Thing is though, that while we yo-yo between eras of progress and eras of retrenchment, the overall level of political progressiveness slowly, but surely, moves upward.
That is the same argument really, as the “even regressive conservatives today hold many views that were once quite liberal (or progressive) such as owning slaves is wrong, women should be able to vote, public schools should be integrated, etc.”
As educational (and other) opportunities as well as communications efficiency (e.g. telegraph, telephone, internet) continue to improve on the whole, Progressiveness can only have a net gain over time (though political “cycling” and periods of regression are to be periodically expected) barring extreme and catastrophic social upheaval such a bloody and successful revolution by the mouth-breathing religious nutjobs where the intellectuals are ‘the first ones up against the wall’.
While you have a good point, and it is true that society generally gets more progressive—the good part—and moral standards fall over time—the bad part, IMO— there are occasions where they are “reset”, so to speak, and it doesn’t have to be by revolution. For example, the Victorians were much more morally strict than their predecessors, mainly for socioeconomic reasons. The new and growing middle class that had firmly taken root above the old aristocracy had neither the combination of extreme wealth and power that so often tempted the old aristocracy to do anything they wanted nor the lack of reputational consequences (how could things really get worse) that would have stopped the lower classes from doing whatever they wanted. Granted, there were many other factors, too, but none of them involved putting the intellectuals “against the wall”.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
ETA:
I don’t know either, but that’s one reason why I don’t like Jesus.
But define “progressive”. It is my contention that free market capitalism is a progressive liberal ideology, not reactionary conservative ideology. Yet here in the US you’d be hard-pressed to find a self-labeled conservative who doesn’t profess support for capitalism, and very few leftists who would.
Or put it another way. How does the progressive ratchet you describe explain the fascist and communist totalitarian movements of the 20th century? Where they progressive or conservative? Or neither or both?
This is my opinion, too. Reactionary totalitarian moments want to use government force to reorder society and change how people think, either (in the rightist flavor) to bring back “the good old days” where everything was simple and people weren’t so dadgum immoral, or (in the leftist flavor) to bring about a “new order” where people work for the community, not for selfish, wasteful ends. And actually, most fascist governments were of the latter type, only really differing from Communism in their stance on nationalism and on whether everything should be actually owned by the state or whether everything should just be dedicated to the state.
Well, that’s because free market capitalism isn’t a “progressive liberal ideology”. It’s natural tendencies are towards oligarchy; left to itself, you end up with a few rich “lords” who can do anything they like to the serfs.
IIRC, Teddy Roosevelt’s “Bull Moose” Party was actually named the Progressive Party. (That was back when the Republicans were the left-wing, and the Democrats the right).
Well, what did capitalism do to the actual no-scare-quote aristocrats? It destroyed them. If capitalism just enriches the the powerful, why didn’t it enrich the kings and queens and dukes and barons and counts and earls?
People who are in power hate capitalism, as you say, they prefer oligarchy and using the power of the state to regulate the economy.
Defining “progressive” as “everything good” and “conservative” as “everything bad” is pretty silly. Costanza-Limbaughism[sup]*[/sup] isn’t much of an ideology.
[sup]*[/sup]Find out what Rush Limbaugh is in favor of, then do the opposite.
Because they belonged to the faction that lost. Replacing one oligarchy with another doesn’t make it any less of an oligarchy. And the only reason the capitalists aren’t nearly indistinguishable from the old kings and such is because they are restrained by the government.
Don’t be silly; we just lived through years of the Republicans being in power and doing their best to let capitalism run wild. Using the power of the state to hold the capitalists in check is the only thing keeping most of the population from being crushed into serfdom.
Ultimately, virtually all freedom comes from the government. Individualism is a luxury that can only exist under the protection of government; individuals are weak and cannot win by themselves against an organization like a corporation, or even individuals much wealthier than themselves who aren’t restrained by the government.
Progressives may or may not be good, but conservatism is virtually always wrong.
Obama and the Democrats have had a very bad week. Not only has the public turned against it, but they managed to almost completely unite the Republican party against them, and on the issue where the public is firmly on the side of fiscal conservatism.
Wishful thinking much? A CNN pollhas approval ratings for Obama, Congressional Democrats and Congressional Republicans at 76, 60 and 44 respectively. 54% support the stimulus plan and I bet that will increase a bit after it is actually passed. Obama is going to get more than 90% of what he wanted in the stimulus and in the last few days he has been very effective in pushing for it publicly. He did have a rocky first week of Feb with the Daschle nomination but he has had a great last few days and overall he is in a very strong position.
That did seem an outlier when I saw it earlier, Sam.
Beyond all the discussion and back to the OP I believe that we may well see a time where the current Republican coalition disintegrates. All coalitions are unstable, of course, but one which combines fiscal conservatives with religious conservatives seems moreso than most. It’s amazing to me that it held together as long as it has given the almost diametrically opposed goals of those two groups.
But that doesn’t mean ‘conservatism’ is dead and gone, not at all. It means that the next generation (Mitch McConnell has, essentially, no chance of achieving this) of Republican leadership needs to attempt to restructure the party into more than God and Tax Cuts. The Blue Dog Democrats are out there waiting to be picked off by a less reactionary Republican leadership aimed at strong defense within budgetary guidelines.
I know I’ve said this before but there’s an ENORMOUS market opportunity for a small cadre of prominent politicians to form a middle party focused on fiscal conservatism and social liberalism. Platform: "We don’t care what you do with your lives as long as you don’t break the bank doing it’. Sorta, I guess.
Such an effort would appeal to the mass middle which contains the voting groups that make up pendulum that keeps up on the 20-25 year cycles. Pick those folks up and you can marginalize both the evangelicals and the arch-liberals. You’d also be able to marginalize the budget-busters on both sides.
I’m not really qualified to discuss American politics anymore, but in the past, Dopers have always overstated this possibility, simply because the SDMB swings pretty heavily that way. Simply put, you see the opportunity more prominently than you should, simply because that’s who you’re talking to.
Well, I hate to bring biography into it, but my background is journalism covering the Hill and the White House. When I bring that argument into play it’s based on being, admittedly, inside the DC echo chamber for years.
It’s a matter of getting the right people and funding into place. And then either trying to move one of the major parties or using ENORMOUS funding to try to establish a middle coalition that can be a critical minority to start and attempt to build on it in the future.
The Independence Party fills the bill, more or less. (The Reform Party was a coalition of paleoconservative populists and, in the early-20th-Century sense of the word, progressives – as a result, it was always somewhat incoherent ideologically. When it broke up, the paleocons formed the America First Party and the progressives the Independence Party.)
And what’s going to happen is that, if the Independence Party becomes popular, the Republican Party will devour its planks and destroy it. This is how third parties work in America. They almost can’t take over from the main two, but they can change their paths.
They’re called Libertarians, although they have very little influence because of bad organization and the first-past-the-post electora system the U.S. uses.
Bah. Libertarians are Republicans who don’t want the responsibility of actually running anything. Their influence is limited because their ideas have no merit, as witnessed by the lack of libertarian governments in the world.