oh dear Don, this is worst than your climate change articles and this is apparently your area of expertise.

If I condense what you've said it's this....People on the left believe that humanity has an ultimate destiny and that they have no logical basis for believing that.

The idea that humanity should progress to a brighter future is shared by just about everyone, it's just the means in which to achieve it or what a brighter future actually is that we can't agree on.

Ironically the Babylon 5 sifi series is a great story to watch on this very subject. i won't spoil it for those that have not sen it, however it boils down to this.

What is the best method of driving progress, cooperative endevour or competitive conflict. In our history we have seen both drive us forward.

There's no longer a left or right in politics, just up or down good policy versus bad policy and progressive politicians lined up against entrenched positions and vested interest? Usually one and the same?

It was progressive conservative Christians and the odd Jew, who outlawed slavery, child labor, and drove emancipacion?

Sadly, these examples are very far and few today, with most of the conservatives, and some of the laborites, in the pockets of big business, none bigger it would seem, than the four trillion plus a year fossil fuel industry?

And at complete odds with the greatest moral imperative of the century, real action on real, human created or caused, climate change!?

None of which needs in any way shape or form to actually ever impact in any negative way whatsoever on our economy, but rather the very opposite in the hands of those whose moral compass is still functioning?

Turbocharge it beyond any previous experience or history, but especially for the pathfinders who lead and show the way, with a two pronged attack that massively lowers the individual and corporate tax burden and the cost of energy!

And that difficult or simple, depending on your rusted on ideology or lack thereof!

Thinking inside a fixed circle of ideas, limits the questions. And if the questions are limited, so also are the answers!
Alan B.

I'm wasn't aware that the Left even had a moral basis.

Those on the left tend towards being openly materialists/atheists (while those on the right are often functionally materialists/atheists).

If materialism/atheism is true then there is no ultimate goal toward which anyone can progress. Each person can have their preferences about things but no preference is better than another and there is nothing that anyone ought to do, ever.

“Progress”, “purpose” and “morality” are all empty terms in a materialistic universe.

I expected more from someone who has been on the forefront of academe all his working life. Missing in his appraisal of the Left is two thousand years of Christianity with its focus on the neighbour. I am used to Australian academics in all fields ignoring the Christian intellectual heritage but it always comes as a shock. Don's use of the phrase "human species" is a give away.

@JP what rot, the fact is that Christianity like all religions is a human construct, and you pick and choice which one you wish to believe in.

If your going to seriously tell the rest of us that some how you know the truth to the validity of any religious claims then you better have some remarkable evidence to back it up.

If as I suspect you only have your personal conviction then you really are a fool.

Sells who is a deacon ( I think?? sorry Sells ) is humble enough to understand that his christian belief is a choice he has made. you're into bat excrement crazy runner territory if you think over wise.