Review: Progressive Myths

Review of "Progressive Myths" by Michael Huemer

If you believe women earn significantly less than men for the same work, that wealth is mostly inherited, or that DEI actions improve academia, you will not like this book. You’ll be predisposed to hating it, then wanting to discredit it. But what if - what if - it’s you who should change your mind, or at least moderate your views, assuming you think it’s important that your beliefs are based on facts?

This reminded me of a quote from climate scientist Ken Caldeira that’s stuck with me:

We see others holding onto demonstrably false beliefs as the cost of admission into their tribe.

What are the demonstrably false beliefs that I am holding onto as the cost of admission into my tribe?

As someone who prides himself on being as facts-driven as humanly possible, and broadly center-left to the extent such binary classifications are a thing, reading Michael Huemer’s methodical dismantling of progressive sacred cows was a bit confronting. The kind of confronting that makes you want to close the book and find reasons why it’s wrong.

Huemer tackles everything from the gender pay gap to wealth inheritance, from DEI programs in academia to climate statistics. His approach is methodical, heavily referenced, and pretty effective at complicating narratives many have accepted without much scrutiny. Things like the cherished IAT (Implicit Association Test) take a beating; evidence he presents against that is fascinating and, to borrow Ben Goldacre’s book title, I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.

The book is clearly written for a US audience, which means some issues are either less relevant or less strongly held by progressives globally. For us in the rest of the world, discussions about “racist drug laws” or specific American crime cases hold somewhat limited relevance. More problematically, when Huemer tackles genuinely complex topics like climate change or pandemic responses, the treatment feels rushed compared to his relatively more detailed explorations - the case of Michael Brown gets an equal number of pages to existential climate risk. You can’t do climate science justice in a few pages - though importantly, his points here aren’t about whether climate change is real or human-caused, but about specific statistics that have been misrepresented or over-claimed.

To his credit, he never takes the polar opposite view of the myths - just introduces enough questions and evidence to make one understand that many of these issues can be matters of reasonable disagreement, and this is the most significant accomplishment of this book: shifting many issues from “obviously correct progressive position” to “reasonable disagreement territory.”

The data Huemer presents won’t always be compelling enough to completely flip your views, but it’s often compelling enough to moderate them - or, at the very least, hopefully make you more humble about what you think you know, or allow you to think of the “other side” (framing that’s also problematic) more generously.

I’m certainly now more nuanced about some positions I previously held with more confidence, and that uncertainty feels right.

Huemer also makes an important observation: political beliefs differ from other beliefs because the personal cost of being wrong is essentially zero. Wrong about which supermarket has better prices? You’ll know soon enough. Wrong about complex policy? You’ll likely never face direct consequences, which means there is less incentive for rigorous truth-seeking, and you will therefore give more space for tribal signaling and pressure to conform. That applies regardless of your tribe.

We should be able to discuss even difficult issues like DEI and transgenderism without either defending all aspects uncritically or dismissing all concerns as bad-faith attacks. In private discussions with people, I have found that many people tend to agree with this; the problem are the attacks that happen when any diverging views are taken public. Our society currently seems to suck at respectful public debates about our disagreements.

You’re not going to agree with all of Huemer’s points or interpretations. I didn’t. You may not change your mind on any specific issue. But unless you come away with a more complete, nuanced, and - I would argue - “less wrong” understanding of at least some of the topics covered, you’re not being honest with yourself or with the data.

There are reactions one can have to books like this. If you think there are no progressive myths and everything in that ideology is backed by solid data, you’re deluding yourself. If you approach it determined to debunk everything, refer back to Caldeira’s quote - you’re precisely the person holding demonstrably false beliefs as the cost of admission, and you’ll feel just fine about it. Huemer correctly pointed out something that we know from research into cults and conspiracy theories:

“if you’re clever enough, you can rationalize nearly any ideological
belief in the face of nearly any body of evidence.”

If you value intellectual honesty over tribal loyalty, if you’re willing to question whether your beliefs are held because they’re true or because they grant admission to your preferred group, read it. Just don’t expect comfort. And recognize that discomfort might be the point.

• Rating: 4+ out of 5

• Dog-ear index: 5.4

• Who is it for: People who value data over dogma and willing to have their progressive assumptions challenged and able to approach it without engaging in motivated reasoning.

[reminder: I highlight important parts of the books I read, and dog-ear the really important pages. The dog-ear index is simply the average number of dog-eared pages per 100 pages]

Product link for reference only; please support your local bookstore where possible: https://www.amazon.com.au/Progressive-Myths-Michael-Huemer/dp/B0DFG98588

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Ps. In his introduction, Huemer anticipates the obvious objection: why write a book only about progressive myths - what about conservative ones? While that would reek of whataboutism and would thus be a weak argument to begin with, he noted four good reasons:

• First, one book can only cover so much ground, and progressive myths provided more than enough material. This is a very fair point.
  

• Second, the right-wing myths he’s encountered (stolen elections, climate change denial) haven’t struck him as particularly persuasive or sophisticated - they seemed to need less debunking because they’re more obviously false. Also a very fair point.
  

• Third, he’s specifically concerned about progressive ideology’s impact on American institutions. I’m a bit 🤷‍♂️ about this.
  

• Fourth - and most relevant to his framing - the left has captured America’s cultural institutions: academia, arts, media, corporate HR, major tech companies. Rightists only control roughly half of government. Therefore, Huemer argued, “assuming the right does not bring down democracy in the short term“, in the long run it’s the left that poses the greater threat, as it’s their ideas being taught to future generations.

That last point aged...interestingly. The book was written around 2023-2024, and here we are in 2025 watching the American right actively dismantling their democracy in ways that sadly make Huemer’s hopeful assumption look wrong. Right now, it is the right that is the bigger threat. Turns out short-term threats can escalate faster than long-term cultural capture can consolidate. The irony is that both can be true simultaneously: progressive ideology may have problems worth examining and the immediate threat to democratic institutions may be coming from elsewhere entirely.