Review: Progressive Myths Rebuts the Left’s Histrionic Takes

Michael Huemer’s new book Progressive Myths aims to inoculate readers against what the author calls the “progressive mind virus”: an infection, he writes, that “deactivates one’s truth-seeking capacities” and teaches “us to identify with some group other than the whole society.” While Huemer locates this “virus” on the left, his core message is nonpartisan: “We need to know what is true if we are to make progress on any of the actual, real problems we face.”

Huemer combs through the specious statistics, data, and testimony progressives peddle to persuade Americans to cede more power to the state—to rectify historical injustices, to correct systemic biases, or to avert armageddon. Huemer himself is an anarchist who argued that states are morally indefensible in his 2013 book The Problem of Political Authority, but he nonetheless believes, and tries to convince his readers, that America is still “among the freest, most egalitarian, and most open-to-progress societies in history,” warts and all.

Huemer concludes a long list of dire warnings issued by histrionic progressives by wryly noting: “Just in case you missed the theme here: None of those things happened.” For just two examples, he points to scientists in the 1970s who predicted a new ice age in the early 21st century, and the United Nations warning in 1989 that entire nations would be submerged by 2000 due to global warming.

Huemer is overly dour, however, about the risks posed by progressive orthodoxy. The man on the street scoffs at land acknowledgments, hasn’t heard of “stereotype threat,” and trusts his primary care doctor.