hurray for the status quo
The political opponents of ev psych accuse its proponents (e.g., me) of wickedly supporting the "status quo." This accusation is bizarre, but I know where they're coming from. I remember being a young man impatient with society's imperfections and hostile to the "establishment." But over the last 20 to 25 years I've acquired a different understanding of the status quo. Now the status quo looks a lot like a process of continued (if uneven) progress. That's a status quo I can get behind! We've been making progress on all the big issues I care about: racial equality (Obama!), gender equality (Hilary Clinton! Sarah Palin!), gay rights (gay marriage!) and religious pluralism. If this isn't the status quo that liberals are looking for, whose status quo would they prefer? China's? Saudi Arabia's?
Yes, progress is spotty. Reagan's 80s-era drug war in particular has been a disaster, and Bush's adventure in Iraq doesn't fit with any kind of international justice or even selfish national interest. But review the broad strokes of history and the modern West looks like a place of ongoing progress, with the sort of liberty and peace that others across the globe would die for, and sometimes do.
Yes, progress is spotty. Reagan's 80s-era drug war in particular has been a disaster, and Bush's adventure in Iraq doesn't fit with any kind of international justice or even selfish national interest. But review the broad strokes of history and the modern West looks like a place of ongoing progress, with the sort of liberty and peace that others across the globe would die for, and sometimes do.