I was in a library today, looking at all the ideas, and it occurred to me that the ENTIRETY of the knowledge contained in there arose from the simple idea that progress was possible. Prior to that, there were perhaps a few hundred books in existence, and only the Bible–in most of Europe–mattered. The “library” would have consisted in one book. Everything you needed to know was in there.
Would there be a need for a scientific method, if there were no idea that new insights and relationships could be teased from the cosmos?
This sort of idea I call qualitative; paradigmatic would work as well, although it is so big that I might academicize and call it metaparadigmatic.
Movement begins with the idea that movement is possible. This is so obvious that very few people truly grasp it. Very few of us ever come even CLOSE to seeing what is possible, and there is no reason for me to think I am one of them. As far as that goes, one would need to be outside the system to even begin to comment on this from a position of knowledge.
What we can see, however, is frequent stupidity across the ages. If one were to posit that it is slowly fading, one would not do so without evidence. Most of the fratricidal instincts of past ages have muted in recent decades, to the point where one wonders if global peace might not in the end actually be possible, and that within a genuinely Liberal framework.
Let’s work to that end.