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#079 - Ben Cobley - The Right Side Of History: How Progressives Try To Replace God

• John Gillam

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Ben Cobley is a journalist, former Labour Party activist, and author of The Tribe: The Liberal-Left and the System of Diversity and The Progress Trap: The Modern Left and the False Authority of History. He has written for The Spectator, UnHerd, The Critic, Quillette, and The New Statesman, and appears regularly on Sky News. You can find him on X @BenCobley and on Substack at Existential Politics.

In this conversation, Ben and I think out loud about the relationship between progressivism and Christianity, how the spirit of progressivism leads to forms of colonization, which is ironic when progressives are decolonisers at heart, why progressivism and capitalism go naturally together, what technocracy is and how the expert class plays a significant role in the political life of a place, while simultaneously reducing the space for political debate, why each of us is called to engage in the world rather than simply believing that things will turn out alright in the end, why the foundational beliefs of the United States make it inherently progressivism, why we can still feel the influence of 17th-century liberalism on modern policies, particularly immigration and much, much more.

Enjoy the show, Classmates, and don't forget to subscribe.

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You can watch the full show on YouTube or you can watch/listen to on Substack.

SPEAKER_00

Hello, classmates, and welcome to Thinking Class. I'm John Gillam, and today I'm speaking with Ben Cobley. Ben is a journalist by trade and a former Labour Party activist. He is the author of The Tribe, The Liberal Left and the System of Diversity, which is about the remarkable success of progressive identity politics in contemporary Britain. And his most recent book is The Progress Trap: The Modern Left and the False Authority of History. In recent years, Ben has written for The Spectator, Unheard, The Critic, Quillette, and The New Statesman. He's also appeared on Sky News. Ben is active on X at Ben Cobley, and he also has a substack called Existential Politics. In this conversation, Ben and I think out loud about the relationship between progressivism and Christianity, how the spirit of progressivism leads to forms of colonization, which is ironic when progressives are decolonizers at heart, why progressivism and capitalism go naturally together, what technocracy is, and how the expert class plays a significant role in the political life of the place they inhabit, while simultaneously reducing the space for any political debate at all, why each of us is called to engage in the world rather than simply believing that things will turn out all right in the end, why the foundational beliefs of the United States make it inherently progressive, why we can still feel the influence of seventeenth century liberalism on modern policies today, particularly in the realm of immigration and economics, and much, much more. Ben has engaged in some of the most meticulous work on the nature of progressivism with his two books and has contributed much to our understanding of it as a phenomenon. He's also one of the good guys in life, and I'm glad he brings his own unique view to the public sphere. Has contributed a great deal to public discourse, and we should be grateful for him. Make sure to like, subscribe, and follow the show on YouTube, your podcast platform of choice and Substack. Let's grow Thinking Class together. Enjoy the show, classmates.

SPEAKER_04

Really good to be with you.

SPEAKER_00

Likewise, I remember the last time we spoke, you uh told me that a book was on the way, and here it is: the progress trap, uh the modern left and the false authority of history. So let's get into this today. We live in a world where progress is feated uh uh almost above all else, whilst simultaneously being derided by its opponents. So uh maybe we open with uh a little bit about um some similarities between some of uh the the uh proponents of progress, which sometimes find themselves um also part of the decolonization camp, um, as well as those who um detract from it. Um and then maybe within that we even under uh talk about your understanding of what progress is. So let's begin with the similarities between those who uh seek to decolonize the world and those who are being accused of being colonizers or colonizers from history. So we'll open with a quote of yours for you to unpack. The spirit of progressivism colonizes our institutions with progressive identity politics, it colonizes our land by appropriating it, cordoning it off, and selling it off to people from elsewhere. And it colonizes our minds with consumerism so that we do not notice or do not care.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's it's it's quite a mouthful, that one. It's like well done for for sort of saying it all right. Yeah, I I recall that's from the chapter about progressive capitalism. Um, I think it it closes that that chapter. So it's it's really that about um um, I mean, you've got the progressive identity politics, which is obviously quite a theme in the book, but then especially in that chapter, I'm dealing with um capitalism, obviously, and and all and particularly in that about land and how we treat land, and basically as something which needs to be maximized for production. Now that's in a in a sort of um well, a capitalistic, if you like, liberal form of progressivism where you know progress comes from continual increases in production, GDP. And when I talk about um handing the land away, sort of parceling it up and then selling it off to people from elsewhere, that's referring to mass immigration and how this sort of process of maximising the production of land, effectively what our rulers do, and uh you know a lot of the business lobbies do is they they fight relentlessly to increase the population so they've got more choice of workers, also more consumers within within the country. And this this has the effect of boosting GDP, boosting production, profits, all the rest of it. Um and the the flip side of that is is of course that it's um it's crowding up the country and also bringing in lots of influences from outside, which many people find sometimes difficult and disturbing to deal with, um, also increases obviously the competition over land, so land and property, um, housing becomes a lot more expensive. So so really that's what I was driving at, but but you also you mentioned in in your your talk there about what the different sides have in common. And I I wanted actually you to clarify that there. You know, you're talking about the the progressive identity politics, you mentioned decolonization, yes then, and then this other maximizing maximizing you know the productivity, as it were, like cramming as many people onto this island as possible. So, I mean, is that is that correct?

SPEAKER_00

Sorry. Well, I think broadly, I I just remember reading that passage, or at least several passages in the book, and and real uh and in fact I think you make this point explicitly where that those who consider themselves to be part of the decolonizing crowd don't necessarily recognize that the things that they're railing against, let's say the historical um fact of colonialism and colonization, this idea that it was uh a mortal sin for European nations to go and find themselves um trading and governing and ruling over foreign lands, and that it was a dispossession of sorts, and that they had almost no right in being there, and it and it set off in train um all of these Western uh ideologies and ways of being which were incongruous with the lands in which they found themselves in. Whereas I think the point you make in your book about the decolonizers is that they end up colonizing uh the wherever it is that they are um uh that they are in the world. So whether it's um in academia with their ideas, whether it's um, as you've just mentioned, that their ideas then become in practical reality where it might actually be the inviting in of large diasporas of people who then end up uh uh continuing on a set of cultural practices which are not historically uh aligned with the the place that they're in. And so I suppose what when did you when did you become aware of those similarities? Were there were there things that that started to click into place in your mind where you go, oh hang on, what they're accusing people of, they're actually guilty of, but in another way.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, definitely. And um, I mean you you basically made my argument there. So thanks very much for that. Um I do sometimes forget. Um, but yeah, very much so. In in terms of, I mean, if you look at the history of European colonization, let's take just British colonization, um, so you know, say of Africa, you know, there was in the 19th century a lot of talk of the three C's. So you're talking about civilization, commerce, and Christianity. So we're gonna bring those things to Africa, you know, the dark continent, and we're gonna we're gonna civilize them, get rid of the oppressive cultural practices they had, um, get rid of the slave trade, of course, um, which doesn't fit in the decolonizer story. So behind it, there was a lot of stuff, a lot of talk of actually improving that place where they were, you know, colonizing and and going to and and actually fighting wars and all the rest of it. And I mean it's it's I think it's quite obvious when you when you put it in that in that framework that it's very similar to what decolonizers, if you like, or you know, there's there's really what you know, the progressive identity politics, what I call the industrial complex around it. Um what they're what they're saying they're trying to do is remove oppressive practices, you know, from say this country, other, other Western countries. And they're also very much against, of course, nativism. You know, they don't like uh sort of tr traditions which are grounded in the popul the long-standing population or whatever, and um inherited authorities from that place. So it's it's dynamically, it's uh it's pretty much I was gonna say pretty much the same, but it's obviously there's there's major differences, but serious um similarities, and you know, really a lot of what they're doing does come from the Western progressive intellectual tradition. Um I mean, you might say especially Marxism. Um but but you know, there are major continuities. I think I'd like to think it's it's it's it's obvious from what I've said with the more general liberal progressivism, you know, if you like. So that's basically it was it was really doing a lot of reading around, you know, just out of interest of about you know historical, you know, the imperial time, um, and just and just noticing those things.

SPEAKER_00

You open the book with a very interesting observation, and in some ways I can see that you've been influenced by someone we're both a mutual fan of, John Gray, who has uh made the point in uh some recent books of his, the New Leviathans being one of them, uh, but there are others about uh the concept of progress having been inherited from the Christian tradition, the Judeo-Christian tradition, um, in the West, this idea that um there is always an ascendancy uh toward um uh something paraditical. Um and you have effectively said that the difference between the progressivism of today is that the progressives have replaced the position that God once occupied with history. So why in the mind of the progressive can history not be denied? Where does this impulse come from to be focused so much on history?

SPEAKER_04

I actually think it's it's quite I I tend to think of what's going on, and a lot of it is being I think you mentioned inherited, you know, progress is almost inherited from Christianity, and I tend to think of it like that as a style, um, not so much a mind, a sort of a conscious, oh, we need to sort of do this, but it's just like a kind of dynamics that you're used to, you know. Think back to the the 19th century again with the um no, maybe the imperial period, the the period of liberal confidence, uh, you know, if you like, Whigishness as well. Um I I like I you know, as as you as you see it, uh you see sort of conf concepts like providence and progress almost being used interchangeably by them. And it's not like I mean, I I haven't seen anyone go, oh, we need to do this. It's almost just like the style just sort of crosses over almost naturally. And and I think that that still goes very much on today. I mean, with with Christianity, there are so many similarities in the style of progressives to the Christian style. Obviously, they they've discarded a lot of the you know complicated, difficult, annoying doctrines and institutions, and just kind of kept hold of a a certain number of things, like you could say the the future-oriented temporal pro temporality, whereby you know things are going to be better in the future, either through a gradual process or through you know revolutionary rupture. Um you also have of course the the role of the victim, you know, Jesus as an emblem of you know who died on the cross for our sins, and through his example, you know, we can we can change society. That that sort of dynamic reproduces itself all the time now in our through activism. George Floyd is the classic example, you know, a really troubled man, a criminal, um you know, but who who was a real, you know, really suffered in life and ended up getting killed at the hands of you know a an obviously oppressive individual who was part of uh an apparently oppressive state apparatus. You know, so it's it's reproducing in a large sense. And I owe this, you know, obviously, this sort of um interpretation to Tom Holland, you know, who talks about this type of thing, and you know, the Jesus dying on the cross. It's very much a a style that is is with us today, but just it's not Jesus anymore. He's not dying on the cross. Now he's he sort of appears constantly through different individuals, like you know, like George George Freud, like I said. Um and it's and it's very much a pattern that you know reproduces itself. Um so so I hope that answers your question. I may have gone off piece somehow, but um that that's certainly what I was talking about in that in that chapter.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I I I've spoken with David Starkey a few months ago, and he made the point within I think it was uh an exclusive substack QA for the paid subscribers, so not everyone would have heard it, but then I heard him make the same point on Andrew Gold's heretics is that uh wokeism, progressivism, uh effectively he lays it at the foot of Christianity's door, much like Tom Holland says it is a a heretical take on Christianity, and indeed it is, because what what has been um left behind, you know, the figure of Jesus, uh, this symbol for adherence to him, to reckon recognize um our own faults and then spend our lives trying to turn away from them and fix them and become better and try to become godly, though never being God, uh, and that each one of us, every single one of us, is fallen, that we all are equal in dignity for being human. And yet, what is this the desiccated version of it, even though Starkey would say, you know, go and look at the Magnificat prayer and see that effectively it's just progressivism, is that, well, that's not strictly true because um progressivism does not um recognize the uh the notion that um everyone is fallen. In fact, only that their opponents are fallen, it's only they who can't see things, and actually they're not to be afforded equal dignity either, because they're not on the right side of history.

SPEAKER_04

So does does David Starkey say that? Because this is I make a similar argument in the book. No, he doesn't.

SPEAKER_00

He doesn't know he uh he he just conflates progressivism with Christianity and kind of makes the point that uh Christianity is if any if Christianity serve it serves any purposes that it's a decent drapery for power, but otherwise, you know, it's got a lot to answer for because it's led to progressivism.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, no, it's it's interesting the way that almost the Christian church, I'm well, I'm thinking Church of England, primarily, if you listen to the average, you know, Church of England priest speaking on Thought for the Day on Radio 4, they're talking exactly the same language as progressive activists. And it's almost like they're grabbing hold of that to almost keep themselves in the game, you know, and and talking in the same language, same style, same focus on, you know, relent relentless compassion towards the outsider, towards the stranger. Um, but I did I did remember actually, of course, a core argument, which I think you referred to in your question before that, or even before that, about the you know, the replacement of God with history. Um and I deal with that at the the start of that that second chapter is you know saying the phrase history will judge. You know, history will judge you, you know, Donald Trump and Brexit voters um for what you've done. Um but also you know, there's a lot of other similar phrases that get used that we almost all use at some stage, you know, sometimes like, oh, historians will say that, you know, this person has done a really bad thing right there. It's kind of a figure of speech for many of us. It's gone on gone into the sort of the existential bloodstream of our society. You know, that's just a way really of saying something, you know, that you think and giving it kind of a an added authority on the top, you know, these these future historians or you know, history and the future will say that I'm right right now. Um but that's as I say, is it's is very much in the progressive style. And if you just replace that word history, say history will judge with God, God would will judge, you've got the last judgment. So it's uh it's almost a straight sort of picking out of that Christian tradition. Um, you know, like I say, the same style.

SPEAKER_00

Well, let's let's think about some of the people that or classes of people that words employ progressivism uh or at least uh inhabit the progressive world. So let's talk a little bit about the experts class, which we'll hear commentators like Matt Goodwin write about quite frequently, the the new elite. Uh, and we hear the words technocracy used quite a lot at the moment, which is ultimately uh a type of governance, a style of governance in which technical experts are to be judged with um particular sections of society. They they know best they're experts. Anyway, let's talk about the globalized marketplace that we're in, its implications on those outside of it, um, and specifically technocrats and those who are part of the expert class. You you write that technocrats treat ends as already decided and not up for debate, which has the effect of significantly reducing the space of politics. And then the implication is that they see themselves as neutral, justified, and on the right side of history, and any challenges as being authoritarian. So what are you what are you getting at when you talk about politics effectively um being reduced through the expansion of the expert class?

SPEAKER_04

Well, I think I think I'd like to think you just explained it.

SPEAKER_00

There you go. Um making your job easy for you.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, no, exactly. In the you know, again, I I I go back to talking about a style. You can talk about an expert style or a you know the technocrat style. And the expert in a progressive sense, you know, is an expert in society and history. You know, someone who understands the progression from past to present and then into the future, you know, who so who can make predictions, they're an expert because they know what's going to happen next. Or rather, to be to get into how it really works, a lot well, a lot of the time is. We know what's going to work if you guys have power. If our opponents have power, it's all going to go pair shapes, it's all going to go wrong, and we know that. And we will keep on saying it. And we will we will treat it as a form of knowledge. And then obviously, if if we are in power, um, as hopefully you know we are, if we have the you know, if people call us experts, then we have that authority, which is you know, obviously, you know, a form of power. Um so, in a sense, that that can that that expert status, it comes with a form of conservative politics. So we want to preserve that status, and therefore we need to we need to keep the bad guys out. So we need to denounce them, we need to say that they're wrong, they're factually wrong, and all that. And that means just by default, by treating the utterances, the beliefs, whatever of certain people. Let's say, you know, just as an example, conservatives, um, right wingers, Brexit voters, Trump supporters, whatever, um, they are wrong, they are factually wrong. What they want to do will lead us to go in into a really bad place. So they really need to be stopped. And we know that, you know, it's a pr it's a practical form of knowledge. So by doing that, you you curtail the possible forms of politics, if you succeed, of course. And luckily, you know, the remnants are of our liberal democratic society still still holding on, you know, and we can still talk as we are here. But as they approach it, you know, that expert technocrat class, they they are really always striving to to close off avenues where opponents can talk, you know, for example, appear on TV. You know, there's a constant talk, and you get it not just from activists, but you know, high-ups in in society of, you know, why is Nigel Farage appearing on question time all the time? You know, they need to stop him. And and it's remarkable how how common that sort of viewpoint is, you know, and our in our in our world of social media, we can actually see a lot of the high-ups in society, and I completely agreeing with that. So I I hope that addressed your question.

SPEAKER_00

It does, it does. I I also know we've focused in quite a lot on people who uh are left liberal so far, and indeed it's the subtitle of your book, which I think your your publishers chose. But actually, I think it's important to point out that you did say this is not a tool only uh employed by people on the left that actually used where where where else do we see this uh taking place outside of those who we typically label as leftists or progressives?

SPEAKER_04

Well, I think again, it's it's very much a style, and since it's a dominant style, then people who are not dominant, who are pretenders to the throne, they think, well, that sounds right. So, you know, I'm gonna say the same type of thing. Like, for example, um, you know, at the moment the Labour government is in trouble and reform is flying high in the in the polls. So you have a lot of people saying, well, inevitably Labour's gonna lose the next election, even you know, Starmer might have to step down because they're they're doing so badly at the moment. Inevitably reform will will triumph and the whole sort of, you know, maybe the whole liberal left technocrat expert class will get get their just desserts. That's a completely progressive framing. You know, we we inevitably eventually will win. You know, the progressive, I mean, as in in writing the book and and also afterwards, I've just complete, you know, I keep on being surprised and shocked by how prevalent this this framing is, you know, in every corner of society, and and you the way we think, the way we address our personal lives, you know, I have I haven't talked in the book so much about personal lives, but it's it's a really major aspect to it. It's you know, it's so much a style that we adopt that you know, not not always that so much history, you know, that we have a here a theory that history is moving forward, but it's like we are the the vehicles of things improving. So whenever we triumph and whenever we succeed, that's an example of the whole of society getting better, you know, and um and all sorts of things come with that. Uh for example, um, you know, thinking about sociology, um and and how, you know, again, this this this goes back to um sorry, I'm I'm losing my my train of thought a little bit, but it's um of of how you know history is improving, which is you know, really it's it's a it's a juncture of history and sociology, so causation, one thing leads to another. That's really sociology, and then over a long time it kind of that works into history. And as things get better, as we succeed over time, then history over time, you know, gets better, and eventually we win. Um, society wins. I I I hope that that addresses. Um I'm I'm sort of conscious that I I was rambling a little bit there, maybe losing my way.

SPEAKER_00

Dear classmate John here, this isn't an advert, so you don't need to reach for the skip button. If you're enjoying the show, then show your support by liking, subscribing, and sharing on whichever device or platform you're watching or listening to Thinking Class on. You can find me in the show on YouTube at Thinking Class. You can also subscribe to me on Substack, searching for the at thinking class handle, or by entering thinkingclass.substack.com in your browser, and you can receive reflections, blog series, and recommended reading to your inbox. You can also follow me on X at Thinking Classes. Thanks for listening, thanks for sharing, thanks for showing your support. Enjoy the rest of the show, classmate. No, no, no, no. That that it all made sense, and uh I I see I I I see it sometimes within myself, and I think listeners to the show will realize that uh you know not entirely happy with uh the form of governance that we we live under and have done in uh the Western world for for some time now. It's uh um, but uh that said I try and catch catch myself when I see that there seems to be momentum that might push us in a different direction, one that intuitively I tend to prefer. But I try to take that um Frodo Baggin's approach, which is power is is to be treated with care. And by courting it and by effectively hoping that it comes your way and believing that it will be better in your hands, well, there are a whole bunch of uh pretty um pretty quick assumptions being made there, which without being treated with the appropriate care, um, it can all go badly wrong.

SPEAKER_04

And there are all sorts of consequences to it. You know, I I it's it's ideas I've been playing with about politics as well, the way if you have this assumption that things will be be alright in the end, history will work itself out, you know, the bad people will get their just desserts, you know, a happy ending. That's basically an excuse to just not bother, isn't it? To actually not work hard, you know, politically to make things happen. It's like, well, you know, okay, you know, the forces are working in our direction. So basically I'll just sit back and sort of commentate on it from the side. And it's one of the the themes in the in the final chapter of the book where I'm addressing what we should do, is actually we really do need to step up. You know, people do, and and actually organise. And I mean, you you you doing this is an example of that, you know, as a is a is a small example bringing people together to discuss, um develop ideas, share them, and then hopefully do something with them. You know, that's and it it takes a whole massive series of such small events over many years, I think, to change things for the better. You can't just rely on on history doing it for you.

SPEAKER_00

No, no, and I and um whilst I wouldn't necessarily say the people who attend it and indeed organise it would um would be tending in that direction, and they're definitely getting their hands on the wheel is Jordan Peterson's Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, which has grown into a huge annual event. I think their strapline is um the arc of the arc of history bends towards justice. Um and so in in itself it has that inherent um progressive worldview. But all as I would say is I think whatever people think of the people who attend those and um and are uh and are pushing various uh counter uh uh alternatives to the current way of things is they're trying to bend the the history toward justice as as they see it rather than allowing it to happen. But it's just interesting that a progressive framing um yeah, very much so yeah, definitely more of a a liberal progressive framing.

SPEAKER_04

Absolutely. And I and I discussed that that you know, if you like, to simplify it, you know, two different forms of progressivism out there. You have the you know, the open liberal form, which you if you like was um was the dominant form during colonialism, although I tend to think you know, there's a lot going on in that in that process, and not least there was distance between people sitting in offices or you know what were over in London pontificating about you know the progress of civilization through colonialism and actually what happened on the ground often are just completely separate issues. But but you have that that story, and you know, as you say, the Jordan Peterson's group is you know, if you'd like, kind of a going back to that. And I I I see that form, that open form, if you like, that liberal form, which is basically confident in the future, um, and you know, has faith in that sense, is is is less harmful than the you know, the closed, generally left wing sort of version. It can be it can be right wing, but um it's generally leftist, you know, which is basically looking to grab hold of of things and control them and make sure they go in the right direction. The kind of the liberal side of things is more, like I say, more faithful that things, if if we leave them be, you know, they will they will work themselves out. Although there is a twist, of course, you know, to the likes of Jordan Peterson and a lot of politicians around at the moment thinking of I think JD Vance is a better example than Donald Trump, who writes and struggle to craze just because of what he's like. Um Kemi Badenock, I think, you know, is a is an example. You could you could talk about reform to um Robert Jenric again in the Tories. You know, they're they become more muscular and conscious that actually you need to fight, you know, it's not enough, as I think liberal progressives have done over many decades of just kind of sitting back and letting it all hang out, and which is basically going along with whoever happens to you know attain power at any one period of time. You just think, well, you know, they're bound to be okay, or if, or if they're not, you know, we'll we'll sort of lean on them and just sort of show them the right way, and everything will be fine in the end. I think a lot of people in that liberal side have have now realized that isn't enough. Actually, you know, politics is back, as as Boris Glassman says, I think quite rightly. Um so you know, there's quite interesting aspects going on there at the moment, I think, in in the political arena, like I say, more muscular liberalism. How it will work itself out, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you just brought up J.D. Vance, as people will know, vice president of the United States, part of the Trump administration, uh, which very much um ran on an anti-progressive line. Uh, they had effectively created their own counter-elite, uh, decided what they were going to do when they get into power, which was to dismantle various structures that had been built up towards uh a left-leaning progressive worldview over many decades. But perhaps we can talk a little bit about the nature of the USA from its foundations. I think you made some interesting points in the book. Do you think that the that the USA's foundations make it inherently progressive because it has an unbounding faith in progress and a faith in economic growth?

SPEAKER_04

Yes, I think so. I mean, that's in you know, it's it's very much it's worked into the American constitution, you know, the the pursuit of happiness. Pursuit means activity, movement, going after something, you know. So that's very much a an agenda of change and transformation. You're trying to grab at something, you're not, you're not just sitting around and enjoying sitting on the porch and you know, having a nice drink and talking to the neighbors, you're actually striving, you're going out, you know, to work. And I think, yeah, that is very much in the American DNA. Um, and you know, very very much what we've been talking about, the the two types of progress have been fighting out, you know, fighting each other very hard out there, you know, liberal versus closed, generally left-wing, social justice focused, and and it's quite religious in style, obviously. I mean, um I I think of the you know, the civil rights movement, which uh still very much is a is a standard style for for speakers in American politics to adopt, you know, to speak like preachers. And that goes back to the the beginning, beginnings of America as well, and the Puritans, and the Puritans were strong believers in in progress. Um so I think that that American example, I mean, obviously it's had a huge influence on the rest of the world, it's sort of come back at us as well. Um so I I hope that addresses what you were you were driving at.

SPEAKER_00

It it does. I I I I wanted to start to unpick um the uh impact of liberalism as it was formed in the 17th century on the rest of the world, and obviously the USA is a huge vector for that. And as you say, not just the Anglophone countries end up being impacted by it, but but everyone, and and to unpack the 17th century liberalism bit a little bit, you you quote a few times passages from John Locke, who was very influential on the the foundation of America and uh and liberalism uh more broadly, and one of the passages you quote talk about how effectively the the pursuit of land and making it productive is uh effectively a providential thing, something that we ought to do and must do, uh, and it's the right thing to do. And I wonder, and uh hopefully this isn't too loose a connection, how much that even impacts our approach today with with immigration policy. You you you say in the book that the government has effectively become a manufacturer of people in the supply chain. Do you think we can see strands of that 17th century liberalism in the obsession with population growth at all costs?

SPEAKER_04

Yes. Um, and uh it's an argument that I I made in the book, and it's it's quite a difficult one, so I may I may not completely nail it here. But yeah, I mean John Locke's conception was basically you you you have a right to land um by working it, by working on it. And this was hugely influential in America and in justifying you know conquering the West and taking land that was for them freely available. Um if you know those classic homesteaders went out and they worked hard, they worked their land, then they then they had a right to it. And I think that sort of conception very much remains with us, but it's not I mean John Locke was writing about agriculture and about he was very interested in how productive land was, and obviously that's that's not such a preoccupation with us, but what is a preoccupation of us is is GDP and maximizing production through you know all sorts of activities, and the easiest way to do that, as our our technocratic class has found, is actually to bring more and more people in, you know. So you have, you know, for example, look at Britain, relatively small piece of land, increase the population, and you get more and more production, more and more GDP, more money coming into the top coffers of the treasury, which can then be spent on, or you know, maybe reducing taxes or increasing social programmes or whatever. And I think that's the basic conception that we have of or or what our technocratic class has, political class has, of what it means to be a country. Which I think has a lot of quite interesting and serious consequences, you know, like you say with immigration, because it means well it's meant, basically changing the very nature of the country, you know, uh whether it's a a society or a community, whether, you know, or a you know, I think the multiculturalist phrase is the community of communities, which may make more sense now. But the the sort of the very idea of the national community is is very much under threat now, if not arguably gone already. And I think it's largely down to that that attitude to land. Um but like I say, it's a it's a lengthy or what's a better word for it. It's a it's a bit of a stretch, I think, as an argument. I I think it does work. I I I thought about it a lot and questioned it, but uh, you know, it's uh it's a jump from John Lo John Locke talking about agriculture in the 17th century to mass immigration now.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. It is a jump, and uh, however, I think it's only a jump if we're not conscious of the ongoing conversation about the impact of that kind of liberalism, because when I was reading your book, I I felt like I was hearing echoes of some of the arguments of the romantics in the 19th century. Uh I've been reading plenty of Thomas Carlyle recently, which I mentioned in another recent episode, so I won't rehash it too much, but but but he he railed against the um kind of monomaniacal nature of the time in the industrial revolution of focusing on the cash nexus above all, that everything was transactional, but that you couldn't run a country purely based on the cash nexus because then you'd realize that you stripped it of its soul and everything else that's important in human life. And I I would say that if you look at our policies, at least, I'm not necessarily saying everyone thinks this way, but if you look at the policies of our government as you've just outlined them, they're still it's still we're still um effectively litigating against. Against that very notion that the likes of Thomas Carlisle was, which is everything just seems to be through economic growth, and so everything's for sale, right? And um uh so I don't think it is it's a jump if people are new to the conversation, which many people might well be, because I don't know how many people think about the romantics, but it does strike me that you do find very popular people like Paul Kingsnorth, for example, who's almost like a neo-romantic, uh making a lot of cut-through with a reader base of every age, because he speaks about the other things that make life rich. Um, and in many ways, your book, whilst a more academic analysis of the situation is kind of doing the same, which is, I mean, you say that capitalists and progressives are in many ways natural allies because the progressive way of being privileges disruption and change that capitalism constantly delivers in practice. And so I think it's interesting to watch people put their hands up and say it can't just be about that. And it's it doesn't matter whether it's Paul Kingsnorth, Orthodox Christian, uh, Charlie Downs, uh, a right-wing zoomer, um, whether it's you who kind of has social democratic tendencies, it's people find common cause and say, Oh, what we're running our whole society on here is too thin for human nature.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, definitely. And but I but I think you know there are going back to the two kinds of progressivism, we've got them all two working in concert at the moment. We've got that economic liberal style, but we've also got the closed social justice left-wing form of progressive, which is very, very strong, of course, in our society, and that's providing or or purporting, trying to provide, like the other side, if you like, maybe more moral moralistic than romantic. In fact, I wouldn't really trace much romanticism in it at all, but it certainly does come. One of the sources of that is very much a sort of a yearning for a better society. Um, it's sort of a an unfocused yearning for I think it just basically sort of degrades into power, and that's very much you know, my argument in the book is that progressivism, too often, virtually always, I think, just by its nature, does degrade into power politics.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely, and in many ways, I think it seems natural that it does that because most of the shtick of progressives is railing against power, it's accusing those that are currently, in their minds, part of the establishment, which must be destroyed, of being um being uh abusing power, and that they that the people that they're trying to bring down um see everything in power relations, um really we're all being oppressed by them.

SPEAKER_04

And it's very it's very interesting the way as well that they don't consider themselves as agents in a certain way. And this is very much part of progressive ideology, I think, in that they see themselves as as part of historical progression. So they're almost like a default, and then anyone who's sort of acting against that, restraining them, you know, pulling society in another direction is actually an agent and is is disturbing the rightful progression of history, and therefore is you know that they use words like um um God, I I tend to forget these things sometimes. But just very much, you know, action words about their opponents, you know, that are forgive me, I've I've completely forgotten things that I know, I've things that I know and think about every day. Words have just gone. Yeah. Um, but yeah, no, it's a it's a very interesting dynamic, and I really wish I could explain it better of considering yourself as being part of history with maybe a big H, you know, which is almost like two different lines. There's actual history, which is going up and down, and then there's sort of theoretical, ideological history, which is where these people are on, which is a path which is going upwards and improving, and and um and real history is being dragged away by the by the bad people. So they are the actors, and then we who are the agents of history, if you like, are just socio, you know, sociological defaults in a way.

SPEAKER_00

Before before I let you go, because I know we're coming up to a relatively hard stop, might might go over a couple of minutes, is um we we talk about the progress trap, and we've seen that it uh we all fall into it almost regardless where we sit on the spectrum, but right now we're we we we suffer it more through the left liberal progressive worldview. Um so before I ask you the question that I ask all of my guests, which I started asking the episode after I first interviewed you, Ben, um the question is about the progress trap. What can we do to escape it?

SPEAKER_04

Well, I think um by doing things like you're doing, but I guess by writing a book about it. Um but really, I mean, in the in that final chapter when I seek to address it, I I zero down at one stage on um what I call the the intelligence functions of society. So that's the universities, the media, like I say, think tanks. You know, those who are dealing are dealing with knowledge, and those are are the ones I think which are crucial nodes in society which have gone wrong and been led astray. I mean, the BBC is the is the classic example for me. I call it a promotional organization now that it's doing publicity a lot of the time. You know, it's it's it's it's carrying out PR, it's carrying out public relations for different types of people. And you can see this, especially say on the website where they're promoting drag queens all the time and other forms of progressive identity politics. You know, they they'll give interviews to certain activists. It's like, well, what you know, why are you doing this? You're meant to be a news service, an impartial news service, and you're just basically doing free publicity, free PR for these people. So I think so. I talk about in the book about um reconstitution, how we've got to come up to with a proper plan to reconstitute our major institutions. Another one, of course, is the civil service. You know, just crucial. I mean, I mean, what a task. I mean, these are like huge world historical almost tasks, you know, to deal with. But I think that's that's what's necessary there. These institutions are in such a bad shape, and our society is really suffering for it in in many different ways. And I think we're gonna have a lot more troubles in the future. And um for the good of all of us and our children, we need to we need to drag them back, I think.

SPEAKER_00

Well, Ben, if we're gonna be on the right side of history, I think you and I need to go and lead the purge.

SPEAKER_01

All right.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, me and you. Yeah, there we go. We've fallen to the progress trap, but at least it's the good side. Um, Ben, before I let you go, the question I've come to ask all of my guests is what have you changed your mind on during the course of your life that you perhaps once thought was an absolute, but then it changed? And what was it that made you think differently?

SPEAKER_04

Well, in you in the last time I appeared, which wasn't that long ago, I said the Labour Party. Oh, I did ask you the question, you're right. Yes, it was the Labour Party. And have you know the fact that I I used to have faith that the Labour Party could change, and now I don't. Although some people, you know, do work to drag me back a little bit, like Morris Glassman. But basically, yeah, I have I've decided that's that's not happening. But I'd say another one, I thought for that, I mean it relates to the book, is just an assumption, just that basic assumption that things will get better, you know, eventually. You know, people will realize that things are going wrong and um we need a correction, and then actually people will gather together, the political parties, the the establishment, you know, the civil service, and that they'll work to make things better. And I've lost that faith now. Um basically I've lost the faith in progress, you could say. Um, but I see that as a positive thing because it means politics is back. You know, we we actually have to work hard to achieve things, and maybe ironically, then progress will actually happen. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

Well, if there's one lesson from this, progress needs to be worked on, can't just be assumed. Uh, Ben, it's been an absolute pleasure. We've been talking about your new book, Progress Trap, The Modern Left and the False Authority of History. Am I right in saying that it is released on the 29th of May, 2025?

SPEAKER_04

The 30th of May, it's out. Um, and uh it should be in most bookshops, but certainly online as well. And if you want a discount, um, you should be able to go to my social media, my my Twitter account, or contact me, and you know I can I could sort out a discount for you.

SPEAKER_00

There you go. Well, I'll include details of that within within the show for those who let's do that.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Who tune in? Well, I think people know where to find you. You've mentioned Twitter, you've got a book coming out, and you write a substack as well.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's not it's not that regular now. Um, but I'll I'll be updating you know through the the book publication process, and um, I don't know what I'm gonna do with it beyond that.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, well, Ben, it's been an absolute pleasure.

SPEAKER_04

Well, thank thanks very much for giving me the chance to have a chat about it.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it. Look forward to the next one.

SPEAKER_04

Good stuff. Thanks very much. Keep finding the good fight, Ben. Cheers, John.

SPEAKER_00

To keep up to date with all that I am doing, please subscribe to the Thinking Class YouTube channel at Thinking Class and follow me on X at Thinking Classes. Thinking Class seeks to understand the civilizational issues we face and why what our leaders do in response matters. Here, I seek to explore the ideas, values, and culture that made our civilization, those that are unmaking it, and how leaders at our public and private institutions should respond. Engage with me on YouTube or X or write to me at thinkingclasspod at gmail.com to tell me who you want me to speak to and what topics are important to you. I look forward to seeing you there and for joining me on this journey.

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John Gillam

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