing strategies of modern progressive movements to the efficacy of past movements. I believe there is one more critical comparison needed to highlight where contemporary progressivism fails: The American Revolution versus The French Revolution.
Cast your mind back to the British Parliament, 1790. The U.S. had recently ratified the U.S. Constitution, finally establishing the government that would survive time and tribulation. Meanwhile, a “wave of revolutionary hysteria” [2] was sweeping through France following the storming of Bastille. MP Edmund Burke wrote Reflections on the Revolution in France correctly predicting that the French Revolution would fail where the American Revolution succeeded largely, he writes, due to French abandonment of institutions. As I use it, an institution is an established organization, entity, or custom that regulates a society formally or informally. Anarchy is the abandonment of institutions. During its revolutionary period, the U.S. upheld the rule of common law, practiced religion, honored education, and supported non-political social groups. France, however, saw law, religion, education, and non-political social groups as a symbol of aristocratic excess or a proletariat diversion and sought to dismantle and abandon them. France’s revolution, in the wake of the U.S.’s success, failed to improve the commoner's life.
In a fit of historical déjà vu, contemporary progressive movements follow the same trend. Following the success of the 20th century’s progressive movements, the 21st century’s tend to fall short because of their mistrust in established institutions. In fact, the only consistent hallmark of these recent movements is their mistrust of institutions. In contrast, past progressive movements sought to franchise groups of people into established institutions by means of organized structure, specific interests, and united efforts. How crazy would it look if I went into the streets today and started digging holes and pulling up ethernet cables because I disliked an online post? This absurd, ineffective rage against the machine is akin to defunding police, “overthrowing capitalism”, and posting “kill all men” or “down with the patriarchy.” While there are many revolutionaries in these movements making considerable change in their area of influence through institutions, each of these examples has a critical number of anarchal revolutionaries who damage the movement as a whole.
Unfortunately, the new 21st century brand of cynical education doubles down on this failure. Cynical education seeks first and foremost to tear down institutions in defense of virtues it can’t define and principles whose origins it refuses to acknowledge. [3] Recent progressive movements aren’t working and education is escalating the problem. What can we do? BYU President C. Shane Reese said in his inaugural address that BYU can be the solution by making “strategic investments in areas where we have natural strengths as a Church and as a university, furthering recent efforts regarding the family, religion’s role in human flourishing and constitutional government.” Education’s principal object should be to develop individuals who are capable of and seek to bolster and refine institutions such as the family, humanitarian organizations, industry, and government rather than to disregard them or worse, to tear them down. When this happens, education and the rising generation become forces of institutional revolution rather than anarchal revolution, their espoused progressive movements enrich society, and life becomes better for more people. Imagine if researchers spent as much time writing about how men and women can better work together as they do writing about how the genders collide. Imagine if professors taught about effectively creating an interest group or humanitarian society the same way they teach about racism. Imagine the fire of education inspiring in pupils hope, generosity, forgiveness, and cooperation instead of anger. Supporting institutions is hard because such support typically comes at the expense of instant gratification in favor of a joyful promised future.
In the absence of forces that bring people together, people grow apart. This social entropy is the root of the loneliness epidemic crippling the developed world. On every level, anarchy and individualism fails. Without marriage, our deepest bonds devolve into incidental sexual encounters. Without community groups, churches, youth organizations, and local service societies, families become islands and neighbors become strangers. In the absence of international institutions, countries become isolationist—capable only of war. Individualism does not work. Cynicism is not enlightened. Instant gratification is not joy. We are not defined by our labels or by our strengths but by our membership within society, capacity to form moving relationships, and potential to grow. In a lonely and dreary world that recognizes only meaning from the self i.e. cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am) let us proudly declare e pluribus unum (of many, one)—that we have meaning because we work together.
