What is Progressivism?
Progressivism springs from a basic human urge to sort, organize, and move the human lot along the road of progress. Life is messy, and progressives are intent on cleaning it up, usually shouting "science!" to justify their latest assault on the sovereignty of the individual.
Conservatism does not rule the day here. We are living in a progressive age ushered in over 100 years ago.
Professor Thomas G. West explains progressivism's roots:
A growing body of scholars -- including John Marini, Charles Kesler, R.J. Pestritto and my colleague Tiffany Miller -- finds the origins of today’s liberalism in the Progressive era. Leading intellectuals of that day openly repudiated the principles of the American founding. In that group, Wilson is often highlighted because he was uniquely both a major politician and an academic.
Referring to his own time period, Wilson continues,
“Life is so complicated that we are not dealing with the old conditions, and that the law has to step in and create new conditions under which we may live.”
In other words, the Founders’ idea of protecting property rights is outmoded. We need a government that intrudes into and even micromanages the private sphere.
Wilson anticipates today’s liberals by telling Americans to follow the example of Europe:
“In the city of Glasgow, for example (Glasgow is one of the model cities of the world), they have made up their minds that the entries and the hallways of [apartment buildings] are public streets. Therefore, ... the lighting department of the city sees to it that the lights are abundantly lighted.”Think of Obama as a Wilson only without the professorship, scholarly writing, or intellectual firepower. All he's got is a hopium-fueled cult of personality redolent of charismatic third world maximum leaders. Nonetheless, he harbors the same Wilsonian belief in the power of the state over the petty concerns of the individual
Glasgow is Wilson’s ideal. Government knows best. (NY Times - Government in Every Part of Life)
George Will does an excellent job explaining why progressives persist in their pseudo-intellectual utopianism:
The point of progressivism is that the people must progress up from their backwardness. They cannot do so unless they are pulled toward the light by a government composed of the enlightened - experts coolly devoted to facts and science.Progressivism is not pretty, but like a car wreck or the face of a benevolent dictator, we must look upon it and learn what it is in order to save ourselves. We must, before its practitioners declare the hallways of our houses a public thoroughfare that can only be lighted by government-approved means.
The progressive agenda is actually legitimated by the incomprehension and anger it elicits: If the people do not resent and resist what is being done on their behalf, what is being done is not properly ambitious. If it is comprehensible to its intended beneficiaries, it is the work of insufficiently advanced thinkers.
Of course the masses do not understand that the only flaw of the stimulus was its frugality, and that Obamacare's myriad coercions are akin to benevolent parental discipline. (George Will - Progressives)
Oops! Too late... They've already banned the incandescent bulb...
Further reading
CSM - Progressives
Heritage Foundation - The Progressive Movement
