tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169740113013066976.post200190436507466628..comments2024-02-10T12:12:06.028+00:00Comments on The Real Blog: Darwin, Lubbock, Liberalism and the meaning of progressDavid Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11410159311875228620noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169740113013066976.post-6545767025160761002013-03-23T20:50:47.811+00:002013-03-23T20:50:47.811+00:00Mike, I agree with you about utopias, which are in...Mike, I agree with you about utopias, which are indeed authoritarian by their very nature. But I'm not sure that a sense of evolution - and to be optimistic about its direction - is really like the Marxist laws of history. Evolution meanders after all.David Boylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11410159311875228620noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169740113013066976.post-84562906041170478612013-03-23T19:25:49.523+00:002013-03-23T19:25:49.523+00:00An interesting viewpoint but, unfortunately, one t...An interesting viewpoint but, unfortunately, one that has two crucial stumbling blocks. First, the notion that history is working, progressing from higher to lower, from basic forms to those more sophisticated is basically an historicist one which is logically flawed: the Marxists couldnt see the flaws in the idea of the iron laws of history and have stumbled as a result of it. The second, I suppose, imputes to you a hankering for Utopia - but utopias are instrinsically authoritarian since they deny change, indeed, have to deny change in order to maintain their perfect state. One could imagine the leading lights of a Utopia locking up dangerous types to stop them contaminating the rest of society. <br /><br />As for your impatience at the partys inability in articulating its purpose and central beliefs, I think that task is now out of our hands since it is on our actions that we will be judged, and from our actions that our purpose and central beliefs will be inferred. Nothing that the party says, or indeed says about itself, can drown out the distress and heart-rending suffering now being felt by disabled benefit claimants. I could name a range of other slices of society who have been dealt with harshly by this government, but it is the disabled whose terrible experiences fill me with rage. And that is why, as a party member, I insist that I am a social democrat.mike cobleynoreply@blogger.com