This Is Why I Don’t Call Myself a Progressive
Margaret Atwood is right: history doesn’t bend towards justice
I saw Margaret Atwood take issue with an interviewer the other day because he implied that she was a “progressive”.
The Canadian novelist and environmental activist explained that she wasn’t a progressive, because she didn’t believe that there was anything inevitable about progression when it came to human history.
Ideas such as the belief that there was a “right side of history” were misguided and essentially untrue, continued Atwood. History doesn’t have any sides; if you look at the evidence, it’s more like a revolving wheel of fortune: one day you’re up, the next day you’re down.
Public opinion is constantly shifting, she explained. Right now, you may have people’s approval, but fifty years later, your attitudes and morality might be seen as outdated and reprehensible.
Perhaps Atwood’s views should be no surprise. After all, her most famous book The Handmaid’s Tale explores a near-future dystopian world, dominated by rigid theocratic and patriarchal rules, where women’s rights have been swept away virtually overnight.
The book can be read as a warning, its message being that liberal democracies are intrinsically fragile and always have the potential to be usurped by…
