| What do you mean by "progressivism"? Could you give a definition? The reason I ask is that I'm not at all convinced that it is that meaningful as a political term. For example, I believe that many problems have and can be solved by technical progress. Depending on the nature of technology involved, this position has been defended by conservative politicians (e.g. nuclear power, space race) and by liberal politicians (e.g. stem cell research, solar power). Hence, no political position corresponds to this aspect of 'being progressive'. At the same time, what one group of people considers a genuine progress in the social domain, e.g. international human rights laws and conventions, is not considered progress by other groups of people. So it seems after all to me that the term 'progressive' does not describe a group of people with very homogeneous political views. This is also a critique on the author of the essay who seems to identify 'progressive' with 'left-wing views', as is usual in US politics. To give another example, in one sense of the word establishing a new Space Command is certainly very progressive. It may be a colossal waste of money, but that doesn't mean that it's not progressive. That's just a minor semantic quibble, I do admit that in the US 'progressive' basically means 'left wing, leaning towards policies of the Democratic Party'. My point is just that it's misleading and confusing terminology, like most political terms in the US. (e.g. liberal != classical liberalism in the US, another weird naming tradition) |