| Progressivism:
Transcending Liberalism and Conservatism
by Dr. Gerry Lower
At the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Senator John Edwards
introduced a powerful theme revolving around the concept of "Two
Americas," one for the rich and powerful and one for everyone
else." (Overcoming The Two Americas, Center for American
Progress, July 28, 2004).
In Edwards' words, there is "One America that does the work, another
America that reaps the reward. One America that pays the taxes, another
America that gets the tax breaks. One America that will do anything to
leave its children a better life, another America that never has to do a
thing because its children are already set for life."
This division of America according to "haves" and "have
nots" is not new, of course, but Edwards statement does make formal
political acknowledgment of class warfare in America. Under the
tenure of George W. Bush (whose self-admitted base is the "haves and
have mores"), the American people have become more divided fiscally
and ideologically than ever before, a division based largely on whether or
not one abides fundamentalist Old Testament religious belief (Bill
Broadway, "In Congress, Religion Drives the Divide," Washington
Post, August 28, 2004), the ashes from which American democracy was
birthed.
America is divided between those who believe what they are told on faith
alone and those who expect reasonable empirical confirmation of what they
are told, between those who accept religious "leadership" in
America and those who want to see WMD's in Iraq. In this sense, the
division is between religion and science, between transcendentalism and
empiricism, between Old Testament conservatism and New Testament
liberalism, between despotism and democracy.
The concepts of "liberalism" and "conservatism" go
back to America's beginnings. When America's Revolutionary fathers
produced the Declaration in 1776, they set forth the values upon which
American democracy was to be founded, they set forth the American
ideology, our intellectual blueprint. Eleven years later, in 1787, when
America's pro-British, capitalist fathers produced the U.S. Constitution,
they set forth the American operational policy.
Together, the conflicts between these two documents have defined American
culture by producing the traditional liberal/conservative dialectic, the
traditional American argument between the values explicit in the
Declaration (nascent Christian human rights) and the values implicit in
the Constitution (religious, conservative, male, marketplace values which
originally denied women, blacks and non-landowners a vote). It very much
comes down to Jefferson's human values (people first) in conflict with
Hamilton's personal capitalistic values (profits first).
From those beginnings until World War II, the political pendulum has swung
back and forth over a relatively stable political center based on the
values of democracy (Jordan Ellenberg, Growing Apart, Slate, December 26,
2001). These political oscillations have born little relationship to
political party.
In the 1920s, for example, progressive Republicans led the charge against
corporate greed, corruption and power-mongering. Today,
"compassionate" conservative Republicans are the much feared
corporate aristocracy personified and, as Jefferson and Franklin feared
would happen, this aristocracy is now in political dominion.
Since World War II, the entire political apparatus has shifted so far to
the religious right that contemporary "liberal capitalism" has
been said to be occupying what used to be referred to as "political
center" (Krugman, America the Polarized, NY Times, Jan 4, 2002). This
is not quite true. Liberal capitalism does not occupy political center at
all when that position is no longer definable within the context of
liberal capitalism.
The traditional American dialectic between liberalism (working for
meaningful social change) and conservatism (working for the status quo)
was maintained operationally in the dialectic between socialism and
capitalism. That American dialectic between those who would share without
measure (we are all mostly the same) and those who would compete without
limit ($ome of u$ are cho$en) has been lost in the American political
dialogue since World War II, replaced by liberal capitalism (an
oxymoron) and conservative capitalism (www.jeffersonseyes.com/introduction).
Agrarian states like Kansas were literally hotbeds of populism during the
first third of the 20th century, developing farm and ranch organizations
to help ensure the fairness and viability of the agricultural community.
Today, Kansas "epitomizes how middle class white America has been
seduced by the lure of the right wing" into "supporting an
ideology that dooms them to diminishing job opportunities and lower
wages." (Thomas Frank, "What's the Matter with Kansas,"
2004).
Liberal capitalism has worked the past half century to solve the problems
created by conservative corporate capitalism, and it has attempted to do
so by functioning within the context of capitalism itself. As a result,
only "social band-aids" have been applied to serious systemic
dysfunctions. Nothing has been allowed to threaten fiscal
"progress" and the pursuit of money for money's sake alone.
While America pursued profits, the European democracies continued to
implement the values of democracy. Accordingly, America has become the
most backward democracy on earth with regard to guaranteeing the
educational and medical needs of the people.
The rightward shift of the American political apparatus was a departure
from the traditional socialist/capitalist argument that removed previous
checks and balances and the class language that once distinguished the two
points of view. It has left liberalism lost from the values in socialism
at its roots. In losing that content, liberal capitalism has long given up
on "the people." This shift also left conservatism so far to the
right as to have literally fallen off the playing field of democracy and
the values of honesty and compassion. It has led to the largest gap
between rich and poor in the history of America, all in the name of
fairness and equality.
The values of American democracy, based as they are in human rights, are
neither liberal or conservative. They are human and they are derived
logically by dialectic synthesis of complementary opposites, an approach
formalized in science by Niels Bohr in solving the wave/particle dualism
in subatomic physics. Applying this approach to values, it has been
possible to logically-derive human values by dialectic synthesis of the
complementary values of western religious systems and eastern ethical
systems (www.jeffersonseyes.com/dialectics).
Within the liberal-conservative dialectic, genuine human progress (as
opposed to mere fiscal progress) has always emerged from the liberal side
of the argument, a historical fact summarized by George McGovern.
"Every program that ever helped working people -- from rural
electrification to Medicare -- was enacted by liberals over the opposition
of conservatives. When people tell me they don't like liberals, I ask, 'Do
you like Social Security? If so, then shut up!" (Think Again: The
Word 'Liberal,' quoted by Eric Alterman, Center for American Progress,
July 29, 2004).
Everything that has improved the self-concept and day to day lot of
"the people" has been liberal not conservative in origin. In
other words, somewhere inside the liberal argument there must be some
human truth. That truth is found in progressivism - the dialectic
synthesis of liberalism and conservatism.
Liberalism and conservatism, as known during the latter half of the 20th
century, are complementary opposites. At their respective extremes,
neither one cares all that much about "the people." Liberalism
is seen as approaching individual anarchy and capitalism is seen as
approaching corporate tyranny. "The people" have been lost from
the discussion either way.
Progressivism involves honest and compassionate argument (based
in human rights) on behalf, not of individuals per se, but on behalf of
"the people." The bottom line here is this: that if we take good
care of "the people," individuals will be just fine as well
(since "the people" are properly comprised entirely of
individuals).
Implicit in the progressive argument is the concept of lower and upper
limits on fiscal and political power, that all corporate efforts ought be
"of, by and for" the people, not in the interest of individual
self-aggrandizement, that corporations do not have rights that transcend
individual rights, that individuals are best protected within a
meritocracy. For half a century, American corporations have had it all
wrong, in no one's interest but their own.
Despite the enormous loss of American jobs during the Bush
administration's tenure, the median compensation for CEOs at the largest
U.S. corporations rose to $4.6 million last year, up from a median of $3.6
million in 2002, according to the Corporate Library (Reuters, May 12,
2004). In other words, today's corporate CEO makes in five minutes what a
minimum wage worker makes in a 40 hour week, the CEO seeing himself as
being worth nearly 500 times as much as a working person. Honest people
have always had a difficult time with such egregious self-righteousness.
After World War II, Eisenhower warned the people of the coming threat from
the corporate "military-industrial complex" and its coming was,
by the standards of democracy, an exercise in extremism. The response to
this right wing political extremism was an equal and opposite reaction on
the left. In going to the extreme, conservatism nourished the corporate
takeover of America's family and community economies. In going to the
opposite extreme, liberalism nourished violent civil disobedience,
drug-enhanced escapism and indiscriminate sex, a dalliance with anarchy
that only widened the political gap and contributed little to liberalism
in a world needing a little humility and responsibility.
At both political extremes, liberal and conservative, freedom was
interpreted as the equivalent of license, individual and corporate,
respectively. Actually, freedom has more to do with the right to think and
say and do what one believes is honest and caring in the interest of a
sane and healthy world. Liberalism stood on behalf of the individual and
meaningful change, conservatism stood on behalf of the corporate
aristocracy and the status quo.
In the realm of socioeconomics, of course, there is no such thing as a
purely socialistic or capitalistic world. Socialism and capitalism cannot
exist apart from each other because they are complementary opposites. In
capitalistic America, there are public highways, school systems and social
security, all examples of socialism. In socialistic Russia, there was
ample room for a capitalistic elite to accommodate national wheeling and
dealing in a capitalistic global market. The CEO mentality in Russia was
no more in service to "the people" than the CEO mentality in the
U.S.
Progressivism approaches realism by seeking progress toward fairness and
equality among the people. Progressivism transcends individual anarchy and
corporate tyranny by approaching democracy in the name of "the
people." The progressive synthesis yields an individual tyranny (when
individuals take control of themselves and assume personal responsibility)
and a collective anarchy (when "the people" take control of
their own government to make it "of, by, and for" the people).
The progressive synthesis is designed up front to be "win-win"
for "the people."
The liberal-conservative argument, resulting from Constitutional
compromises of the Declaration's human values, served America for 150
years. The ascendency of religious capitalism since World War II has led
to the death of the traditional American politic and, with that loss of
traditional values, has come the momentary defeat of natural philosophy
and democracy in America.
There can be no return to democracy in a nation that has abandoned the
line between church and state to become a nation that abides
religion-based, unprovoked war, i.e., not without an ideological
revolution and a return to the natural philosophy which gave democracy
birth. America has ultimately only one choice, to get intelligent and to
get real... about our values, our beliefs and ideologies and our
operational policies in a global world.
America's need for an honest and intelligent new politic is provided by
Progressivism, with its basis in human rights and its emphasis on
"the people." Real liberals worried about extremism in their
ranks need only change the focus of their efforts, from fighting on behalf
of the individual to fighting on behalf of "the people." Real
conservatives worried about extremism in their ranks need only change the
focus of their efforts, from fighting on behalf of corporate tyranny to
fighting on behalf of "the people."
-------------
Author's Note: Dialectic synthesis, at the core of postmodern
natural philosophy, is accomplished by juxtaposing complementary opposites
and seeking a concept that embraces both sides of the argument. This
formal approach to scientific thought exemplifies how simple thought can
solve problems made "complex" by the political and spiritual
dualism that has divided "the people" in the western world for
millennia.
The concepts of "male" and "female," for example, are
complementary opposites. From the extremes, both sides claim to be unable
to understand the other side. The millennial male-female dialectic is
embraced, of course, by the term "human," a concept within which
"male" and "female" are seen as two sides of the same
thing, i.e., a reproductive human whole responsible for bringing children
(light) into this world and obligated to shed light on the world so the
children will know what it means to be human.
In this dialectic manner, it is possible for all people to see and think
their own way to the human values of democracy. From these middle ground
human values, uniformly held by the people, will come the end of religious
and capitalistic extremism and, with that, the end of most political
violence on earth.
>From the ashes of cultural extremism, will come a bright new day for
democracy and a bright new world for "the people," a new human
sense of human purpose on this planet, and peace and human
self-comprehension on a global basis. From the "end of time"
ashes of cultural extremism will come the "birth of human" and
the emergence of humankind, as an entirely new evolutionary entity on this
planet. It is an integral part of the human evolutionary program, people.
DIALECTIC SYNTHESES and MIDDLE HUMAN GROUND
---------------------------------------------------
Liberalism - Progressivism - Conservatism
Socialism - Realism - Capitalism
Anarchy - Democracy - Tyranny
Sharing - Cooperation - Competition
Sympathy - Empathy - Apathy
Condone - Heal - Condemn
Plutocracy - Meritocracy - Aristocracy
Individual - The People - the System
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