On “Progressivism” and Barbarism
5th September 2025
Just today I discovered this essay written in December of 2023 by Benjamin Kerstein. It’s entitled “The rise of barbaric progressivism,” and subtitled “Antisemitism, racial hierarchy, violence, and an alliance with radical Islam have seized the commanding heights of the movement.” The phenomenon has only become clearer and more intense since then, but it was already apparent. What sounds as though it might be an oxymoron – “progressivism” allied with “barbarism” – is nothing of the sort. Instead, it is perhaps inevitable, a built-in feature of the former.