POSTMODERN WHIGGISM IS INVESTED WITH CONTRARY TENDENCIES CRISES OR NO CRISES

For those who see history as back and forth between crises in a quasi eternal back and forth, or of crisis, decline, and fall, there is also the opposing view, of classic progressive liberalism, which sees no real crises in the past, not even real decline, but merely transitions, however bumpy at times, toward a universal global upland utopia in Heaven.

That was the view of Augustine, after the sack of Rome, in 410.

It could not be blamed on the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity, as so many Romans, both christians and pagans, understandably believed.

Pagan cults had been suppressed only in 391, 20 years, precisely one generation before.

In his wake, the Dark Ages became a transition, not a return to prehistoric conditions, mostly peaceable and progressive, gradually tending toward the Renaissance, itself not really a major turning point but merely a still greater floruit of classical and medieval events already advancing forward and upward.

And then there are those who can combine elements of both of these contrary views in one theory of history. 

There are crises, but there are really not. 

There are cycles upward, so it is really all good. 

The bad South was defeated by the good North, the Radical Republicans, with negro suffrage, were well ahead of their time, enlightened despots, real progressives! 

This was all good, in hindsight, and in the end. Augustinian, really.