{"id":4322,"date":"2003-11-04T10:04:42","date_gmt":"2003-11-04T10:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4322"},"modified":"2003-11-04T10:04:42","modified_gmt":"2003-11-04T10:04:42","slug":"progressives-are-conservative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4322","title":{"rendered":"“progressives” are conservative"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Oct. 30 <\/a>entry argues that<\/p>\n

today’s "progressives" are best understood as conservatives,<\/p>\n

seeking to maintain a set of institutions that they do not believe are<\/p>\n

well designed, but which they prefer to the speculative market alternatives<\/p>\n

promoted by the Right. I did not mean this as a criticism, since such<\/p>\n

conservatism is valuable. Edmund Burke taught that we should hesitate<\/p>\n

to overturn interrelated social systems that have evolved over generations;<\/p>\n

they embody the experience of the people who have learned to live with<\/p>\n

them. It is easy to prove that their design is inefficient or inequitable,<\/p>\n

compared to some chalkboard alternative. But radical changes often go<\/p>\n

awry. On these grounds, Burke rightly preferred the Old Regime in France,<\/p>\n

for all its aribitrary, wasteful, unjust features, to the revolutionary<\/p>\n

system that fell apart after it had cost millions of lives. Similarly,<\/p>\n

I respect people who believe that public schools, unions, and welfare<\/p>\n

programs are better than the radical alternatives suggested by economic<\/p>\n

theory. The problem with progressivism is not that it is wrong. Rather,<\/p>\n

it is politically and rhetorically weak, for it’s always difficult to<\/p>\n

win elections with a grudging defense of the status quo.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I would add that today’s progressives are not only conservative about<\/p>\n

New Deal institutions. They are eager to conserve<\/em> both natural<\/p>\n

ecosystems and minority cultures (especially poor, indigenous ones).<\/p>\n

They are more fiscally conservative than Republicans. They are also<\/p>\n

more resistant to scientific progress: witness their response to genetically<\/p>\n

engineered crops. They object to the expanding federal<\/em> power<\/p>\n

over law enforcement (the USA Patriot Act) and education (No Child Left<\/p>\n

Behind). And they are the biggest defenders of institutions, such as<\/p>\n

public broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Humanities, that<\/p>\n

promote the high culture of the past.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This is a selective list. One could mention issues on which self-described<\/p>\n

"conservatives" are more conservative than liberals are. (The<\/p>\n

public role of religion would be one.) However, I think we should recognize<\/p>\n

the deep conservatism of the modern Left—in Europe as well as<\/p>\n

America—for this partly expains the present political situation.<\/p>\n

Conservatism is a virtue of so-called "progressivism" today;<\/p>\n

it is also a profound political weakness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Oct. 30 entry argues that today’s "progressives" are best understood as conservatives, seeking to maintain a set of institutions that they do not believe are well designed, but which they prefer to the speculative market alternatives promoted by the Right. I did not mean this as a criticism, since such conservatism is valuable. Edmund […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-revitalizing-the-left"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}