(This excellent diary brings a great deal more depth to our understanding of what the term "progressive" means historically, and then shows how that accurate historical understanding illuminates deeper problems with Nate Silver's recent simplistic dichotomization. Lot's to think about here, folks! - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
This is a belated follow-up to Paul and David's critiques of Nate Silver's "Rationalist vs. Radical" progressivism. The dichotomies Silver laid out include:
Rationalist vs. Radical
Empirical vs. Normative
Sees politics as a battle of ideas vs. Sees politics as a battle of wills
Technocratic vs. Populist
Prone to elitism vs. Prone to demagoguery
Prone to co-optation vs. Difficult to organize
Optimistic vs. Pessimistic
Conversational vs. Action Oriented
The ensuing discussion focused mostly on how progressives think, or frame the world. I want to look, instead, at something different and potentially more important: how progressives have historically conceptualized ACTION.
In ongoing historical work towards a book I'm calling Social Class, Social Action, and the Failures of Progressive Democracy, I argue that there are actually three distinct forms of progressivism, all drawing from different interrelated aspects of middle-class culture: Administrative, Collaborative, and Personalist progressives. As with any categorizations, these have their own problems, but I think reflect key historical realities.
Not only do Silver's comparisons miss this three-fold complexity, but he also mixes in working-class models of social action as well.
After the jump I lay out these three different progressive camps, and then return to Silver's dichotomy, adding in the working-class influence as well. (This extends on some comments I made earlier) See my full series on "Core Dilemmas of Community Organizing" here.
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