The change that comes from leaps erodes, too, but I'm interested in what you mean here.
Shag:
>well, I disagree with you on the punctuated equilibrium thing, but I
>thought Goldwater's concession speech was a good illustration of what
>you're talking about. WRT feminism, my mom always thought of it as a
>pendulum swinging back and forth in extremes. An apt metaphor, really. Back
>and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth....
The more common left metaphor is an upward spiral. Obama referred to King's "The moral arm of the universe is long but it bends ultimately towards justice" in his victory speech, though I think in Obama's version people were the ones bending it towards justice rather than it being a given, or a God thing.
The real question is, since Carrol is right that there's no law of progress, what are the mechanisms that might allow the struggle to result in an upward spiral and not a downward spiral. An analysis of the struggle that doesn't succumb to Inevitable Progress as an underlying cause is certainly one necessary element.
Another thought on the perniciousness of Inevitable Progress--that worldview means that when things go backwards you are utterly disarmed. Your choices are confused despair or pollyanna-ism.
Jenny Brown