A major risk in any effort to advance progress, however defined, is not adequately considering the possible adverse consequences to the people it will affect. The worst mistake that can be made is ignoring the morality of the undertaking, direct evidence that its advocates and activists are not on board with the rest of humanity. Although they like to call themselves “progressive,” their accomplishments more often than not show progress toward less, not more, wellbeing for everyone. In the early days of our republic, a number of these amoral visionaries, driven by every conceivable hope, obsession, or delusion, were called Transcendentalists. Of these New England Brahmins (as they came to be known), Poe wrote: “When may we hope to make men of sense out of these pundits?”[i] Today we’d call them “liberals” – in quotes because they aren’t.[ii] Repeating this old mistake, the futurist Alvin Toffler separated morality from...(Read Full Article)