I just discovered from The Nation that I’m definitely not a progressive:
Simply put, those who believe that a primary responsibility of government is to try to make the world a more just place—to help those with less power against those with a lot—are progressives.
I never heard such an idea before. Even for my Marxist friends, this is too much out there, I believe. (Please correct me if I’m wrong, Marxist friends.)
How progressive is this idea, though? When I think of a government whose PRIMARY goal is to bring something as vague as justice to the entire world, I immediately think of Bush Jr.’s rhetoric of wanting to make the whole planet “more free” because that is what his religion mandates. Does the true progressive favor interventionism?
And again, if this is the government’s most important role, then I guess the idea is that all domestic problems are put on a back burner while our government chases around the world for an elusive vision of universal justice? How progressive is that, exactly?
As for progressivism being about the desire to “help those with less power against those with a lot,” once again, the idea is too vague for me even to know if I support it or not. How do we measure power? Power in which areas? How can we help somebody AGAINST somebody else? This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me on the simplest level of grammar.
I happen to have a very literal mind that relies heavily on the dictionary meanings of words, so for me “progressive” means,
favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, especially in political matters.
I believe that the world changes every second and human beings are in a constant process of transformation, which is a fantastic thing. This is why social relations, the laws, the customs, the ways of life should also be open to change and transformation. Since this is what I believe, I can’t imagine a single most important role of the government that would be set in stone once and for all.
What bothers me a lot is the substitution of a genuinely progressive discourse with this wishy-washy feel-good rhetoric that is, ultimately, completely meaningless. I have no idea how one can hope to achieve anything politically if one defines one’s own political movement in these vague but pretty terms of justice, freedom, less power, more power, the family values, the haves and the have nots, etc. Ask anybody whether they want justice and, irrespective of their political persuasion, they will tell you they do. The problem is that people define justice in very different ways.
I also find it annoying that progressives are buying into this Libertarian idea that the central conflict of politics is the role of the government. It is getting to the point where I want to scream every time I hear the word government. This substitution of what we believe with what figures of authority are likely or willing to do is both childish and impotent. Before we proceed to elect the officials who will do our will, we should first define what our will actually is. The articulation of one’s political credo should begin with one’s own convictions and one’s own role, not with what the authorities should do. Otherwise, we get what we are seeing in the political discourse that dominates this country these days, namely, a conflict between “Daddy is too strong and scary” and “Daddy is too weak and cheats on Mommy.”
The definition of progressivism I quoted at the beginning of this post is created along the model of “My politics consist of wanting somebody else to do something I’m too lazy even to define with any specificity.” If progressivism is truly about “advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform,” then it makes sense for progressives to start with changing, improving or reforming ourselves.