This is another diary on the whole Core Values debate, inspired by discussions with fellow Democrats and Kos's own views on this subject. One of the more interesting comments on Kos' second post comes from cvcobb01:
These are NOT our core values, they are key applications of of our core values. The unifying thread between them is so obvious and so simple that I don't think the Democratic Party will ever see it: it is Liberalism.
A longer post on the definition on liberalism is
here.
I think cvcobb01 does a decent job of defining liberalism, but I have yet to see anything for progressivism. Contrary to popular belief, I don't see progressivism as a synonym for liberal. Progressivism is a movement and way of life distinct from liberalism.
More on the flip.
Whereas liberalism is a belief inherently concerned with the defense of individual liberty, progressivism is, as its name suggests, concerned with progress. The Wikipedia defintion:
Political Progressivism or simply Progressivism is an ideology and political philosophy whose adherants promote policies that they believe would reform a country's government, economy, or society. As a broad characterization of political leanings, political progressivism can not be classified as left or right, for it may be applicable to any side, as long as the platfrom is reformist. Progressives around the world today are found in a diverse range of poltical movements that include conservatives, environmentalists, liberals, and socialists.
It also has its own history, movement, heros, and parties:
In the United States, the term progressive can be traced back to the Progressive Era of the early 20th Century, when certain politicians (see Theodore Roosevelt, Bull-Moose Republicans, and the United States Progressive Party) and civilians pushed for better working conditions for the average worker, better living conditions for the poor, the cleaning up of corruption in politics, environmental conservation and other issues.
Richard Hofstadter, in
The Age of Reform noted that the Progressive Movement was in some sense, an extension of the Populist Movement of an earlier time which had as one of its heros, William Jennings Bryan. It's here that progressivism differs substantially from liberalism. As you might recall, Bryan was remarkably socially conservative and argued in the Scopes Monkey Trial against the teaching of evolution. This wasn't an aberration either. Progressives often supported measures to strengthen "public morality," that is, the ban of alcohol. Hardly a liberal thing to do.
Yet while this intrusion into the personal lives of people would turn off most of us off--the alcohol ban alone would lose you support on every college campus--I think it's this quality that actually makes progressivism a much more viable way of life than liberalism for Democrats.
Why? The short answer is just that. Progressivism is a way of life. Liberalism is not. At least part of the GOP's success over the past few years has been its mobilization of social conservatives. Social conservatism (the GOP version at least) not only tells people how to vote, it tells them how to live their personal lives. Not only should voting reflect Judeo-Christian values, one's personal life should as. The more agnostic among us might find this a little repulsive, but it's a powerful force. It rallies the troops because questions of policy become questions of personal belief (a vote on abortion rights is a vote on whether your daughter should have an abortion) and gives strength in the midst of defeat (even if we lose the election, by doing X,Y, and Z, we shall be redeemed in our personal lives).
Liberalism offers no such alternative. Its view of your personal life is to do whatever the heck you want. Fine and dandy for those who can, but when your life is collapsing around you because you can't control your kids, society is changing, and you've just lost your job, the last thing you want to hear is "do whatever the heck you want." More likely, people are saying that they'll do anything if there's the promise of a better life. Social conservatism is attractive to these people beacuse it offers a vision of salvation and purpose. It offers not only a set of policy options but a way of life that people can turn to between elections. Brad Carson hints at this in his TNR article on voting righteously (subscription only):
As a defeated Senate candidate in the most red of red states, many people have asked me for insights into the Democratic Party's failure to connect with culturally conservative voters. Much has already been written on this topic, and scholars will add more. But I do know this: The culture war is real, and it is a conflict not merely about some particular policy or legislative item, but about modernity itself. Banning gay marriage or abortion would not be sufficient to heal the cultural gulf that exists in this nation. The culture war is about matters more fundamental still: whether nationality is, in a globalized world, a random fact of no more significance than what hospital one was born in or whether it is the source of identity and even political legitimacy; whether one's self is a matter of choice or whether it is predetermined, before birth, by the cultural membership of one's family; whether an individual is just that--a free-floating atom--or whether the individual is part of a long chain that both predates and continues long after any particular person; whether concepts like honor and shame, which seem so quaint, are still relevant in a world that values only "tolerance." These are questions not for politicians but for philosophers, and, in the end, it is the failure of liberal philosophy that we saw on November 2.
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That's why I see progressivism as a much better counter to conservatives than liberalism. It is better placed to make statements on how life should be lived and demonstrate to America that the left cares not only about policies but also the lives of actual people.
Unfortunately, progressivism is way out of date. One of its last major leaders, Teddy Roosevelt, was obsessed with "manliness." My goal with this diary is to lay out a new progressivism, both in terms of policy, talking points, "core values," and a way of life. I'm hoping that this new progressivism will be able to reconcile beliefs about personal life with traditional Democratic positions on the environment, abortion, gay marriage, etc. I can't break that promise however, and I'll probably take a few stances that might piss off a few folks here, but I'm interested in the discussion.
Some vaguely titled upcoming posts:
- Challenges for our times
- The "good society"
- The meaning of life
- Open-source applied to life
- Breaking down barriers
- Learning from the business community
- Democracy as a way of life
This is my first diary by the way, so thanks for any comments or advice!
