On Progressive Commons in early June, Ken Rufo posted a simple survey poll, asking what our readers believed to be core progressive "values." Ken’s poll and subsequent discussions suggest that progressives today lack a consensus on what modern progressivism really means. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it never hurts to re-examine our beliefs, especially if it helps knit progressives into a closer political effort or to attract others to the progressive cause. This essay is an attempt to articulate, at least from my perspective, a core principle shared by progressives, examine how progressivism relates to competing political orientations, and examine how a pluralistic approach might be taken by progressives to better unite ourselves…
(Continue reading the PDF version; cross-posted from Progressive Commons)
Comments
As you suggest, both conservatives and liberals are dealing with unintended consequences.
Well, I think it’s possible that the idea has merit with reference to explaining the individual motivation of consumers — i.e., why they *want* to watch violent or degrading entertainment. I don’t know what kind of evidence would be required to prove this, but it seems like this could be a component of the psychological background behind individual choices.
But I guess my point is different, and is that neither side politically “wanted” the consequence that media would become more explicit and more violent, this occurred because conservatives wanted a deregulated industry with greater freedom for consolidation, and liberals wanted maximal free speech interpretations. The combination of these things led to an environment where, despite the public desires of most people, our private consumer choices (as you say) lead to an “arms race” of escalating vulgarity and violence as the deregulated media companies take advantage of expanded free speech guidelines to “outdo” each other in an attempt to gain market share.
Sure, this is capitalism and is what is “supposed to happen.” But nobody seems to much approve of this situation, although neither side seems willing to analyze the situation very deeply — conservatives aren’t willing to say that deregulation occasionally has bad effects, and liberals aren’t willing to say that unlimited free speech removes our ability to create a decent public media. Instead, each side points to factors which are really ancillary and irrelevant.
I would like to address your unintended consequences of capitalism in reference to a media that is sexually explicit and violence orientated . These unintended consequences are, as I see it, a manifestation of humanities inherent and inexorable hostile nature, a hostile nature that no longer can be played out on the battle field as it ounce was because of its horrendous consequences. This hostility is now played out in the cultural arena instead, hence the high level of intensity about it. The outcome is supposed to be the same, to keep society changing, agile and anew.
This idea of mine hasn’t quite jelled yet but I do think it has merit. Can you tell me what you think of it.
Absolutely. I suspect that lots of people don’t really believe in “progress,” if that is defined as a future-looking concept. Few, if any, people don’t believe in “change,” broadly defined, but some people do see current situations as lamentable and wish that change would take us “back” to a previous state of things.
The book you refer to is by Bronk, right? I haven’t read that particular book but the argument is familiar — capitalism has definitely brought positive change along some dimensions (as Jefferson, Jackson, and other early Americans thought it would), but it’s also brought its own set of problems, which I think is what Bronk and others are pointing out.
I would argue that certainly your notion of entropy is important — because stasis and lack of change are bad in the face of changing circumstances, but that this isn’t the only concept required to analyze the failures of modern market capitalism and centralized governments. Such systems have ton of unintended consequences as well — for example, nobody really *planned* that the content of media would become increasingly sexually explicit and filled with violence, it occurred as an unintended consequence of localized competition within deregulated industries.
Interesting article, Mark.
Have you ever heard of people who don’t believe in progress? I have. I can’t imagine it not existing. I would say that the ending of slavery was progress. Also, the emancipation of women was progress. Besides being liberating, those two forms of progress also are about equality. Nevertheless, there are those who deny it is progress.
I have an interesting book called “Progress and the Invisible Hand”. Adam Smith argued that the invisible hand of capitalism would inevitably bring progress and equality. The writer of the book argues that for the most part the opposite has happened.
Progress is also about not standing still and remaining static. Remaining static brings about atrophy and decline. Progress, then, to my way of thinking, is about remaining vital. Progress is movement, the activity that keeps entropy at bay. The progressive drive for equality adds new contributing members to the “community”, infusing additional blood to keep the social process humming.