The Root of All Evil

More years ago than I care to mention, my daughter performed the role of General Bullmoose in her fifth grade production of “Lil’ Abner.” It gave our vocally gifted girl, who would go on to get her college degree in theater, the opportunity to belt out a show stopping rendition of Bullmoose’s lament, “Progress is the Root of All Evil.” It’s a ragtime ditty whose lyrics she did not at all understand.

At the time, I didn’t give much thought to them myself.

Bullmoose complains that the common rabble, circa 1950, had become so well off that he had to reassert his dominant and privileged position in society by finding a way to get richer, more famous and more powerful.

“My friends say I can run for any office I seek,” he boasts, “But first I have to brush up on my TV technique.”

Alternatively he could “find myself a government job or maybe form a dummy corporation to rob.” He wraps it all up by pleading “Bring back the good old days.”

Remind you of any modern day politicians?

Politics driven by those who evoke the “good old days” when men were men, women were women, non-white folks knew their place, no one really knew how wealthy the wealthy were and White Christians ruled are nothing new. Today’s MAGA grift succeeds partly because it feeds on the same glorified nostalgia.

In uncertain times such as ours democracies are at risk of becoming autocracies and human rights are imperiled. This is partly because “high RWA” (right wing authoritarian) voters support fast talking con artists more than they do governmental entities and democratic institutions. These they perceive as having failed them both in terms of their personal materialistic priorities and the fact that, despite their resistance, social progress keeps inching along. To the RWA mind, progress that threatens their societal hegemony, is truly the root of all evil.

I grew up in a time when “progress,” the advancement of technology and science, was portrayed as the solution to all life’s problems. It was seen as the key to restoring the world to a Garden of Eden free from want, hunger, illness and labor.

That version of progress has far from lived up to its promise. In some ways, as with global warming, it has made things worse.

What is evident now more than ever is that scientific progress in the absence of social progress cannot solve all our problems. This is because so many age old human problems exist outside the realm of science and technology.

In fraught times, the default position is to appeal to the gods. The same public who pray ostentatiously, in vain of course, for deliverance from their misfortunes also worship a panoply of demagogues who promise they will deliver where the good Lord let us down. They long for the “good old days” when there were far fewer choices but they at least knew who they were and believed they could actually attain what modest goals they desired.

Between the reactionary forces that have attained outsized influence over government and citizens who support politicians who pretend to care about them while promoting the priorities of the rich and powerful, one needn’t wonder why democracy has been under threat.

There is a glimmer of hope, however, as our electorate recently became more concerned about the threat to democracy and voted accordingly in November ’22. Even that tool of the elite, the Supreme Court, not long ago stopped short of empowering states to override election results. Still, three Justices (notably two of whom have spectacularly abused their positions for personal gain) voted to endorse the corrupt scheme that sought to strip voters of their power.

Clearly, we are far from out of the woods. Democracy, even here in its modern cradle, continues to be imperiled. If it crumbles, though, don’t blame progress. Our species takes every invention and finds a way to turn it to evil purposes.

It’s not progress, but our fundamental nature that’s the root of evil. That’s been so ever since Adam and Eve chomped on the fruit of knowledge.

However long our race continues to exist, it won’t be progress but the very essence of what we are that will leave us exiles from an Edenic paradise.