Social progress today involves unwinding Progressive Era reforms to a surprising extent, from the bureaucratization of science and academia, to the explosion in private rights of action, to the process-laden civil service, to the accreditation monopolies in medicine and law, etc.

Interestingly, the people who think this way often sound like Progressive Era reformers themselves. They value state capacity, science and technology, speed and competence, and loath corruption, complacency, and backward thinking. A fair number are even teetotalers.

One resolution is to see both as essentially right for their time and place. If 19th c. progressives were reincarnated, far from defending the status quo they'd be horrified at its degeneration and insist on remaking institutions to match the needs of this, not the last century.