Emancipation proclamation Quote by Mark Crispin Miller
“This is a deeply uncanny and very troubling development, it exists, and it wants to take us back. It wants to take us, I mean, way back. I mean sure, they want to go back before the 70s and the 60s to the 50s, no doubt about that. They also want to go back before the New Deal to the 20s, well they also want to go back before the Progressive Era to the Gilded Age. Well, not quite, they also want to go back before the Emancipation Proclamation to the days of slavery, not even, what they want to do is take us back to a moment prior to the Enlightenment; they want to take us back to a moment when faith registered more than reason. They want to take us back to an imaginary age of absolute moral clarity, when good was good and evil was evil and everyone could see the difference. They want to take us back to an imaginary Manichean age when youre either with us or against us, which means you either are us or well exterminate you because we can only tolerate ourselves, we can only tolerate thos”
About This Quote
Source Speech: Public commentary on cultural regression, 2020s
The speaker warns that a nostalgic push to revert to past eras undermines progress, seeking a simplistic moral world that excludes nuance.
In simple terms: A call to reject regressive nostalgia and embrace complex modern values.
Resist nostalgic regression; champion nuanced progress.
Themes
Mood
Type
When to use this quote
- political discourse
- media analysis
- education
- policy making
- social activism
Key Concepts
Questions to Reflect On
- How does nostalgia shape policy?
- What risks arise from moral absolutism?
Oversimplifying history can ignore systemic issues and foster division.