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A society is considered regressive when it impedes human sovereignty and egalitarian impetus of society.
An Individual is Sovereign when he/she can govern his/her thoughts and emotions without being influenced by social or religious manipulations. Such an independent thought process is developed through reason and scientific temper. A progressive society ‘Enheartens citizens to break negative shackles of community’, hence encouraging positive discretion.
A society undergoes regression when it is being guided by assumptions of presumptuous people who fuel hate and discourage progressive reasoning. Restrictive parameters of a society hinder freedom, which in-turn affects progressive change.
When a community cannot encourage egalitarian aspects it creates distrust among individuals which later affects the perspective of an individual hence sliding his thoughts towards negative parameters.Some negative aspects which affect an individual’s perspective are:Politics: which are operated by favouritism and uses unreasonable tactics such as caste, religious and cultural divisions.
Women: who are treated unequally and when their personal choices are guided by the needs of men among ‘society’!Media: media houses create chaos in the mind of citizens through manipulative approaches. They have turned themselves into political mouthpieces by playing the narrowest social role which ignores core issues.Education acts as a tool to fetch a job rather than creating insight for an individual to be independent of regressive influences.Judicial processes which are delayed when lacunae of the judiciary are exploited by people in power. Which in-turn dents trust over the judicial system.Educated scholars/specialists are least preferred for social opinions as they endure the least respect thus being preceded by entertainers (movie stars).Rampant corruption practices due to unmindful policymakers.Where resources are wasted over futile appeasement practices rather than developing hospital or educational infrastructures which lack basic amenities as well as research facilities.When the above negative trends are observed individuals lose motivation towards progression in an unjust society. The fact that people are insouciant and justify these negative aspects without questioning is a disheartening attribute of society. These tendencies of society affect the psyche of a person who contributes towards an ideal social order.
Likewise, a hardworking administrator loses his zeal when his policy implementation proves unsustainable after his transfer from the post, or punitive actions for intervening in political malpractices, these will hinder his enthusiasm towards progress and make him act neutral or regressive after witnessing shrewd and corrupt officials gaining better benefits.Additionally, an individual’s approach towards equality among humans is affected when his progress is fettered by religious and caste-based (race, class) partisanship, where he experiences setbacks and observes people gaining benefits through favouritism and introspects his progressive thoughts which eventually revert and discourage balanced approach of others too.
Besides, administrators or powerful people are at advantage and gain benefits over commoners, which drives people towards a hierarchical race to gain power which ruins an inclusive structure of society. It is a paradox as core values of any constitution or religious scripture emphasise equality!Human potential and creativity are severely affected in a regressive society; it not only hinders individual progress, but it impedes the nation's growth as a whole.Humans are the only species who are equipped with a conscience that can evolve positively or deter with each experience they come across in their lives.
Religious and political societies should work combinedly towards the progress of humanity, as these both are the impediments for human freedom.
The first type of progressivism has its philosophical underpinnings in 18th Century, Enlightenment-era thought. It believes that politics is a battle of ideas. It further believes that through the use of reason and the exchange of ideas, human society will tend to improve itself through scientific and technological innovation. Hence, it believes in progress, and for this reason lays claim to the term “progressive”. Because of its belief and optimism in the faculties of human reason, I refer to this philosophy as rational progressivism.
Rational progressivism tends to be trusting, within reason, of status quo political and economic institutions — generally including the institution of capitalism. It tends to trust these institutions because it believes they are a manifestation of progress made by previous generations. However, unlike conservatism, it also sees these institutions as continuing works in progress, subject to inefficiencies because of distorted or poorly-designed incentives, poorly-informed or misinformed participants, and competition from ‘irrational’ worldviews like religion. It also recognizes that certain persons who stand to benefit from preserving the status quo, particularly elected officials but also corporations, may seek to block this progress to protect their own interests. The project of rational progressivism, then, is to propagate good ideas and to convert them, through a wide and aggressive array of democratic means, into public policy.
The second type of progressivism is what I call radical progressivism. It represents, indeed, a much more radical and comprehensive critique of the status quo, which it tends to see as intrinsically corrupt. Its philosophical tradition originates in 19th Century thought — and specifically, owes a great deal to the Marxist critique of capitalism and the Marxist theory of social change. It also finds inspiration in both the radical movement of the 1960s and the labour and social movements of late 19th and early 20th centuries (from which it borrows the label “progressive”).
Radical progressivism is more clearly distinguishable from “conventional” liberalism and would generally be associated with the “far left” — although on a handful of issues such as free trade, it may find common cause with the “radical” right. Radical progressivism embraces the tradition of populism and frequently adopts a discourse of the virtuous commoner organising against the corrupt elite. It is much more willing to make normative claims than rational progressivism, and tends to view conservatism as immoral and contemporary American liberalism as amoral (at best). Its project is not reform but transformation.
Rational progressives sometimes regard radical progressives as impractical, self-righteous, shrill, demagogic, naïve and/or anti-intellectual. Radical progressives, in turn, regard rational progressives as impure, corrupt (or corruptible), selfish, complacent, elitist, and too quick to compromise.
Try to connect your understanding and interpretation of such religious practices with Swift's work.
Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland, on November 30, 1667. The son of an English lawyer, he grew up there in the care of his uncle before attending Trinity College at the age of fourteen, where he stayed for seven years, graduating in 1688. In that year, he became the secretary for Sir William Temple, an English politician and member of the Whig party. In 1694, he took religious orders in the Church of Ireland and then spent a year as a country parson. He then spent further time in the service of Temple before returning to Ireland to become the chaplain of the Earl of Berkeley. Meanwhile, he had begun to write satires on the political and religious corruption surrounding him, working on A Tale of a Tub, which supports the position of the Anglican Church against its critics on the left and the right, and The Battle of the Books, which argues for the supremacy of the classics against modern thought and literature. He also wrote a number of political pamphlets in favour of the Whig party. In 1709 he went to London to campaign for the Irish church but was unsuccessful. After some conflicts with the Whig party, mostly because of Swift’s strong allegiance to the church, he became a member of the more conservative Tory party in 1710.
Unfortunately for Swift, the Tory government fell out of power in 1714 and Swift, despite his fame for his writings, fell out of favour. Swift, who had been hoping to be assigned a position in the Church of England, instead returned to Dublin. During his brief time in England, Swift had become friends with writers such as Alexander Pope, and during a meeting of their literary club, the Martinus Scriblerus Club, they decided to write satires of modern learning. The “third voyage” described in his best-known work, Gulliver’s Travels, is assembled from the work Swift did during this time. However, the final work was not completed until 1726, and the narrative of the third voyage was actually the last one completed. After his return to Ireland, Swift became a staunch supporter of the Irish against English attempts to weaken their economy and political power, writing pamphlets such as the satirical A Modest Proposal, in which he suggests that the Irish problems of famine and overpopulation could be easily solved by having the babies of poor Irish subjects sold as delicacies to feed the rich.
Swift's Ireland was a country that had been effectively controlled by England for nearly 500 years. The Stuarts had established a Protestant governing aristocracy amidst the country's relatively poor Catholic population. Denied union with England in 1707 (when Scotland was granted it), Ireland continued to suffer under English trade restrictions and found the authority of its own Parliament in Dublin severely limited. Swift, though born a member of Ireland's colonial ruling class, came to be known as one of the greatest of Irish patriots. He, however, considered himself more English than Irish, and his loyalty to Ireland was often ambivalent in spite of his staunch support for certain Irish causes. The complicated nature of his own relationship with England may have left him particularly sympathetic to the injustices and exploitation Ireland suffered at the hands of its more powerful neighbour.
Although Swift's disgust with the state of the nation continued to increase, A Modest Proposal was the last of his essays about Ireland. Swift wrote mostly poetry in the later years of his life, and he died in 1745.
Jonathan Swift Novels
A Tale of a Tub
Published 1704
Gulliver’s Travels
Published 1726
A Modest Proposal
Published 1729
Jonathan Swift Essay Collections
“An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity”
Published 1712
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