After reading Ed Driscoll’s excellent column on nostalgic progressivism, I’m tempted to add my own two or three cents to the topic he broached.
Some thoughts:
Ed calls his article “The Paradox of the Nostalgic Progressive.” But it is only a paradox if we take the label “progressive” seriously in the first place. An unfortunate aspect of political debate is that we are saddled with vague, meaningless, often contradictory labels. Thus the term “right wing” can refer to Russell Kirk, Milton Friedman, Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, Irving Kristol, Ayn Rand, Osama bin Laden, and Lyndon LaRouche. The term “left wing” is more unified: it’s much easier to predict what someone’s political beliefs are when all you know about them is their identification as “left wing.” If we remove the forward-looking connotations of the word “progressive” and look instead at what progressives actually believe, the paradox disappears.
Ed writes, “Perhaps that’s one explanation why so many liberals, as they get up in years, have both a surprising nostalgia for the past, and a “you kids get off my lawn” crankiness about contemporary society.” First, I wouldn’t extend this critique to all liberals. I don’t know about others, but I draw a distinction between the words “liberal” and “progressive.” This distinction is often not made by the Left in general (e.g., progressives often refer to themselves as liberals and vice-versa), but it’s my own personal way of carving up the Left. A liberal is not opposed in principle to capitalism and Western civilization; they just want regulation and a welfare state. Progressives are hostile to the very idea of markets and thus to the idea of the West in general. Joe Lieberman, Ed Rendell, and Arthur Schlesinger are/were liberals; Naomi Klein is a progressive. All are considered to be on the “Left.”
So the phenomenon of the reactionary leftist is a phenomenon of the hard left, not of liberals (if you’re using my arbitrary terminology, that is). Nonetheless, this distinction aside, I don’t think this nostalgia is restricted to the aging Left. I think it’s pretty safe to say that the unifying theme of the progressive/hard Left, whether young or old, is an opposition to free enterprise (Occupy Wall Street is mostly young people). Thus they oppose the fruits of free enterprise as necessarily tainted. Thus they oppose modern technology and modern society. Thus they are reactionary. It’s obvious when you consider the range of their views: the developed West is evil; the primitive Third World is virtuous. Europeans stole Indian land; the Indians who murdered and pillaged other Indians before the Europeans were just practicing “their culture.” The Mahdi Army are freedom fighters; the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart are terrorists.
The recurring image in all these absurdities is that of the noble savage: the person untouched by modern capitalism.
Reactionary progressivism is therefore not a peculiar aberration but a redundancy: reactionary progressivism is progressivism. These people are conservative in the most literal sense. Oddly, it wasn’t always this way. Karl Marx was not a Luddite; he reserved harsh words for what he called “barracks communism”–the idea that communist society would involve a primitive existence of regimented communal living. Hard leftism until the 1950s was similarly hostile to primitivism. The eugenics movement prided itself on its dedication to technology and genetic science. Mao and Stalin, murderously anti-capitalist though they were, nevertheless spoke the language of modernization and industrialization.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the welfare office. Maybe it was the Frankfurt School’s push to shift the image of the proletariat from the white industrial worker to poor minorities. It suddenly became virtuous to push for primitive existence. Nowadays, the farther left you go, the more likely you are to bump up against someone who thinks we need a De-Industrial Revolution. The most extreme example is someone like John Zerzan, whose anarcho-primitivist movement seeks the destruction of all modern civilization and the adoption of a kind of vegan Robinson Crusoe existence.
My essential points are: (1) We ought always to distinguish between liberals and leftists/progressives; (2) progressives are always reactionary because of their views of capitalism.
Just my opinions. I could be wrong.
from The Trichotomy of Politics:
“The problem with most modern analyses of politics is that they are described as dichotomous and linear when they might be better depicted as trichotomous and three-dimensional. That is, instead of a linear left/right divide—with the good guys in the centre (or, as the mainstream media would insist, slightly left of centre) and extremists on either the far-left or the far-right, casting the extremists on both sides as most different from each other—a better picture of the political spectrum is a coloured, solid one (as a sphere or, even better, a dipyramidal hexahedron) of three main colours based mainly on the computer’s basic colours of red, blue and green, moving toward white at the top and black at the bottom.
“Red would comprise, for the most part, what is often termed the left, describing those who would give political authority to “the people”, particularly the workers or the proletariat . … Red politics, because of the supposed fraternity of the proletariat around the world, tend to be internationalist.
“Blue would comprise, for the most part, what is often termed the right, describing those who would give political authority to “the State”, particularly to institutions, such as the king or even the military forces, to represent the rule of law, abstract justice and market principles. Blue politics tend to be nationalist.
“Green would comprise those, such as the Greens or Islamic fundamentalists, who would give political authority to their god—Allah, for instance, or Gaia or the Awesome Majesty of the Forests—, and who would subordinate all human decision making to obeying the authorised and authoritarian hierarchs of the one true religion. Green politics, because of the various gods’ supposed unicity and universality, tend to be supranationalist.
“Between these three main colours are, of course, myriad mixed hues.”
Every sort of belief, of course, can have its conservative or radical sides. Conservative Marxists and activist Tories can always be found.
Deadman,
I like that fact that you question the conventional labels. I have always thought that they were very lacking. America is by it’s founding, a liberal country. The term conservative doesn’t really belong here in America. I would guess that at the time of the founding, conservative meant that we should remain part of England.
The one way that the word conservative is useful is if one recognizes the importance of institutions, like schools, churches, charities, hospitals, and of course government. I’m not sure if Americans think this way. I believe they should. If the college I went to didn’t do such a pitiful job of giving me and my fellow students an education, I might be able to say more about this. (I got very good grades and learned nothing important about history or government) As it is, I am playing catch up later in life, which is the only way to really learn, that is, on your own. Our schools, to a large degree, do not teach people how to think and learn, they teach them what to think. There a good schools, they appear to be the exception. The most important thing I learned in college is that way too many academics are posers and that if you simple read and research, you will be much smarter than the average bear.
I think the term liberal is aptly applied to the people we now call conservatives. That is people that want to ‘conserve’ the (liberal) American founding. Liberal means free, as in the word liberty. Liberals believe in freedom, that is ‘liberal’ in the classical sense of the word.
Americans value freedom, that is;
Freedom of Speech
Freedom of Religious Expression (within the rule of law)
Freedom to bear arms
Freedom to engage in economic activity without interference from the government (within the rule of law)
And many other ideas like; the rule of law, private property rights……….
The political Left does not value these things, although they would never admit it. They are authoritarian. They seek to control.
This is where I disagree with your analysis. You say:
“Red would comprise, for the most part, what is often termed the left, describing those who would give political authority to “the people”, particularly the workers or the proletariat . … Red politics, because of the supposed fraternity of the proletariat around the world, tend to be internationalist.
I have to assume you have been influenced or you are referring to a Marxist point of view when you say; “describing those who would give political authority to “the people”, particularly the workers or the proletariat . …”
This form of government you does not exist. When you say “give authority to “the people” the way that always has worked out, is that you give all authority to “The Workers Party”. This is totalitarianism. The opposite of liberal. This idea by the way is responsible the deaths of 100,000,000 that is, one hundred million innocent civilians. That is probably more or roughly equal to the number of people killed in all of the wars in history put together.
The reason ‘liberals’ (that is the modern progressives) like the term is because they are, in fact, anything but that. (liberal)
When you speak of the Blue, you say:
“Blue would comprise, for the most part, what is often termed the right, describing those who would give political authority to “the State”, particularly to institutions, such as the king or even the military forces, to represent the rule of law, abstract justice and market principles. Blue politics tend to be nationalist.
This is the type of conservatism that I claim is not meaningful when discussing American politics. America is founded on limited governmental power and a system of checks and balances. When I spoke of institutions earlier, what I had in mind was that, government should recognize the importance of these institutions and not interfere with their functioning. (not the military, that is different) and should enact policies that protect and ensure their health.
As for the Islamist fundamentalist theocracies, they can go to hell. I have Muslim freinds that feel the same way.
An editors note to my comment above:
When I said, “When I spoke of institutions earlier, what I had in mind was that, government should recognize the importance of these institutions and not interfere with their functioning. (not the military, that is different) and should enact policies that protect and ensure their health.
I absolutely did not mean that the government should give money to these types of institutions. This is a way that the government can gain control.
I also think it is important to note that the left, that is the authoritarian left, seeks to control, therefore, they gravitate to positions of power. The traditional American, does not seek to control and finds politics distasteful.
American is now at time in history where we must wrestle control away from those who seek to dominate us.
GLad more people are writing and talking about this. I posted last May:
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2011/05/22/liberals-are-the-true-conservatives/
Liberals are the true conservatives. The Founders were the true Progressives.
The rest is revisionist history.
I agree that American conservatives tends to be true liberals in valuing freedom.
I shall add etymologically thereto: a liberal does not just desire liberty—from the Latin, libertas—but also values and wishes to protect books—libri—and children—liberi.
I thank you for your thoughtful response.
I agree that, in the American context Conservatism (in the British sense) hardly relates, but as I suggested before, there can be conservatives (those who value and wish to preserve what already exists) in all political hues—just consider your typical, old-fashioned Communist union official who, though firmly committed (in words) to the socialisation of the means of production, also remains firmly committed (in actions) to conserve all he and his comrades have.* There were conservative Nazis in the early ’thirties, who detested wanton aggression whilst accepting the perverted philosophy of obedience to the State, who had little in common with the radical bullies who were just as happy to join a communist gang if it meant that they were the ones to give orders.
A conservative wishes to conserve: a conservative environmentalist, say, who has an honest, principled desire to conserve the wilderness is often closer to the cast of mind of opposing, conservative forestry workers in temperament than he is to the radical greenies who vandalise the logging equipment because they have some vague notion of destroying capitalism whilst also irrationally romanticising the grubby subsistence of the noble savage.
An essential part of my proposal of a three-dimensional representation of political dimensions is the brightness/darkness axis. The more any of the three primary groups favour personal liberties and the minimum of government intervention, the brighter they are and the less their differences are discernible. Similarly, the closer any person of green, blue or red hue supports authoritarianism the darker and more similar they are. Under my proposed political colour chart, Stalin’s red was so dark (as the worst Tories were darkest blue and Islamists are darkest green), that they were nearly black and virtually indistinguishable.
* Mike and Psmith, by P.G. Wodehouse, chap. 2:
“I’ve just become a socialist [says Psmith]. It’s a great scheme. You ought to be one. You work for the equal distribution of property, and start by collaring all you can and sitting on it.”
Twas not always thus. The left went retro when the USSR collapsed. They correctly recognized that it was the technological/economic superiority of capitalism that left the USSR in a shambles. That’s what they want to destroy now.
Progressives are the tyrants. Liberals are their useful idiots.
My State of Washington just got rid of a tyrant. She was from Chicago and was hired to run the schools, or some such. Of course, patronage and other corruption followed. So they threw her out, and she was stunned.
You see, they vote heavily Dem here, but they really believe all this claptrap, and they are mostly decent folks. That means the hard-core Left have to watch their step around here, because these folks still share many of the old values of how to behave in polite society.
Yeah, the folks around here are not Useful Idiots. They are the Useless Idiots.
You’re right about the labels. In my mind, your liberals are my Progressives – with a capital “P” – because I feel like their agenda is identical with that of the late-19th/early-20th centur Progressive party. It’s easier for me to believe that the Progressive party never really went away. It just merged with the Democrats. Over the years, the Progressive influence on the Democrat party has gotten stronger until today, the Democrat agenda is essentially Progressive.
On the other hand, your “small-p” progressives are my socialists or communists. Unfortunately, socialists and communists do refer to themselves as progressives in an effort to blend in with your liberals/my Progressives. They have succeeded to the extent that we now consider them the far-left wing of the Democrat party.
“The term “left wing” is more unified”
…if you are American. Outside the USA, “the left” included, in the last few decades, both communists and free-market reformers (in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Italy, and probably other places I am not aware of)
After giving this issue much thought over the last 10 years, I have provisionally come to this conclusion:
***before ww2***
Right and Left were words with no ideological implications: they indicated nothing more than the party of the ruling class, and all those opposed to the ruling class, respectively.
The ruling class could, and did, adopt any ideology to legitimize itself; thus, the Right did not have any fixed ideology.
A fortiori, the Left, being the set of all ideologies opposed to the ideology of the ruling class, was not a unified ideology. Roughly speaking, the Left included both libertarians and revolutionary socialists.
(NB: both the Tea Party and OWS belong to the Left by this definition, which just goes to show that the words are not ideological.)
***after ww2***
the words “right” and “left” have been used only for propaganda purposes.
By and large, only fools and charlatans use these words.
That’s an interesting analysis. I’m not the expert but it seems to make sense.
One reason I tend to think of the Democratic left as Progressives is that I think it helps understand them better. If you think of their agenda as beginning back in the late 19th/early 20th century, and that they’ve been pushing basically the same reforms for the last hundred years, you can see how they still think of themselves as “progressive” and everyone else as “reactionary.” They’ll continue to see themselves this way until every item on the Progressive agenda has been attained. Then they really will be the Establishment – but they’ll consider themselves the Progressive establishment, which of course will be ok. The status quo is fine as long as the right people are in charge.
On the other hand if, like us, you believe the Progressives gained political and cultural dominance around the time of FDR or Johnson, and that our government and many aspects of society operate on Progressive principles, then it’s easier to see them as the status quo party who are resisting change – i.e., the reactionaries or the right.
It’s all very confusing.
Actually, modern progressives are not quite the same as those of a century ago, particularly in their attitudes to war and to race. But there is a clear continuity, which is proven by the fact that modern progressives do not repudiate the pre-ww2 progressives. The way I see it, progressives rally behind whatever excuse they can find to expand the power of the State: war and racial segregation, or peace and affirmative action: it’s all the same to them.
BTW I was a bit too hard on the modern usage of “left/right”: it seems reasonable to use the words when referring to a particular country at a particular time, but I’d be very careful before dragging the French Revolution into a discussion of modern France, let alone the modern USA.
I guess you know in Europe, Milton Friedman is known correctly as a liberal. He refered to himself as libertarian because ,in the xix century the words conservative and liberal were interchanged in the anglosaxon world( The individual against the State, Spencer). Hayek said he was not a conservative but he was. he said he had more in common with Donoso Cortes than modern liberals( Of course, like with Hegel , there are two Donoso Cortes.The young liberal and the old conservative heir of Meistre and father of Schmitt).
So there are conservatives usually anti market and pro tradition, liberals also known as the new right( Like Mises I refuse to left other missuse the term), libertarians(the word means anarchist so let those hippies in suits been happy with their propot policies)and the left:socialists on the marxist vein, and non marxist: social democrats ( the objective enemy of the revolution), demochristian (or social christians like they are known n LA)comunist, anarchists.
BTW: nazi: Nacional Socialst Workers Party. Only Franco and Mussolini were right wingers
Mussolini started with the Italian Communist Party. His Fascist movement separated because he decided appealing to nationalism would work better than appealing to international “unity”. He also switched to subordinating capitalists to the state rather than simply eliminating them. Ultimately he remained very much a socialist.
Trust me, I’m aware of all of this. The point was to show that the term “right wing” is *used* in different, often contradictory ways, not that those usages are accurate.
Actually Mussolini was in the Italian Socialist Party. AFAIK there were no communist parties anywhere in the World when M. left the Socialists.
And btw who says that socialism is necessarily of the “left”? Tocqueville said that socialism is against all the ideals of the French Revolution: maybe it was a bit of hyperbole, but he did not seem to think that socialism is of the Left.
Mussolini himself (or his ghostwriter) wrote that fascism is of the “right”. (He wrote “right” with quotation marks in The Doctrine of Fascism.) But note what he meant to say: fascism is of the “right” because it is about authority, the collective, and the State. Fascism (M. wrote) is totally opposed to classical liberalism, which therefore is of the “left” by the standards of pre-ww2 Italy.
“Karl Marx was not a Luddite; he reserved harsh words for what he called “barracks communism”–the idea that communist society would involve a primitive existence of regimented communal living.”
Yes, but Marx was also clear that if a factory would let 1 worker do the work of 3, get rid of the factory and keep the other 2 workers employed.
It is hard not be wind up a Luddite with that principle active.
“The eugenics movement prided itself on its dedication to technology and genetic science.”
Except that eugenics itself was inherently a social theory, in direct contradiction to Darwin’s actual theory.
“Mao and Stalin, murderously anti-capitalist though they were, nevertheless spoke the language of modernization and industrialization.”
But their research programs had to be based on “proper” socialist scientific principles. Stalin wasted decades supporting Lysenkoism over legitimate genetic science, and Mao executed or “re-educated” most of the scientists in China.
They may have talked the talked the talk, but they limped and stumbled the walk.
Progressives believe in progress. They accuse you of wanting to “turn back the clock” while telling you to “get on the right side of history.”
A progressive’s view of history is that nothing ever really changes but that scientific knowledge is always advancing toward the complete and ultimate truth, that technology is continually making life easier and better, and that manners are growing ever more tolerant.
A real conservative may also be a liberal of a sort, but he can never be a progressive.