Civilization is effectively synonymous with humanity. Beyond our physiological traits, it is our defining feature: the ability to organize, cooperate, and adhere to rules and norms and behave in a (mostly) predictable manner. It is this cooperation that enables our technological progress and continues to make our lives safer and more stable. The more predictable and uniform we are, the smoother this cooperation will be, and therefore the faster our progress.
Civilization (or society, if you prefer; we will use them interchangeably for our purposes here) prefers this predictable homogeneity. As a super-organism consisting of individual human beings, the system certainly benefits from this, just as we benefit from cells and organs that behave as they should, or as a machine benefits from equally-spaced cogs that allow uniform motion to maximize efficiency.
Unlike a cell or a cog, however, we humans have developed consciousness and self-awareness. Regardless of any , humans have the unique (as far as we know) ability to identify ourselves as individuals, and all of our structures of value and purpose demand that there be a reason for this. We have free will and personalities, desires and ambitions, legacies and eternal souls that must answer for our brief time in existence.
This places humans in a precarious position: we are fundamentally reluctant to sacrifice our individuality for the benefit of society, because to do so usurps our position at the top of the existential pyramid. If humans must interact with one another for the benefit of society, then society is the ultimate power and our free will must be compromised in its service.
This is the core philosophical divide between conservatism and progressivism, and it defines every other conflict that arises between them. Conservatism values religion because religion supports the divinity of individual man (we are made in God’s image, each of us is an individual with free will and is judged accordingly, etc.). Progressivism values the notion of the greater good (at least in theory), that individuals must sacrifice for the advancement of our society or species as a whole.
Conservatism maintains that participation in society should be voluntary and, essentially, minimal (small government, libertarianism, etc.). Progressivism promotes unity and inclusion, regulation, and homogenization (via political correctness or so-called “wokeness”).
Conservatism upholds the mythos of the “rugged individual”, the self-sufficient pioneer whose bootstraps defy physics and who survives the brutality of existence only by sheer strength of will. Progressivism believes that humans are inherently flawed and weak and can (or should) survive only by caring for everyone.
This duality is not a new paradigm. Although one could argue that it has been taken to its most radical conclusions in modern America, the contrasting value structures of Dionysus and Apollo have been used as a framework to describe man’s conflicted nature for centuries.
So as we continue this march of civilization, of technological advancement, of what we ultimately call progress, we must inevitably sand down the gnarls and the splinters of the crude human spirit to achieve uniformity. We must overcome the primitive human instincts that compel us to demand recognition as individuals, to disregard the feelings and well-being of others in our own selfish quests for survival and fulfillment. We must succumb to the singularity, whether the hive-mind is technological or merely a social construct; we must learn to put its needs above our own.
The question then becomes: should we? Once we strip away the artificial values prescribed to society by the social constructs themselves (kings and popes and the ruling classes throughout history), we are left naked of our indoctrinated morality to decide for ourselves what it means to be human… what it means to be free. Is freedom the elimination (or ultimate reduction) of suffering and conflict, by pledging loyalty to the blind whims of the Hobbesian Leviathan and transcending our messy, primitive ancestry through this inexorable march of progress? Or is freedom the ability to do as one wills, to selectively choose loyalty, to determine for oneself what is right and wrong, with all the conflict and suffering that such choices may bring?
