| Yes, of course, other personal qualities are also vital: engagement being chief among them. But it is humility that helps determine the quality of that engagement, whether it is the kind that is a part of the problem, or the kind that is a part of the solution.
It is humility that drives an on-going deepening of an understanding of the issues, and of the dynamics that affect them, because it is humility that drives what should be an ever-present sense of just not knowing or understanding quite enough yet.
It is humility that fosters unity and cooperation, by removing the hubris that permits the easy dismissal of those who disagree as inferior beings, either stupid or evil or both.
It is humility that is the foundation of personal growth, and it is personal growth that is the foundation of social and political development.
I have long identified the opponent of progressivism to be "Organized Ignorance," those movements that are passionately committed to positions based on a lack of knowledge or insight, engaging in counterproductive mania's like the "birthers" and anti-evolutionists.
But, organized or not, I am constantly amazed and dismayed by how strong a presence this opponent has in the Democratic Party, or "on the left." There are those here who reject the Democratic Party, and our dichotomous conceptualization of American Politics in general. I agree in this way: The two camps that define the real struggle between progress and regress are not defined by the two parties, or by the two poles of the "left-right" spectrum. They are defined by those humble enough to keep learing, and to recognize the fallability of their own hopefully tentative conclusions, and those arrogant enough to adhere to some blind and stagnant ideology or another, which is by definition the bane of progress. |
