day no. 16,112: the crash of cold, hard coasts

I will not walk with your progressive apes,

erect and sapient. Before them gapes

the dark abyss to which their progress tends -

if by God's mercy progress ever ends,

and does not ceaselessly revolve the same

unfruitful course with changing of a name.

I will not treat your dusty path and flat,

denoting this and that by this and that,

your world immutable wherein no part 

the little maker has with maker's art.

I bow not yet before the Iron Crown,

nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.

- J.R.R. Tolkien, Mythopeia

If the end of the road is an abyss, perhaps progress isn't as positive as it sounds. It is always worth asking, "by what standard?" In the case concerning "progress," one must ask, "Progressing towards what?" or "Going where exactly?"

Progressives attempt to import all the positive sentimentality associated with going forward without clarifying what it is they are reaching for. Thus they ride the wave of an assumed enthusiasm without being held accountable to the crash of cold, hard coasts. Tolkien rightly points out that the kind of progress that finds you closer to the cliff's edge today than you were yesterday is the kind of progress we can all do without and must not merely be refused, but resisted. We cannot only decline to accept it, but must actively, ardently reject it. We must not merely pout in the backseat about the destination, but neutralize the driver, take hold of the wheel, and keep the car from going over.

So when Tolkien says, "I will not walk with the progressive apes," I nod and add a hardy, "Me neither!"