"Progressive" is a Misnomer
I don't like as a term 'SJW' or 'Social Justice Warrior' because it feels too damn condescending. There's an intuitive part of me that doesn't like 'Woke' either where I can't accept that people would ever use it unironically and thus it also feels too condescending for dialogue. At the same time, these handles are descriptive, they have currency because they do a pretty good job of achieving communication between two parties where we know roughly who or what we are talking about in terms of a subscription to a loose cluster of policy positions and ideology.
GDP growth for example, might be considered progress. But probably not in and of itself, even though at base there's a fairly naive assumption unsupported by data that more consumption = more utility (the Economist conception of happiness). However, it may somewhat correlate to other indices like Human Development Indexes where it can be demonstrated that GDP growth predicts other positive developments.
The humility part involves avoiding the temptation to project a personal subjective notion of progress out onto the broad population. The integrity part is any progressive movement needs to resist special interest groups leaning on the process of interrogating the data, whether that's a multi-national energy lobbyist arguing that burning up fossil fuels delivers growth, or an activist addressing a minority issue arguing that the top priorities are sweeping reforms to make public infrastructure accessible to an additional 0.1% of the population.
A progressive movement conceived with no further guidance than the meaning of the word, suggests almost a 'low-hanging fruit' movement where its efforts are concentrated in rigorously* defining progress and rigorously* identifying the easiest/best opportunities to progress.
Reason #2: From 'gradi' Latin for 'to step' same root, different conjugation as 'gradu' Latin for 'step' as in 'gradual' as in not sprint, not run, not now, not arrive. Progress implies a continuous process, an ongoing process and it is in this aspect that I probably find the modern usage of 'progressive' a misnomer ruining it as my favorite term of reference.
Take for example the Gender pay gap, or wage gap. There's many ways in which discussion of this issue is a dumpster fire, and rather than digress into a whole nuther post its simple. Progress requires at least two points in time to be assessed, much like regress. So again, sticking to the exercise of a hypothetical 'progressive' movement where the name reflects approach, methodology, ideology, policy etc. If a rigorous methodology identified a pay gap right now in 2020 between Female CEOs and Male CEOs in the same industry adjusted for market capitalization of firm where female CEOs were paid 70c for every dollar their male counterparts had, this progressive movement would be obliged to compare this to a relevant point in time, or time series trend.
Such that if in 2010 by the same methodology women received 55c for every dollar their male counterparts received the progressive conclusion would be that 'the program' (whatever it is) is working and project that specific pay gap to close to parity by 2040, and if parity is the goal reform may actually be necessary to prevent further gender specific wage growth, such that you don't regress to a pay gap in 2050 where men are paid 85c for every dollar their female counterparts earn.
I do just want to try and preemptively address that the nature of the pay gap changes depending on the methodology employed which has to go back to Reason #1.
The progressives we have, as in what I think I'm talking about and what I assume you understand I mean bare little resemblance to the hypothetical movement the name suggests. 'Progressive' general describes a person sympathetic with the radical left. Sympathy with revolutionary notions, and activism and slogans like 'not one more' 'enough is enough' 'ya basta!' 'defund the police' 'tear it all down' 'smash the patriarchy' 'occupy wall street' etc. tend to demand what problems they identify are resolved ASAP.
What I particularly notice is the expectations as to how rapidly knowledge* should disseminate through the population, how quickly attitudes should shift what matters are settled and what conversations are over.
Furthermore, a big characteristic is in my perception how many definitive answers 'progressives' believe themselves to be in possession of. Such that I am left with the distinct impression that numerous people believe that had they only the power to legislate they could just solve many of the worlds problems tomorrow.
There is no trial-and-error just error, in other words, they know the errors and only impotency stands in the way of the broader community's salvation.
The most telling thing though, is the denial of progress. In discussion of the higher rates that LGB individuals are victims of violent crime, suffer more episodes of poor mental health issues, higher homelessness, higher substance abuse rates etc. the 'progress' is literally left out, in favor of catastrophizing the extant problems. I do not wish to minimize the current problems the behavior though is not descriptive of progress. Conservative apologia offer the rhetorical question 'would you rather be LGB 10 years ago?'
I believe Director John Waters to be in a tiny minority of homosexual men that miss the good-old-days where homosexuality was illegal because it was more fun. What I observe among progressives is increasing dissatisfaction that correlates positively with progress.
Now, cognitive dissonance must be at play, because if we regressed to a point where there was increased conversion therapy, increased 'unsolved' murders of queer people, a greater pay gap, more police shootings, less accessable venues for the disabled, more teen pregnancies, lower education levels, less diversity in media, less representation in public offices etc. confusing correlation for causation would suggest progressives would be more satisfied, which I do not believe to be the case.
I suspect it is more the narcissism of small differences at play, where a society such that women earn 20c to every dollar a man earns, and same-sex attraction is diagnosed as a psychological delusion to be treated with electro-shock therapy, and trans-kids are honor killed by their parents are societies where these problems are manifesting as established norms, hard to question.
It suggests though, psychologically that large disparities are easier to suffer in silence than small disparities that become unbearable.
There is also on a related but perhaps in a second-cousin sense the strange geographical distribution of progressive values and activism, being that it tends to manifest most strongly in the most progressive places and institutions on Earth.
Germaine Greer, Aziz Ansari, Natalie Wynn, Lena Dunham and JK Rowling have more to fear from progressives than David Duke, Donald Trump, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson or Douglas Murray. From my perspective in much the same way as Islamic Fundamentalism is a far bigger problem for Muslims living in a Muslim nation than non-Muslims living in Europe, the US or the Commonwealth.
This too renders the contemporary use of the word 'progressive' a misnomer, as progressive politics tend to not be advancing through attrition of the moderates and right wing, building an ever growing and more reliable consensus but rather appear to prefer a debilitating purge of sympathizers, a kind of Pyrrhic attrition.
For example Antifa (whom many progressives are sympathetic with) are most active and have the oldest chapter in Portland. In this manner they remind me of contender for Australia's worst export Ken Ham who fearing the decline of the one true faith of Christianity left Australia (where 30.1% of the 2016 population identify as non-religious and only 7.5% of the population attend Church on a weekly basis) to fight on the front lines in the most secular post-Christian place on Earth: Kentucky. (76% Christian, mostly Evangelical Protestant with 39% weekly attendance at Church Services).
Just as Christian Evangelists have a propensity to claim persecution in locales where they are historically and contemporaneously privileged, my experience is progressives demand progress most vocally in the most progressive and tolerant places and institutions available. Part of this phenomena is going to be self explanatory - a place needs to be diverse enough first to permit voices and platforms to those who would complain about unfair treatment. I cannot exclude however a narcissism of small differences, or the coincidence of bravado with where we are most safe.
It suggests to me a very human propensity to seek out soft targets, and also biases towards recency, availability etc. like the oft cited kidnappings have gone down, but coverage of kidnappings have gone up, biases that progressives if anyone by name, should be across. To me the word 'Progressive' conjures up a very calm persona if I exclude the people I stereotype as progressive which is a very anxious-dramatic persona.
Behaviorally, a better descriptor than 'Progressives' would be 'Utopians', or perhaps 'Utopianists' which for me specifically draws on the idea that problems can be solved - end states achieved. A Utopia is a state where both progress and regress are impossible, antithetical to a state of Utopia. This describes a post-progress world.
Progressive describes a person who appreciates, almost stoically that things could be worse, because they were worse looking backwards, and simultaneously asks 'what's next?' without tearing out their own hair and gnashing their teeth and wailing 'why aren't we there yet?' in favor of planting seeds and watching them grow.
I would ordinarily be inclined to end here with an admission that I understand why Progressives would not want to adopt the name Utopianist, for roughly the same reason someone Pro-Choice would not want to call themselves 'Fetus Terminators' or someone Pro-Life would not want to call themselves 'Incest, Rape and Absentee Paternal Rights Activists' or 'Capital Punishment for Obstetricians' is that you quickly dissolve your credibility with a bad if descriptive name.
I was going to end it there, then I happened to watch the first 4 minutes and 32 seconds of this video on 'Defining the Defund the Police' slogan, and given that it didn't open with an admission that if you wanted to reform the police by reallocating their budget to alternative first responders like social workers and paramedics, particularly focusing on the budget allocated to purchasing ex-military equipment and you chose the slogan/rallying cry of 'Reform First Responders' and somewhere between Fox News and the White House the right-wing mouthpieces inevitably seized upon the proposed budget cuts to police and started labeling it 'Defund the Police' in order to undermine the necessary reforms and turn public opinion against the BLM protests except the right didn't have to because the left spared them the effort by choosing the worst conceivable slogan they possibly could have and scoring a massive own goal in rallying public opinion against them; then yeah, rather than having to abandon the misnomer 'Progressive' for SJWs (a misnomer + reads as a pejorative) or 'Woke crowd' then yeah, maybe progressives could start loudly and proudly calling themselves Utopianists, or maybe Movementarians, everyone can enjoy that.
My preferred term was 'progressive' because it seemed the least pejorative and thus had the best chance of conveying accurately that I take the positions seriously, and have not predetermined to dismiss all arguments from those positions out of hand. I liked using 'progressive' to enable me to be treated as an honest interlocutor.
However, if I was to scrap my preconceptions and use my intuition to build the profile of a 'progressive' movement looking just at what the word itself 'progress' means and consideration of it's etymology of 'pro' + 'gradi' both from Latin meaning 'forward' and 'to walk'.
What I would infer is that it would be an ideology of continuous improvement, fighting the good fight for a series of reforms. An inherently patient movement, and an inherently data driven movement for good reasons.
movement to an improved or more developed state, or to a forward positionReason #1: 'an improved or more developed state' is undefined, subjective. There is unlikely to be a consensus on what constitutes progress. It subsequently requires both humility and integrity to figure out what is likely to be generally regarded as progress.
GDP growth for example, might be considered progress. But probably not in and of itself, even though at base there's a fairly naive assumption unsupported by data that more consumption = more utility (the Economist conception of happiness). However, it may somewhat correlate to other indices like Human Development Indexes where it can be demonstrated that GDP growth predicts other positive developments.
The humility part involves avoiding the temptation to project a personal subjective notion of progress out onto the broad population. The integrity part is any progressive movement needs to resist special interest groups leaning on the process of interrogating the data, whether that's a multi-national energy lobbyist arguing that burning up fossil fuels delivers growth, or an activist addressing a minority issue arguing that the top priorities are sweeping reforms to make public infrastructure accessible to an additional 0.1% of the population.
A progressive movement conceived with no further guidance than the meaning of the word, suggests almost a 'low-hanging fruit' movement where its efforts are concentrated in rigorously* defining progress and rigorously* identifying the easiest/best opportunities to progress.
Reason #2: From 'gradi' Latin for 'to step' same root, different conjugation as 'gradu' Latin for 'step' as in 'gradual' as in not sprint, not run, not now, not arrive. Progress implies a continuous process, an ongoing process and it is in this aspect that I probably find the modern usage of 'progressive' a misnomer ruining it as my favorite term of reference.
Take for example the Gender pay gap, or wage gap. There's many ways in which discussion of this issue is a dumpster fire, and rather than digress into a whole nuther post its simple. Progress requires at least two points in time to be assessed, much like regress. So again, sticking to the exercise of a hypothetical 'progressive' movement where the name reflects approach, methodology, ideology, policy etc. If a rigorous methodology identified a pay gap right now in 2020 between Female CEOs and Male CEOs in the same industry adjusted for market capitalization of firm where female CEOs were paid 70c for every dollar their male counterparts had, this progressive movement would be obliged to compare this to a relevant point in time, or time series trend.
Such that if in 2010 by the same methodology women received 55c for every dollar their male counterparts received the progressive conclusion would be that 'the program' (whatever it is) is working and project that specific pay gap to close to parity by 2040, and if parity is the goal reform may actually be necessary to prevent further gender specific wage growth, such that you don't regress to a pay gap in 2050 where men are paid 85c for every dollar their female counterparts earn.
I do just want to try and preemptively address that the nature of the pay gap changes depending on the methodology employed which has to go back to Reason #1.
The progressives we have, as in what I think I'm talking about and what I assume you understand I mean bare little resemblance to the hypothetical movement the name suggests. 'Progressive' general describes a person sympathetic with the radical left. Sympathy with revolutionary notions, and activism and slogans like 'not one more' 'enough is enough' 'ya basta!' 'defund the police' 'tear it all down' 'smash the patriarchy' 'occupy wall street' etc. tend to demand what problems they identify are resolved ASAP.
What I particularly notice is the expectations as to how rapidly knowledge* should disseminate through the population, how quickly attitudes should shift what matters are settled and what conversations are over.
Furthermore, a big characteristic is in my perception how many definitive answers 'progressives' believe themselves to be in possession of. Such that I am left with the distinct impression that numerous people believe that had they only the power to legislate they could just solve many of the worlds problems tomorrow.
There is no trial-and-error just error, in other words, they know the errors and only impotency stands in the way of the broader community's salvation.
The most telling thing though, is the denial of progress. In discussion of the higher rates that LGB individuals are victims of violent crime, suffer more episodes of poor mental health issues, higher homelessness, higher substance abuse rates etc. the 'progress' is literally left out, in favor of catastrophizing the extant problems. I do not wish to minimize the current problems the behavior though is not descriptive of progress. Conservative apologia offer the rhetorical question 'would you rather be LGB 10 years ago?'
I believe Director John Waters to be in a tiny minority of homosexual men that miss the good-old-days where homosexuality was illegal because it was more fun. What I observe among progressives is increasing dissatisfaction that correlates positively with progress.
Now, cognitive dissonance must be at play, because if we regressed to a point where there was increased conversion therapy, increased 'unsolved' murders of queer people, a greater pay gap, more police shootings, less accessable venues for the disabled, more teen pregnancies, lower education levels, less diversity in media, less representation in public offices etc. confusing correlation for causation would suggest progressives would be more satisfied, which I do not believe to be the case.
I suspect it is more the narcissism of small differences at play, where a society such that women earn 20c to every dollar a man earns, and same-sex attraction is diagnosed as a psychological delusion to be treated with electro-shock therapy, and trans-kids are honor killed by their parents are societies where these problems are manifesting as established norms, hard to question.
It suggests though, psychologically that large disparities are easier to suffer in silence than small disparities that become unbearable.
There is also on a related but perhaps in a second-cousin sense the strange geographical distribution of progressive values and activism, being that it tends to manifest most strongly in the most progressive places and institutions on Earth.
Germaine Greer, Aziz Ansari, Natalie Wynn, Lena Dunham and JK Rowling have more to fear from progressives than David Duke, Donald Trump, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson or Douglas Murray. From my perspective in much the same way as Islamic Fundamentalism is a far bigger problem for Muslims living in a Muslim nation than non-Muslims living in Europe, the US or the Commonwealth.
This too renders the contemporary use of the word 'progressive' a misnomer, as progressive politics tend to not be advancing through attrition of the moderates and right wing, building an ever growing and more reliable consensus but rather appear to prefer a debilitating purge of sympathizers, a kind of Pyrrhic attrition.
For example Antifa (whom many progressives are sympathetic with) are most active and have the oldest chapter in Portland. In this manner they remind me of contender for Australia's worst export Ken Ham who fearing the decline of the one true faith of Christianity left Australia (where 30.1% of the 2016 population identify as non-religious and only 7.5% of the population attend Church on a weekly basis) to fight on the front lines in the most secular post-Christian place on Earth: Kentucky. (76% Christian, mostly Evangelical Protestant with 39% weekly attendance at Church Services).
Just as Christian Evangelists have a propensity to claim persecution in locales where they are historically and contemporaneously privileged, my experience is progressives demand progress most vocally in the most progressive and tolerant places and institutions available. Part of this phenomena is going to be self explanatory - a place needs to be diverse enough first to permit voices and platforms to those who would complain about unfair treatment. I cannot exclude however a narcissism of small differences, or the coincidence of bravado with where we are most safe.
It suggests to me a very human propensity to seek out soft targets, and also biases towards recency, availability etc. like the oft cited kidnappings have gone down, but coverage of kidnappings have gone up, biases that progressives if anyone by name, should be across. To me the word 'Progressive' conjures up a very calm persona if I exclude the people I stereotype as progressive which is a very anxious-dramatic persona.
Behaviorally, a better descriptor than 'Progressives' would be 'Utopians', or perhaps 'Utopianists' which for me specifically draws on the idea that problems can be solved - end states achieved. A Utopia is a state where both progress and regress are impossible, antithetical to a state of Utopia. This describes a post-progress world.
Progressive describes a person who appreciates, almost stoically that things could be worse, because they were worse looking backwards, and simultaneously asks 'what's next?' without tearing out their own hair and gnashing their teeth and wailing 'why aren't we there yet?' in favor of planting seeds and watching them grow.
I would ordinarily be inclined to end here with an admission that I understand why Progressives would not want to adopt the name Utopianist, for roughly the same reason someone Pro-Choice would not want to call themselves 'Fetus Terminators' or someone Pro-Life would not want to call themselves 'Incest, Rape and Absentee Paternal Rights Activists' or 'Capital Punishment for Obstetricians' is that you quickly dissolve your credibility with a bad if descriptive name.
I was going to end it there, then I happened to watch the first 4 minutes and 32 seconds of this video on 'Defining the Defund the Police' slogan, and given that it didn't open with an admission that if you wanted to reform the police by reallocating their budget to alternative first responders like social workers and paramedics, particularly focusing on the budget allocated to purchasing ex-military equipment and you chose the slogan/rallying cry of 'Reform First Responders' and somewhere between Fox News and the White House the right-wing mouthpieces inevitably seized upon the proposed budget cuts to police and started labeling it 'Defund the Police' in order to undermine the necessary reforms and turn public opinion against the BLM protests except the right didn't have to because the left spared them the effort by choosing the worst conceivable slogan they possibly could have and scoring a massive own goal in rallying public opinion against them; then yeah, rather than having to abandon the misnomer 'Progressive' for SJWs (a misnomer + reads as a pejorative) or 'Woke crowd' then yeah, maybe progressives could start loudly and proudly calling themselves Utopianists, or maybe Movementarians, everyone can enjoy that.
*rigor refers to sound epistemology there are multiple forms of epistemology, of varying soundness.
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