Photo by Martin Sanchez
Ever since I cast my first vote—in 1980, for Jimmy Carter—I’ve identified as a progressive. But, now that the progressive worldview has come of age, dominating academia and providing a new moral heading for the liberal mainstream, its increasingly evident pathologies must be reckoned with. Despite its caring values and vital environmental concerns, progressivism also represents a reckless repudiation of the best of what has come before. So, even though I continue to support numerous progressive political goals, I no longer call myself a progressive. I cannot, however, follow podcaster Dave Rubin in leaving the left and embracing the right. Notwithstanding progressivism’s negatives, the pathologies of the right evince their own form of recklessness. But rejecting the pathologies of both sides does not necessarily make me a centrist. Although political centrism is commendable, it’s ultimately too invested in preserving the dysfunctional status quo. The political position I therefore espouse can be most accurately characterized as post-progressive.
The Emerging Post-Progressive Political Perspective
The post-progressive political stance I advocate seeks to overcome progressivism’s pathologies by transcending the left–right divide altogether. This emerging perspective works to integrate progressive values with the laudable concerns of America’s mainstream culture. By eschewing the horizontal continuum of left and right, post-progressivism is charting a vertical dimension of normative growth that can lead to a more evolved form of politics.
The post-progressive strategy for ameliorating hyperpolarization works by synthesizing values from across the political spectrum. For example, post-progressivism wants to better employ the innovative power of business to significantly reduce carbon pollution. It wants to alleviate economic inequality by removing barriers to entrepreneurship in disadvantaged communities. It wants to restructure America’s healthcare system to work better for everyone, without creating a gigantic federal bureaucracy in the process. It seeks a more compassionate immigration system that nevertheless recognizes the legitimate interests of our nation-state. And it aspires to a peaceful foreign policy that does not result in isolationism. Post-progressivism, however, is more than a list of issue positions. This new approach to politics offers a fresh perspective from both outside and above America’s debilitating culture war.
What Are Progressivism’s Pathologies?
Over the last fifty years, progressivism has emerged as a distinct form of culture—a historically significant new worldview that can be compared and contrasted with America’s two preexisting cultural worldviews: mainstream modernity and religious traditionalism. And, although progressivism has yet to succeed politically in the US, it has won the culture war decisively, as even conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks admits. The recent cultural empowerment of progressivism has resulted in the fierce contest between all three of these major worldviews that is now poisoning American politics. Yet, though the rise of progressivism is the main cause of America’s contemporary culture war, and though it threatens to undermine Western civilization from within, it cannot be cancelled or otherwise destroyed. The World Values Survey empirically demonstrates the clear and predictable trend toward progressive values in the developed world.
So, once we accept that progressivism is here to stay, the question becomes: what is the best response? The post-progressive strategy entails carrying forward progressivism’s upsides, such as its world-centric morality and environmental priorities, while firmly rejecting its downsides. Indeed, it is progressivism’s burgeoning pathologies that provide post-progressivism’s points of departure. These pathologies include anti-modernism: the failure to recognize that progressive culture is predicated on the freedom and prosperity provided by modernity’s liberal values; reverse patriotism, which characterizes American history as a sinister criminal enterprise; divisive identity politics, which promotes grievance without gratitude; and tyrannical demands for immediate and uncompromising reform, which disrespect the institution of democracy.
The post-progressive response to progressive culture’s deficiencies also involves acknowledging the important achievements of the progressive worldview: for example, in civil, women’s and gay rights. Post-progressivism therefore wants to help progressive culture mature and evolve by extending its caring and inclusive values to better encompass the cultural sensibilities of modernists and traditionalists as well. Those who continue to identify as progressive can grow by increasing their cultural intelligence.
What Is Cultural Intelligence?
Post-progressivism defines cultural intelligence as the ability to recognize the mutual interdependence of America’s three major worldviews—traditionalism, modernism and progressivism. This comprehensive overview perspective sees how the positive values and enduring accomplishments of all three of these value frames form a kind of symbiotic cultural ecosystem, in which each worldview has an ongoing role to play.
Cultural intelligence provides the ability to integrate and harmonize these three sets of values. This process begins by clearly distinguishing between the upsides and downsides of each worldview. Just as progressivism includes positives and negatives, modernity brings forth both dignities and disasters. Modernist values include economic and scientific progress, individual liberty and the rule of law. Modernity’s pathologies lead to environmental degradation, gross inequality and nuclear proliferation. Traditionalism also has both upsides and downsides. Positive traditional values include loyalty to family and country, duty and honor and altruism. Traditionalism’s pathologies lead to racism, sexism and homophobia.
Once each worldview’s positives have been clearly distinguished from its abiding negatives, it becomes possible to integrate positive values from across the political spectrum. Yet, crucially, this integration process does not eliminate the political challenges that each worldview poses to the others. Cultural intelligence seeks a kind of dynamic integration, which preserves the natural polar tensions between these worldviews. This approach helps make these ongoing conflicts more functional and constructive by fostering deliberative relationships of challenge and support, wherein each worldview can influence and improve its cultural competitors.
Rather than viewing modernity as a corrupt system of greedy neoliberalism, which must be overthrown, post-progressivism can see that modernity’s economic freedom is a crucial component of the liberty and prosperity that it continues to deliver. And, instead of viewing traditionalism as merely a mythic fairytale, post-progressivism can appreciate how traditional values continue to provide the moral foundations of our society. Yet, even as post-progressivism renounces progressivism’s rejection of established American culture, it refuses to agree with those who reduce progressivism to cultural Marxism or who otherwise see it as a virulent ideology that must be crushed.
Post-progressivism wants a fairer economy, but it remains pro-business—it recognizes that business is increasingly becoming a force for good. The post-progressive political position also wants to vigorously combat global warming, but it doesn’t want to impoverish the world in the process. And post-progressivism wants to atone for the sins of the developed world, even as it continues to cherish and defend the unprecedented achievements of western civilization. In short, post-progressivism seeks to both transcend and include progressivism, with a more competent and adaptive worldview, which can pragmatically address our society’s problems, while preserving the best of what has come before. As Hegel put it, a synthesis can only be achieved through a partial “negation of the negation.”
By advancing an inclusive new political position and using the cultural intelligence that this perspective provides, post-progressivism is able to integrate more gratitude into its grievances and thereby make its challenges to the status quo more effective. Even as it continues to fight against the persistent pathologies of both the left and the right, post-progressivism remains grateful for the enduring gifts of all three major worldviews, and for America as a whole.
23 comments
This is excellent. Although, it seems that the dysfunctional progressivism should be called “post-progressive” and the healthy progressivism should be called “progressive.” People who aim to limit free speech, who refuse to view history through a factual narrative, and who hijack words and concepts to distort them from their true meaning are not really liberal or progressive, though are recognized as such by an intellectually lazy or sheepish society.
Basically, every suggestion in the article that implies what “post progressives” do or want is what a genuine progressive would want. But, since the word progressive has been demoted to describe people who are often anti-American, or more critical of the West without examining the horrors committed by non-Western people, people who give a free pass to oppressive ideas and actions if they stem from a religion that they likely view as being misunderstood, or people who would wish to deny a tiny swath of land in the Middle East from being consumed by the ideology of the armies that consumed the rest of the swaths of land in the Middle East (and beyond), it seems that we either reverse that ship, or do as this author did and cut our losses and create a new word/concept to identify the genuinely progressive people and ideas who have not lost their/our way. (Faith Quintero – author of Loaded Blessings).
Surprising that Heika would get so many down votes, tho I’ll grant, that “Hating America and everything it stands for has been a left-wing (not progressive, but mainstream) position ever since there was a political left”, is an overstatement.
There is always more than one “Left”, just as there is always more than one “Right”.
Only under Obama did the Left prioritize “a more compassionate immigration system”, and outright demonize efforts to protect “the legitimate interests of our nation-state” from Mexican invasion,
Otherwise, Heika is on the right track.
I’d hold my nose, if today’s Lefties balked on reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, provided that they *emphatically* denounced their fellow Lefties’ use of censorship as a weapon of first resort, and their ploys/ rants vs. the White Patriarchy, and vs. the Deplorables.
And, if they came clean, vs. the Dems’/ Left’s B.S. vs. Trump’s “coddling” of Putin, his “Obstruction of Congress”, the “Zionist Occupation of Palestine”, etc.
The Dem/ MSM brass’ slobbering all over The Squad has been stunningly degenerate/ infantile.
When Dersh sharply distinguishes between liberals and Lefties, he gives us a map with which to reconcile liberalism & the Right, as per Mr. McIntosh’s hopes.
Only those lefties (e.g. Greenwald), who concede (or, like him, emphasize) the degeneracy of today’s
Dem/ MSM brass, deserve a place at such a Reconciliation Table.
And, Heika, the Scott Alexander link you posted was quite good.
To summarize the most crucial points:
Until these “progressives” *emphatically* renounce their fellow Lefties’ use of *censorship* as a weapon of first resort, and their ploys/ rants vs. the White Patriarchy (and vs. the Deplorables), the presence of these “progressives” at the discussion-table can only poison, not enhance, any possible reconciliation between the other groups.
I can’t agree that progressivism has won the culture war, and I don’t value David Brooks’ privileged opinion about this. I can still remember Brooks’ receiving a Ted Talk standing ovation for merely conceding that empathy is an important thing, that’s a nice example of how much the value of his opinions are overinflated. Conservative money owns the vast majority of the radio waves, Sinclair is leading the charge to propagandize local TV news and The Daily Caller was granted status as a fact checker on Facebook even after they were disqualified as biased but overruled by Facebook management. Mitch McConnell has single-handedly transformed the next 30-40 years of judicial decisions slanting heavily toward right-wing extremism by slow walking and blocking Obama appointments then fast walking huge numbers of extreme and often unqualified federal judges. Is this a last gasp, or are they just getting warmed up? I think it’s the latter.
Regardless of whether the culture war has been “won” or not, it is the perceived cultural threat of progressivism that has empowered Trumpism. Post-progressives therefore want to help progressive culture mature in a way that reduces this threat so that progressivism’s cultural victories don’t continue to result in its political defeat. The evolutionary premises behind this analysis are discussed in greater detail in this video podcast:
I haven’t read your book, you likely answer this there. What is the basis of discriminating between the values you choose? What makes the good ones different to the bad ones? My suggestion: every child born deserves to thrive.
Thank you for your article. An article Ken Wilber wrote right after the 2016 election which laid out similar concerns has continued to resonant with me. As an ‘ol ’60’s hippie’ turned into a grandparent, I’m now think of myself politically as part of the “radical middle”. As a student of Jungian theory and practice, I work to “hold the tension of the opposites” until the transcendent third appears. As a somatic psychotherapist, I urge my clients to ‘make friends with all their various selves’ and suggest that we will not be throwing anything away, rather becoming very familiar with its purpose and function and then choosing a more mature and integrated way forward. In the somatic psychology world, we often talk about the fundamental oscillation of the autonomic nervous system and how it’s not the basic condition of the oscillation that is difficult, but rather the getting stuck, or polarized, or over-identified, in one position/function or another. It seems that our national body-politic has gotten stuck in an addictive cycle of flipping from one pole or the other and becoming unable? unwilling? and/or incapable? of appreciating the function and purpose of another’s point of view and valves. If we stay in this highly reactive, but very negatively stimulating posture, we will undermine and destroy what we collectively have built and thus set up the conditions for yet another reactive round of left- right hateful diatribes. I’m very concerned about the tone and tenor of our public conversations and worried about our future capacity to meet the enormous challenges facing our world. What do I tell my grandchildren as the launch into adulthood?
Regarding what to tell your grandchildren about how to love as a cooperative, constructive member of the cooperative community overall, may I suggest referring them to my book, Party Time, available at Amazon books. The majority of citizens hold very constructive agendas regarding politics, even liberals and conservatives as groups. The media lives on extreme dialogues, on the principle that “everybody loves a good fight”. But we have to cooperate, not compete and fight to create and sustain and live in sustainable communities. Our world is over-polluted, over populated and over-manipulated by a variety of counterproductive forces. We need to guard against dictatorial leaders and get busy creating sustainable communities, roughly on the lines proposed by the United Nations. Any of this make sense to you?
Bill@Testmasterinc.com
I am a research and applied psychologist in political, clinical and industrial / organizational psychology. The above comments I read as political philosophy. I have found it helpful to operationalize the concepts of political and social philosophy by creating questionnaires that measure the terms used, including ones that get at various religious beliefs, political orientations, political opinions, preferred types of government and traits of political leaders, including dictators, democratic leaders, etc., etc.
I am concerned about trying to make sense of political and religious and social issues just from a philosophical/opinion point of view for several reasons. One is that you can quickly lose touch with the world as seen, conceptualized, thought about and acted on by the majority of citizens, who don’t have higher educations or higher than average intelligence. Thus, you will lose in your dialogue and action 75 percent of the citizens of any given community.
Another reason that I shy away from what may be considered any form of highly educated, intellectual discussions is that we need to marshal the cooperation of the majority of citizens to realize any major community effort, such as responding well to the present Covid-19 pandemic. Or, to fight a world war, as we did in WW II. Or to switch from a carbon-based energy economy/society to a clean energy one.
I also think it is important to understand the psychology and physiology of human nature when trying to come up with big-scope planning for the species. For example, it is important to understand that the liberal and conservative worldviews are genetically grounded in the species, and that the majority of self-identified strong liberals and strong conservatives are significantly different, statistically, from each other, but are rather close together on virtually all major dimensions of political discourse as groups. And, we can reliably and validly measure the warmongering-proneness and dictator-proneness of political candidates and leaders, from a distance. That, is with rating scales that common citizens, e.g. journalists, can understand and use.
It is also important to know that human intelligence, worldwide, seems to be gradually deteriorating at the rate of .6 of an I.Q. point per year. And probably secondary to air pollution. At this rate, in 50 years, the average human I.Q. could drop from 100 to 70, at which point half the world’s citizens will be mentally deficient and unemployable and few, if any, will be intelligent enough to understand or write about the material in this present mini-essay (or get a college degree as we know it now).
Finally, let me encourage you all to review the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. They are 15 in number. They don’t include fossil fuel termination, though they should. The U.N. needs to be upgraded to eliminate the veto power of the “Big 5”, as most of them are now of dictatorial flavor (including Russia, China and U.S.A.), and dictators are notoriously indifferent to the common good. To change the world, we need to work through a powerful, effective United Nations.
We need to define “sustainable communities” of many different sorts, develop achievable ways to promote them everywhere, and inspire and encourage citizens in all communities to take responsibility for promoting them, including rapid discontinuation of all forms of pollution, including fossil fuel combustion, very effective population control programs, and “outlawing” dictatorial forms of government. Guarding against dictatorial leaders is key, as governments are controlled by leaders. If we let dictators lead, we will be doomed as a species, I fear.
For more details on all of this, see research papers on my web site, Politicalpsychologyresearch.com, and my book, Party Time!, available at Amazon Books. And I can send you the manual for rating leaders on the Dictatorship/Democratic leadership style questionnaire. I am 81 years old but still in good health and would enjoy collaborating with you all, and especially with the gal that created the little 17-item questionnaire, which I completed an am curious about.
Best regards, Bill McConochie, Ph.D., Political Psychology Research, Inc. (Bill@Testmasterinc.com).
Steve: Historically, conservative wins out over progressive and radical (look at the outcome of the French Revolution, the 1848 revolutions as examples.) The recurring theme is that progressive values look to reshape baseline human behavior, whereas traditionally liberal values seek to loosen constraints but not reshape humans into “something more perfect” (perfection is the enemy of the good enough argument.) So, while progressivism is being tolerated (more or less), I hypothesize an eventual pushback (or maybe it has, i.e., Donald Trump) to “what we know works.” And the pushback isn’t usually as dire as it’s made out to be, with regressions into fever dreams of conservative dystopias.
That said, though, that doesn’t mean that conservatives are completely tone deaf to progressive concerns, such as sustainability and unfettered economic expansion. Sure, there are issues with sexual freedom, personal responsibility and immediacy (a recent article on Banfield is highly relevant.) The approach is different, usually taking a Burkean experimental approach.
Thanks, I think the political impulse to fix what’s wrong, and the political impulse to preserve what’s right, are ultimately interdependent.
I’ve made a similar transition from progressive to what the author calls post-progressive (and what I most comfortably describe as “independent”). I wonder if the author has studied Spiral Dynamics at all, since the description of integrating/synthesizing the three worldviews of Traditionalism, Modernity, and Post-Modernity/Progressivism is an almost textbook definition of the Yellow stage of human development.
I myself have tried to talk with progressives about my evolving thoughts on politics the past few years, and while they can concede that the world is more complicated than lefty slogans and shibboleths suggest, this fact never seems to settle very deeply in their consciousness. I think the big “jump” that would be required is for people to desire to respectfully understand perspectives all across the political spectrum (which is how I came to this after feeling the 2016 election was a catastrophic failure on multiple levels) or for people to think very critically about how to wisely and concretely adjust society. But who am I kidding! this is 2020 and people are just as much at each other’s throats politically as they have ever been before. That’s why I have been retreating from the illusion that mere “politics” is what’s going to save us. It plays a role, no doubt, but as a private citizen I am looking to non-political means for making positive changes, maybe something like David Brook’s idea about “weavers”.
Progressivism? WTF, the term wasn’t even in use until Obama’s second term. It’s just a synonym for “far left”. You can mentally substitute “far left” when you see “progressive”, it fits right in. The left hijacked the label liberal, something they have never been. After they ruined and destroyed the meaning they moved on to “progressive”.
How do you tell the difference between liberals and leftists? Easy. Liberals believe in freedom of speech. They might disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it.
Leftists, on the other hand, freely use censorship as a weapon of first resort. Their own positions are so weak that if people are allowed to point out the many problems, they would collapse.
Hating America and everything it stands for has been a left-wing (not progressive, but mainstream) position ever since there was a political left. Unconvinced that there is a sudden outbreak of patriotism among the left. Let’s see them raise the flag, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and feel a unfathomable sadness in their hearts as the Blue Angels thunder overhead in the missing man formation. Yeah, I didn’t think so. Patriotism is firmly in the territory of the enemy Red Tribe, who the left successfully Otherized quite some time ago. See: http://archive.is/QRJ6m
You can mentally substitute “far left” when you see “progressive”
If the purpose of nouns is to make useful distinctions, then the above is only half true. Whereas the woke/progressive/SJ camp has pretty much taken over the left end of the stick, it should be remembered that the classical left and the current progressive fundamentalism are nothing alike.
The progressives aren’t calling for the socialisation of the means of production and distribution. They aren’t ‘far left’ at least not in the old way.
You come here with the same rant about ‘progressives’ simply being ‘far left’ on just about every post, but seemingly fail to miss the fact you’re throwing around terms that are by and large utterly meaningless and a ‘point’ that is basically vacuous.
Aspects of what you could call progressive ideas and completely compatible with liberalism. Liberalism itself comes in many varieties. The identinarian left who call themselves ‘progressive’ hold views utterly antithetical to those held by ‘progressive’ liberals (universalist, humanist values). Yes the identinarian left could be called ‘far left’ in the sense their views are extreme in terms of mainstream views, but those views are again utterly antithetical to the historical far left who tend to be Marxists and reject an identinarian outlook.
I get that the identinarians have often just switched race and gender for class and otherwise hold many Marxist views, but the class/identity difference is enormously important as it’s the difference between believing in a common humanity and potential for universal values or not.
For the love of god, if you can’t get your head round all that please at least spare us the meaningless rant.
This is a good start, Steve, but you (and post-progressives) fail to acknowledge the impact of the limits of growth and modernity loves you for that. Until we all admit that we cannot have ever-expanding growth on a planet with finite resources, try to get John Mackey and others on board with that around the third-rail issues of population, resources, and wealth distribution.
Thanks for your comment Gary. As I discuss in detail in my new book Developmental Politics, modernity is indeed unsustainable on many levels. But rather than trying to rid the world of modernity, I recommend that we carry forward the best while pruning away the worst. This is the primary goal of post-progressivism.
Same here. This is why I am no longer a progressive. Progressive in the Civil Rights/hippie 1960s meant obliterating the walls between races, genders, etc. Battle lines were ideological. Joining hands on our side were white, black, male, female, gay – all in it together against a corroded ideology. Progressives today have taken 180-degree turn. They are all about rebuilding those walls – white can’t know black, male can’t know female – it’s all about guarding your demographic turf. The good news, Steve, is that LOTS of us feel as you do. If someone could reclaim the fight against inequality and ecological threat, reclaim the old liberal message of universal rights and universal truths against tribalism, without all the cultural policing and divisive identity talk, they could get traction fast. As I tell my lefty friends who consider themselves radical, you can’t be radical if you are carrying around the old albatross of the left vs right, us vs them paradigm. If you want to be radical, break the paradigm. Yang is interesting because his head is already in the future on tectonic socioeconomic shifts and he is less invested in the old left vs right paradigm.
The other matter is the junior against Daddy syndrome. Leftists tend to hate Daddy. Who is Daddy? He is established controlling, white, traditional values; he controls wall street, he is an archetype lurking in the subconscious of the left. The evolutionary path forward is to unite Daddy and Junior or the instinctual and rebellious with the rational and controlling., the id with the super ego. On and on, we see the adolescent left take over and create chaos: (see Venezuela). It takes Junior and Daddy to make something work.