Amazing how Hegel's evil legacy lives on in the minds of clueless idiots everywhere. ;-)

I think the conflation we're looking at here is people mixing the concept of 'progress' in a Hegelian sense with 'evolution'. The New Agers have helped this along in terms of trying to speak of such progress in terms like 'spiritual evolution'.

I'm a little bit edgy about the term 'evolution' applied to spiritual growth, and the connotations it tends to carry. But in fairness it does have the definition of just 'development.' Perhaps there was something sinister behind Oprah's generality, but she isn't really here for us to grill her on the specifics.

For whatever rhetoric is worth, Obama's message seems to be positioned, in contrast to Mrs. Clinton's, as more willing to reach across the aisle and cooperate with adversaries.

"If you know who you are, if you know what you believe in, if you know what you are fighting for, then you can afford to listen to folks who don't agree with you, you can afford to reach across the aisle every once in a while," Obama said. "It won't hurt you. You won't be compromised and you will be able to form the majorities that will defeat the special interests and ... win elections."

Mike: However, it's entirely Hegel's progress that she's speaking of here...

I don't mean any insult to Oprah (beyond that already necessarily implied above), but I don't think she's clear-minded enough to know precisely what she means when she uses the term. To be more precise, as I understand it, Hegel felt that "progress" (towards his desired future) came through "synthesis" -- thesis and antithesis being manipulated. Oprah doesn't at all seem to like the idea of antithesis, much less see it as a tool to be used cynically.

She thinks she's achieved, or at least seen, this 'higher unity', and wants to see contradiction disappear into it...

Well, in a sense, all liberals do -- not that they define their desired state as "higher" than a deliberate disunity necessary to justify it. It certainly works out that way (they introduce new policies, and then get upset when we don't kowtow, and then demand "unity" and a "solution" to the crisis their dissent just caused), but most are also certainly not conscious of being part of that process.

Ryan: I'm a little bit edgy about the term 'evolution' applied to spiritual growth, and the connotations it tends to carry.

Me too, obviously.

But in fairness it does have the definition of just 'development.'

I have no doubt some who use it would say that, but I would argue that even in their actual usage, if examined closely, that's not at all what it means.

To begin with, it's a directed development. Oprah, for example, links it with "purpose", implying a hand behind the scenes. Second, in my experience anyway, it simultaneously is used to avoid discussions of purpose and the intentions of the implied guiding hand: when one poses questions of "by who" or "towards what", then the more "purposeless" shades of use are introduced.

(Similarly, biologists will use it in a double-minded manner, implying it has no "design", but then talking about evolution or nature's "intent" and "purpose", etc. This similarity is not, in my view, co-incidental, as both are trying to have their cake and eat it too, so to speak.)

In contrast, when a theist of some sort (religious Jew, Christian, etc.) talks about God's will or purpose, there's a definite, freely-admitted set of absolute morals (not a spurious switching between moralistic speech and relativism) and a definite, equally-open sense of WHERE that progress is taking us, and what it implies.

In short, phrases like "God's purpose" or "God's will" are what I think of as "front-door" words: words which pretty much say what they mean and clarify ambiguities. (Who, where is freely stated and can be evaluated.) In contrast, "evolution" is usually [not always] used as a "back door" have-it-both-ways weasel-word which allows us to switch between opposite concepts as needed to adopt ideas which would otherwise be objectionable. (And again, I'm not indicting those who use as doing so with deliberate, bad intentions.)

Finally, it's use almost always carries a connotation of a certain impersonal amorality in regard to the character of the process -- and the implication that change (often conflated with "progress") must therefore be inherently beneficial.

Is society is upended, it must be for the better, and we shouldn't ask too many questions:

Oprah then moved to the broader theme of her program. "And right now according to experts, there are thousands of children who are living what appear to be very normal lives but deep inside they know something is terribly wrong or they feel that something is terribly wrong, and these children are saying that they were born in the wrong bodies...

After all this, Winfrey celebrated what she called an "evolution" in social tolerance and cultural acceptance of the idea of a sex change, even among children. "I have seen such a change in the way parents parent, you know," Oprah declared, "even in the years that we've been here, 18 years, seeing such a--a difference--this generation, your generation, is so much more open to accepting children as they are instead of trying to--forcing whatever your own idea was."

Oprah's narrative here is also fraught with the same contradictions implied in her use of the word "evolution" -- the idea of a "purpose" behind things (otherwise, how can a child have an intended body to be born into) but also a feeling that there is simultaneously no sentient guide (because that "purpose" seems to get it wrong unless we're willing to radically change society to fix it's blind mistakes).

These contradictions in narrative aren't simply tangential, they're core. They stop questioning, and enable the person to have it both ways (and thus not realize their position's inherent irrationality) much like the erstwhile relativist who condemns Bush as evil for condemning certain other nations as evil.

You can't question sex changes for children or introduction ideas like God's will (because that's intolerant and presumes an absolute good and a definite will), but then we say this is "evolution" -- also meaning that there's an idea of a guiding force leading us to a "better" state of existence, and things which are wrong (like asking questions) in the face of that.

The actual views are similar, but one admits precisely what it is, and one does not.

Also: I recognize that people like Oprah aren't thinking about the "red in tooth and claw" aspect of Darwinism when use the word, but the spiritual literature from which that usage arises frequently hints, oh so subtly, at such necessities. (The very concept of the "New Age", for example, implies a society where only one religious outlook will exist. I'll bet that isn't going to happen by co-incidence.)

Perhaps there was something sinister behind Oprah's generality...

In my view, not consciously, in her mind or intentions.

For the record, like Will Smith, I think most people who do evil or promote harmful ideologies actually think they intend goodness. Unlike Smith, I think this proves humanity is basically "fallen". (He thinks it means were basically good.) So yes, I agree, Oprah means well. So did Hitler. So, perhaps, did Trotsky. So what?

For whatever rhetoric is worth, Obama's message seems to be positioned, in contrast to Mrs. Clinton's, as more willing to reach across the aisle and cooperate with adversaries....

I agree entirely. Though I suspect Oprah also envisions herself as preaching something we on the right would agree with: I suspect she really thinks that if her candidate takes office, his goodness would be irresistible to political opponents.

When it doesn't happen, she'll probably grow to assume (as so many on the left end up doing) that our failure to be similarly impressed must then be a manifestation of ill will or bad character.

What about when Bush claimed to be a 'uniter, not a divider?'

First, not sure if you've heard me say this before (joking!) but I tend to think Bush has a number of left-leaning characteristics.

Second, ignoring that entirely, Bush isn't stigmatizing dissent by so saying. He could be interpreted (rightly so, considering his record*) as saying he's willing to come to mutually beneficial compromises -- not that everyone will magically agree with him when he takes office, or that he will magically heal all racial or religious differences, as Oprah is clearly implying.