Liberals and Progressives

The age-old question of "liberal" versus "progressive" prompted a reasonably reasonable post from Martin Peretz, and a surprisingly unreasonable (see Henry Farrell) one from Jacob Levy. I describe myself both ways, and thought I'd introspect a bit on my usage of the terms.

To me, "liberal" denotes a certain political philosophy whereas "progressive" is more like a political coalition. Certain strands of environmentalist thinking are, for example, pretty philosophically alien to my approach to politics, but we're still all part of the same progressive political coalition, opposed to a conservative political coalition that fights any and all restrictions on industry's ability to pollute. More generally, the evidence strongly suggests that the vast majority of people don't have anything resembling a coherent political philosophy. Nevertheless, many of these voters are consistent members of the progressive political coalition out of self-interest, reflex, demographic habit, whatever.

Comments

Resentment is the basis of most political philosophies and thus determines voting. Screw them, the them being fat cats, blacks hippies the French or whoever is the operative principal.

Both liberalism and Progressivism for the most part avoid pandering to such resentments and thus will always be in second place at best. If they do pander to resentment against say corporations or Wall Street, intentionally or un, they are quickly labeled as engaging in class warfare and can safely be ignored.

Posted by rapier | July 25, 2007 8:33 AM

MY distracts me from the substance of his post with the phrase, "demographic habit." I myself am habitually a gay white male lawyer in my 50's . . .

Posted by rea | July 25, 2007 8:54 AM

"One who calls himself a liberal is nowadays diversely called by others a traitor, coward, parlor-pink, eclectic, jelly-fish, a selfish or muddy thinker who wants both to have his cake and eat it, rationalist, skeptic, conservative, radical…. But there is unanimity of opinion on one thing, namely, that liberalism is essentially negative, paralytic, and disintegrative. It’s boasted open-mindedness is nothing more than axiological anemia.”

Leslie Page, “Liberalism, Dogmatism and Negativism”, "Journal of Social Philosophy", 5 (1940), p. 346.

Cited in John Gunnell, "The Descent of Political Theory", Chicago, 1993, p. 136.

Posted by John Emerson | July 25, 2007 9:00 AM

"Progressive" looks back to the reforming, good-government Progressives (often Republicans) of the early Twentieth Century, and also somewhat to the transient Progressive Party of 1948 or so, which is not necessarily a favorable model. Around 1968 I remember the word being used as a self-description by activist Democrats with somewhat socialist tendencies.

Besides escaping the liberal stigma produced by decades of ranting propaganda and smears, to me "progressive" seems more activist than "liberal" -- American liberals try to describe activist government by tweaking the vocabulary of classical (individual-freedom) liberalism, whereas progressives seem more to emphasize what government can do.

Posted by John Emerson | July 25, 2007 9:10 AM

Certain strands of environmentalist thinking are, for example, pretty philosophically alien to my approach to politics

This is only because you're biologically and ecologically illiterate. You associate the movement to protect biodiversity with a sentimental urge to preserve cute animals, and not with scientific consensus that maintenance of biodiversity is, in and of itself, important to the survival of the human species. In many ways, you're as scientifically ignorant as a poster on NRO's Planet Gore - the only difference is the much larger attention paid to global warming than to mass extinction and your unwillingness to believe in a massive international conspiracy among the scientific community to trick people into believing that anthropogenic climate change exists. The result is yet another uninformed centrist in the established media where an actual liberal should be, who is prone to throwing occasional childish little fits like these every now and then.

Posted by Christmas | July 25, 2007 9:28 AM

What I like about "progressive" is that it is a more difficult word to demonize than liberal. Nobody is against progress, just like nobody is against freedom. "Liberal" on the other hand smacks of permissiveness, coddling criminals, etc. Words matter, and we need to choose our words carefully.

Posted by Virginia | July 25, 2007 9:30 AM

What has made the word 'liberal' easy to demonize is the fact that liberals keep running away from it.

The word 'progressive' implies that progressives are the enlightened people on the side of progress, while the other side are a buch of knuckle draggers. This is exactly the sort of elitism that liberals need to avoid like the plague.

Posted by RC | July 25, 2007 10:00 AM

The word 'progressive' implies that progressives are the enlightened people on the side of progress, while the other side are a buch of knuckle draggers. his is exactly the sort of elitism...

It's not elitism as much as it's whipping up resentment and spite against the other side. So that voters who can't be compelled to vote for the Democrats can at least be encouraged to vote against the "knuckle draggers."

Unless you have a moral problem with that sort of thing.

Posted by Tyro | July 25, 2007 10:20 AM

I agree with RC. Putting aside the historical legacy of the two terms, "progressive" is obnoxiously orwellian in the same way (although not to the same extent) as "The Patriot Act." "Liberal" is only a term of abuse because we allow it to be. We need to win arguments, not hide from them with semantics.

Posted by Led | July 25, 2007 10:32 AM

" What has made the word 'liberal' easy to demonize is the fact that liberals keep running away from it."

I absolutely agree that Democrats should fight to rehabilitate the word "liberal" and not shy away from embracing it. What I don't understand is why we're expected to use only one word to describe our political affiliation.

The word "progressive" has a straightforward historical meaning. It's a political alignment in favor of good-government reforms and labor rights, and opposed to military adventurism. "Liberalism" is a word that has been co-opted by so many philosophical and political movements over the years as to be almost devoid of meaning without a modifier.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 25, 2007 10:38 AM

"Liberal" is only a term of abuse because we allow it to be. We need to win arguments, not hide from them with semantics.

Liberalism is a loaded word that only has the meaning I think you have attributed to it in the U.S. (and even here it's fuzzy).

I think it's useful to have a word for the Tom Friedman, Joe Klein, etc.. of the world and because they are liberals especially in the worst sense of liberalism: "open mindedness" by way of argument by golden means fallacy, you need a term to seperate these people out and "liberal" works for me. They can have it.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 25, 2007 10:55 AM

But the worst "progressive" movement in American history was the one that coalesced around Franklin Roosevelt's deposed vice president and Harry Truman's deposed secretary of commerce, Henry Agard Wallace, who was a fool and very nearly a communist. In any case, most of his supporters were communists and thought Joseph Stalin a truly fine man.

What exactly was reasonable about that?!

That's why Marty Peretz is a liberal and I'm not.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 25, 2007 11:01 AM

Tyro, the problem is that while highly educated/secular/culturally cosmopolitan voters are a numerical minority, they’re disproportionately represented among cultural, mainstream media, and academic elites. Thus they’re especially prone to being subjects of resentment. A battle of competing resentments automatically favors conservatives, because of demographics.

Posted by RC | July 25, 2007 11:03 AM

Henry Agard Wallace, who was a fool and very nearly a communist.

Also Editor of the New Republic, so even if it was true Wallace wouldn't be the last one there.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 25, 2007 11:09 AM

Personally, RC, I've always felt that Democrats' biggest problem is their unwillingness/inability to exploit the "spite vote." Whether the "progressive" thing helps or hurts that is an open issue

But, in my mind, it's always the "liberal" who's the one acting, in Matt Taibbi's words, like the earnest civics teacher admonishing, "You can't just be destructive, you need to be constructive!" while losing over and over and over again.

And yes, it may seem odd that a term used by Henry Wallace might seem more "moderate," but such are the ironies of political language.

Posted by Tyro | July 25, 2007 11:13 AM

I might add that arguing against progressives is like arguing against the "rich and powerful." Because, after all, who wants to be (or admit) to being "poor and weak"? Who wants to admit to being against progress? "Progressive" is, like MattY says, a term that lends itself to coalition-building.

Posted by Tyro | July 25, 2007 11:18 AM

The age-old question of "liberal" versus "progressive" - Matt

I don't remember ever hearing this question before the 90s, after Reagan-Bush convinced everyone that liberals will let lesbians and Wille Horton rape your children.

Posted by Gary Sugar | July 25, 2007 12:01 PM

In my opinion, the terms "liberal" and "progressive" are increasingly meaningless (much like the term "conservative," it seems). I usually think of "progressive" as a word that people have latched on to in order to avoid the negative connotations of "liberal," much like the word "nuculer" replaced "nuclear" which had replaced "atomic" (the latter two words are synonyms, and the former is not even a word). The words themselves aren't the point; it's the associations.

I tend to label myself simultaneously as a "liberal" (everyone likes "liberty") and a "progressive" ("progress" is usually a good thing, right?), but most (young) people I talk politics with don't really care about the nominal differences. The real question is left v. right (which far predates the "liberal" v. "conservative" divide), and even the terms "left" and "right" are inherently nonsensical.

Posted by SGEW | July 25, 2007 12:18 PM

"liberal" (everyone likes "liberty")

Liberal is derived from liberalis, which meant generous or courteous, not from libertas. It is possible that way way back liberalis was derived from liber (free); but the Old French and Old English words in between liberalis and liberal also meant generous.

Anyway, I'm glad that liberal has always meant what I say it means - generous to the underdog.

Posted by Gary Sugar | July 25, 2007 2:40 PM

But the worst "progressive" movement in American history was the one that coalesced around Franklin Roosevelt's deposed vice president and Harry Truman's deposed secretary of commerce, Henry Agard Wallace, who was a fool and very nearly a communist. In any case, most of his supporters were communists and thought Joseph Stalin a truly fine man.

What exactly was reasonable about that?!

What exactly about it is untrue?

Posted by DRR | July 26, 2007 8:17 AM