In the discussion of my earlier diary in this series, "Why is it so complicated to be a progressive?", fladem wrote:
Frankly
this doesn't help me. I think it intentionally evades some key issues.
Are Progressives socialists, or perhaps more accurately social democrats? If so, why are these terms being avoided?
This made me realize that I haven't done a good enough job of articulating what I'm trying to do. And if I want to be successful--particularly since I see this as necessarily a group process that I'm organizing and initiating--then making the purpose clear is of utmost importance. So let me give you a quick description, and then try to flesh it out enough to have a meaningful discussion about it.
Basically, what I'm trying to do here is not to arbitrarily include some people out and some people in. I'm trying to herd cats, as it were. (The secret to herding cats? Fish!) I want to find a rational way to include as many people as possible not by resolving all our differences, but by finding a good enough (not perfect) principled framework that allows us to continue working together even as we disagree with one another in various different ways. (Our differences, properly dealt with, are a productive resource rather than an impediment.) I do have particularly strong problems with certain groups and tendencies--the neo-liberal third "Third Way" most particularly--but it's my intention that by getting to fundamental principles we can discern a framework through which those in that group--as well as any others--can choose individually and collectively if they are with us or against us, rather than issuing a blank edict.
In Don't Think of An Elephant, George Lakoff wrote:
From the point of view of a cognitive scientist, who looks at modes of thought, there are six basic types of progressives, each with a distinct mode of thought. They share all the progressive values, but are distinguished by some differences.1. Socioeconomic progressives think that everything is a matter of money and class and that all solutions are ultimately economic and social class solutions.
2. Identity politics progressives say it is time for their oppressed group to get its share now.
3. Environmentalists think in terms of sustainability of the earth, the sacredness of the earth, and the protection of native peoples.
4. Civil liberties progressives want to maintain freedoms against threats to freedom.
5. Spiritual progressives have a nurturant form of religion or spirituality, their spiritual experience has to do with their connection to other people and the world, and their spiritual practice has to do with service to other people and to their community. Spiritual progressives span the full range from Catholics and Protestants to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Goddess worshippers, and pagan members of Wicca.
6. Anti-authoritarians say there are all sorts of illegitimate forms of authority out there and we have to fight them, whether they are big corporations or anyone else.
All six types are examples of nurturant parent morality. The problem is that many of the people who have one of these modes of thought do not recognize that theirs is just one special case of something more general, and do not see the unity in all the types of progressives. They often think that theirs is the only way to be a true progressive. That is sad. It keeps people who share progressive values from coming together. We have to get past that harmful idea. The other side did.
Back in the 1950s conservatives hated each other. The financial conservatives hated the social conservatives. The libertarians did not get along with the social conservatives or the religious conservatives.
And many social conservatives were not religious.
I'll return to the conservatives briefly later on. For now, I want to look at what Lakoff said about progressives.
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| The point he makes is a very important one--though I must say that it's hard for me to grasp in a way, because I was fortunate enough to born and raised at an intersection of all the above. My parents were social democrats, with a diverse range of mostly more-radical great aunts and uncles and grandparents. There were plenty of strong women to make me an inherent enemy of patriarchy, there was plenty black culture to add a humanist depth to my parents political commitment to civil rights, and I was raised as a Unitarian. Not only did this give me easy entry into all the progressive spiritual traditions, without hang-ups over the differences in texts and dogmas, it also exposed me to the Unitarian's patron saints Emerson and Thoreau, which pretty much covered the basic historical foundations of environmentalism, civil liberties, and anti-authoritarianism.
Because of this background, I can intellectually understand disagreements between the different sorts of progressives that Lakoff identifies, but in my gut, I can never really feel them. They are inherently all facets of the same thing for me--all facets of where I come from, and what I am. I can understand how people aligned with one particular facet might see my allegiance to all of them as weakening my allegiance to their facet. But my own lived experience tells me the opposite is true.
That need not always be the case, of course, but I know that it can be. What makes the either/or logic more compelling are outside factors--such as the legislative logic that dominates Washington, and most state and local seats of government as well. The more that issues are defined by specific legislative proposals, and the less they're defined by deep values and broadly shared struggle, the more compelling an either/or logic will become--which in turn makes it more difficult for progressives of all sorts to realize their goals. And of course, the more difficult legislative progress is, the more that logic will pit people against one another.
Matters are then made even worse by self-styled "pragmatists" who make a virtue of cleverly selling out first one faction, then another, all in the name of "getting things done." In this manner, a strange kind of single-issue "radicalism" and no-issue "pragmatism" combine to produce a kind of faux "progressivism" that very few outside of Versailles would would voluntary identify with. And yet, because of how our institutions and political practices have evolved--epitomized by Barack Obama's presidency and his own private "movement" (OFA)--many people buy into this faux progressivism as if it were the best thing imaginable.
Lakoff on Pragmatism
Lakoff also provides some insight into the workings of such pragmatism at a fundamental conceptual level. But for this, we need to go back to Moral Politics, in which he describes how different forms of self-interest emerge as variants in both conservative and the liberal moral models. He calls this the "Pragmatic-Idealistic" dimension. He first discusses this in the chapters devoted to each, but later provides a succinct overview. First he talks about the conservative manifestation:
The conclusion of this passage is particularly important, because it underscores the degree to which the logic conservative ideology limits the even how so-called "pragmatists" can stray. This is not to say that such limits always work, of course. After all, ideologies can be loudly affirmed in word on the one hand, while being utterly ignored in deed on the other. And such inconsistencies are demonstrably more common on the right. Yet, the fact remains that they are working against a underlying convergent logic.
Things are quite different on the liberal/progressive side:
For me, at least, rereading this passage--whose exact words I haven't read in years--brought a shock of recognition. It's hard to imagine a more perfect characterization of Obama's political center of gravity than this description of pragmatic liberalism--for example, when he spoke of the tragedy of Gaza in terms of Palestinians not being able to start their own businesses. His concern was heartfelt, like a Ferengi quoting the 34th Law of Acquisition: "Peace is good for business."
And yet, though he would not openly speak the 35th Law of Acquisition ("War is good for business"), he nonetheless accepts the curious logic that war is how one gets to peace--any decade century now.
So what's going on here? On the one hand, Obama feels free to articulate the 34th Law--after all, it's a good liberal sentiment that even pragmatic conservatives can see the logic of. On the other hand, however, once one affirms self-interest as the summum bonum, then pragmatic liberals and both types of conservatives stand together as one, isolating idealistic liberals as DFHs. This is where Obama's logic is taking him, not just in terms of continuing Bush/Cheney's doomed war on terror, but all across the issue spectrum, sometimes more obviously, sometimes less.
One final very important point before I return to my titular theme: In a very different world, this alignment need not dominate as it does in our world today. The reason is quite simple: the breakup of the New Deal coalition and rise of the New Right changed everything in the political universe, including shifting notions of self-interest. In the sort of generally synergistic economy that dominated the post-WWII era up until 1973 or so, it was generally a simple matter of fact that it was in one's self-interest for others to do well, and this practical logic worked against the dynamic I've just described, pulling even pragmatic conservatives into the progressive direction.
But that shift in logic was just one part of a larger gestalt. As John Emerson has emphasized repeatedly, the Democratic Party leadership favored a form of interest group politics that gave everyone a piece, strengthening group leadership while keeping the masses divided. That hasn't changed--but its effectiveness has, as the Democratic-dominated New Deal Party/Fifth Party System gave way to the divided government Sixth Party System. The result is that a system that merely limited progressive power at its best has devolved into a system that is active aligned with the center-right as a junior partner. At the same time, conservatives "solved" the problem of their internal divisions by gaining legislative power and coordinating efforts through a variety of mechanisms such as Grover Norquist's Wednesday Meetings. Their dependency on political success, rather than rational reconciliation, was dramatically underscored by how they fell apart and repudiated George W. Bush following the 2006 elections, and by how fantasy narratives--particularly persecutorial and conspiratorial ones-have dominated their comeback since then.
Conclusion
So here, then, is my grand conclusion: There are at least two dimensions on which progressives are divided, and which require us to find ways of coming together that are grounded in common values. Tackling either dimension alone will not be enough. Yet, at the same time, it is not a matter of values alone, or of all that flows from them--such as coherent, compelling messaging. It also matters very much what sort of world we live in, and what sorts of institutions dominate it. For now we still live in a very conservative world, one dominated by countless micro-decisions being made mostly in a state of divided government, where those choices never had to gain majority support. And that world is crumbling because it simply cannot work.
Yet, that is the world in which Obama (and so many others like him in Democratic Versailles) grew up politically. It is the only world they know. More than a year ago, Kevin Baker put his finger on it, writing for Harpers in "Barack Hoover Obama: The best and the brightest blow it again", which bystander referenced in a comment recently. Baker's point was a subtle one, arguing that Hoover was far more intelligent and insightful than history now gives him credit for. He may well have understood the problems of the day better than FDR did. But he was unwilling and/or incapable of casting off the failed frameworks of the past--and Baker correctly identified Obama as the same:
Obama's failure would be unthinkable. And yet the best indications now are that he will fail, because he will be unable-indeed he will refuse-to seize the radical moment at hand.
Every instinct the president has honed, every voice he hears in Washington, every inclination of our political culture urges incrementalism, urges deliberation, if any significant change is to be brought about. The trouble is that we are at one of those rare moments in history when the radical becomes pragmatic, when deliberation and compromise foster disaster. The question is not what can be done but what must be done....
Much like Herbert Hoover, Barack Obama is a man attempting to realize a stirring new vision of his society without cutting himself free from the dogmas of the past-without accepting the inevitable conflict. Like Hoover, he is bound to fail....
More thoughts on this to come. But for now I conclude with the simple point that breaking with the broken order of things is absolutely crucial for us as part and parcel of creating a unified progressive movement. For it is the very logic of that world that is broken, and our movement is also broken to the extent it remains embedded in that broken world, rather than standing against it.
It's not just that another world is possible. It's also that this one is not.
This is not an answer to fladem's question that opened this diary. It is, however, a necessary prelude to answering it. It's about the context in which the question is raised, and the context in which we work out our answers. When terms like "socialist" and "social democrat" are more misunderstood than understood--and the same is true for "feminist", "environmentalist" and all sorts of other progressive terms--we have a lot of work cut out for us. |
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