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Sunday, May 23, 2010

Liberals and Progressives are not the Same

The author of "Is There a Culture War, or What?", S T Karnick, suggests that there is a culture war and it is between the Liberals and the Progressives, and he provides a bit of a definition for each.  Put another way, there are Progressives (Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Woodrow Wilson), Conservatives (Senator Robert Byrd or the late Rep John Murtha) and Liberals (Maggie Thatcher, for instance).  Until we get these distinctions straight, our politics will always be confused.  Our political history will be distorted, wedded as it is to a French indoor Tennis Court outside Paris.  We won't be able to really explain the Democratic Party majority in the US Congress from 1933 through to Newt Gingrich.  Do we really believe Senator Hubert H Humphrey and Governor Huey P Long were in the same party?

But, to the article in The American Culture:
There is a culture war, and we need it, argues Carol Iannone on NRO’s The Corner.

I don’t like martial metaphors, but I strongly agree with Carol Iannone that there are basically two worldviews competing irreconcilably in the United States today.

One, called progressivism, derives from the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and tends to blame all human problems on imperfect social institutions. Individuals devoted to this worldview concentrate great effort on the perfecting of institutions according to their idea of social justice, which evolves as new problems are created by their efforts to transform society and its institutions.

Their opponents refer to this fundamental problem of progressivism as the Law of Unintended Consequences.

In addition, progressives of all stripes require the development of an aristocracy consisting of political, economic, social, and cultural elites who can implement the proper management of society.

The other worldview, best described as classical liberalism, acknowledges that social conditions circumscribe individuals’ choices, but they nonetheless argue that people have freedom of choice within the conditions under which they live. Such classical liberals argue for political liberty and allowance of social mobility, an essential element of which is the acceptance of the concept of personal responsibility, the willingness of society to allow people to reap the consequences of their actions, both good and bad.
We need to take a new look at our political culture and regroup the characters.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

5 comments:

Jack Mitchell said...

Can we keep the "liberals" from forming off shore, multinational conglomerates that dominate the military-industrial-medical-insurance-media complex,while buying and selling our representative gov't like livestock?

When we can assure that, I'll sup from the cup of Laissez-Faire.

I don't believe in the Illuminati. I do believe in greed and the existence of those with a rather heartless perspective on social evolution.

C R Krieger said...

Jack forgot "academic" in his list of the interlocking complex which is the US economy today.

Up until WWI forced all those nations overseas to sell their holdings in the US, we were owned by those off shore, as it is again, because we are not willing to save, rather than spend.  I think the exception in the selling was the Netherlands, which managed to avoid getting sucked into the War to End All Wars.

Regards  —  Cliff

JacK Mitchell said...

I stand amended.

Yeh, we luv'zus some credentials up in here.

Renee said...

social evolution?

I mean I understand scientifically explain human behavior, but it just doesn't sit well either.

The understanding of evolution is fine when looking back into history, but looking forward human beings simply aren't subjected to the same rules as any other living creature on Earth. We can will ourselves to go against nature in so many ways some good, some (obviously) bad.

ncrossland said...

Actually Cliff, Liberals and Proggies ARE the SAME.......WRONG!!!! Someday, science will find that their cause is an errant genetic mutation....and then perhaps we can cure the world of their disease.

Hope springs......

In the meantime, we amuse ourselves with these esoteric discussions while Muslims construct a multistory mosque almost in the footprint of the WTC....and Bloomberg, Obumble, and the rest of the idiots in residence applaud it...probably will attend the ribbon cutting ceremony....perhaps with replica DC-10 aircraft......