It's pure Hegelanism. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel taught that history had an inevitable direction of progress. Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Giovanni Gentile, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler all built their philosophies on Hegel's work.
Of course, nobody ever said a teleological reading of history is a correct one, or the assumptions of a future that actually follows logical progress to a conclusion is correct. In fact, it seems that we're more imposing teleology onto a reading of history more than anything.
Because of his reactionary stance, he was able to perceive all the more sharply the decline of the landed gentry, the coming of the cash nexus and the end of what he nostalgically saw as an ordered, organic society with each person in an assigned role. The new era was one of convulsive egotism, the cult of the individual personality.
"Inevitable" doesn't mean "unceasing", and "progress" doesn't define an endpoint.
A homeless drug-addicted mugger has an inevitable direction of progress. That progress point is death of some sort. Some of his actions might not lead there, though, in fact, he could turn his entire life around, get help, get clean, get a house, get a good job, SIGNIFICANTLY increase his lifespan, and he will still have an inevitable direction of progress towards death.
No one asks if we're in a downturn in the "inevitable", not a peak but a valley, nor do they ask what we are progressing towards, merely that we ARE progressing to something.
But to drag in the work of somebody who had nothing else to do with these terrible people is inaccurate and logically flawed.
I mean it would be like saying eating grains causes totalitarianism, because totalitarians ate a diet, and in turn marched their armies, based on consuming grain-based food.
It's pure Hegelanism. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel taught that history had an inevitable direction of progress. Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Giovanni Gentile, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler all built their philosophies on Hegel's work.
Of course, nobody ever said a teleological reading of history is a correct one, or the assumptions of a future that actually follows logical progress to a conclusion is correct. In fact, it seems that we're more imposing teleology onto a reading of history more than anything.
wtf he's just like me
"Inevitable" doesn't mean "unceasing", and "progress" doesn't define an endpoint.
A homeless drug-addicted mugger has an inevitable direction of progress. That progress point is death of some sort. Some of his actions might not lead there, though, in fact, he could turn his entire life around, get help, get clean, get a house, get a good job, SIGNIFICANTLY increase his lifespan, and he will still have an inevitable direction of progress towards death.
No one asks if we're in a downturn in the "inevitable", not a peak but a valley, nor do they ask what we are progressing towards, merely that we ARE progressing to something.
But to drag in the work of somebody who had nothing else to do with these terrible people is inaccurate and logically flawed.
I mean it would be like saying eating grains causes totalitarianism, because totalitarians ate a diet, and in turn marched their armies, based on consuming grain-based food.