He who controls the meaning of words defines the debate. George Orwell, among others, understood this very well. 'All animals are equal. Some are more equal than others," for example. When ideological media chatterers demonized the very legitimate word "liberal," most Democrats substituted the word "progressive" to describe their policies and beliefs. Therefore, it is worth exploring the meaning of progressive.
Progress, according to Oxford, is: forward movement, advance, development, improvement; and progressive is: moving forward, proceeding step by step, rapid reform, modern, efficient. Not too bad in describing Emerson's party of hope.
Much of American history can be traced through efforts to move forward, to progress, while preserving the best of our past. Abandon historical institutions, beliefs, and social norms and you become rootless. Hold onto the past and refuse to adapt, and you fail to innovate to create a better society. This seems so commonsensical that it causes you to wonder what the bitter political clashes of today are all about.
They are about government. Conservatives want government to protect them, and otherwise leave them alone. In the laissez faire, everyman-for-himself nation a few will rise and the rest are on their own. The rest, of course, includes the elderly, children and the disabled. Since this philosophy has no room for a social contract, private charity ("a thousand points of light") picks up the pieces. As is often pointed out, this philosophy leaves no room for food inspection, health and safety protections, clean water laws, bank deposit insurance and a host of other public services the vast majority favor.
When asked about the impact of her severe reductions in government service on society, Margaret Thatcher said: "There is no such thing as society." She bypassed Orwell altogether and cut to the quick. If there is no society, there is no need for government. Hobbes calls the shots: nature is red in tooth and claw; life is war of all against all; man is wolf to man; and devil take the hindmost. There is little room for progress in the predator nation.
For those of us idealistic enough to believe in such a thing as society and that society can progress, public institutions that form our government are required. Bill and Debbie Shore, founders of Share Our Strength, have fed hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of children at home and abroad. But they would be the first to say our government must bear the major burden of guaranteeing a civilized society, and private charity must do all it can to fill in the gaps when the nation abandons concern and responsibility.
For those who do not believe in society with its contracts and safety nets, there is no need for government. Their motto is: leave me alone. Alone meaning a gated community with private schools and security forces. This mentality's historical strain traces to the pharaohs. But it leaves very little, if any, room for progress in the American society.
For those who believe in a society, that to some degree or other we are all in this together, there are three choices: resist change and retreat to the past; stagnate; or progress. So far, no one has discovered how to progress without the institutions of government. Democratic societies exhibit qualities of justice, equity or fairness, mutual respect, concern for the dependent, civility and the bonds of humanity. Thatcher was correct: if you wish to rid yourself of government, first rid yourself of the idea of society.
Follow Gary Hart on Twitter: www.twitter.com/gary__hart
I've thought about your article and I'm troubled. If, in fact, you are correct and there is no sense of social contract by 'conservatives' (a word definitely needing to be re-framed), then there is no America at all in a societal sense for them. How un-American is that?
If all 'conservatives' see is a Hobbesian collection of Social Darwinists that just happen to be thrown together in the same region of the planet, then we have no nation at all--just a boiling pot where the few gain power and riches (and privilege and license) at the expense of the many.
I don't think that that is what the founders of The United States of America had in mind. It's absolutely not what I have in mind when I think about what is happening to my country.
Thinking back to what Gary Hart wrote, we all may be experiencing life in a society where a form of slavery exist and it seems some want to make it official. Still, I like what you wrote. Just take a moment and get to know Abe a little better.
http://home.nas.com/lopresti/ps.htm
Sometimes ,I wonder why we never heard about the DEBT before Obama ?
And I remember even Cheney said DEFICITS do not Matter.
BY the way,Obama has put the wars on the Budget.
Who said War is a racket.??
Public Education - major failure for everyone except unionized educators.
Public Housing - anyone interested in moving to the "Projects", please reply below.
Medicare - I have a friend who would tell you a lot about his experience with Medicare, but he died last week after he reached his 100 days lifetime limit of rehab care after a stroke.
Welfare, Food Stamps, etc. - makes nice supplemental income for under-the-table wage laborers.
Have we reached our goals in these areas? Oh, I guess we just haven't spent quite enough. I guess all that graffiti on the walls of the "Projects" would just disappear if we upgraded the carpets.
I'm not bitter, but I am realistic. I think there really is room for "progress" but let's set realistic goals and establish realistic plans and if we fail we learn from our mistakes.
But the fact of the matter is that the government is not just some object way out there. It really is the entity that is the repository of all of our goodwill and badwill. Communist Russia proudly put a sickle and a hammar on its red flag. Well our government IS our sickle and hammar. It is the tool to cut the wheat and to build the buildings. We elect men and women to wield the tools. We can choose them poorly or with great success.
The real problem we have is that we, the people, cannot agree to actually wield the tools. So many of us have been deceived by the erroneous philosophy of the millionaire movie star president, Reagan, and have come to believe, as he did, that "government IS the problem." No government is not the problem, WE are the problem. When 50% of Republicans view the duly elected president of the US as not having been born in the US, therefore negating his election, WE, the people are the problem. When a Southern Baptist minister leads his Phoenix congregation in prayer "for the death of the president of the U.S." WE are the problem.
What I'd like to know is "where are the Americans."
Government is NOT a mystical cloud containing billions of microbots that, when seeded with one-thousand dollar bills, magically perform the millions of services and products attributed it.
Government is a large group of people.
It’s not government that performs some of the services it has promised, some successful, some not – people do. Government doesn’t generate tens of thousands of documents aimed at controlling most aspects of our lives – people do. (No member of this group has read more than a small fraction of these documents) Government doesn’t send drones into other countries often killing its citizens – people do. Government doesn’t grope us at airports – people do. Government doesn’t break into citizen’s homes, assaulting and sometimes killing them, some by accident – people with SWAT on their backs do. Government doesn't gas millions of people because they're Jews - people do. Government doesn’t educate us – people do. Government doesn’t authorize the killing of its citizens so long as they are in other countries, a guy named Obama does.
You get the picture.
Many other groups of people do most of these things (some of the groups we call organized crime). The one thing that distinguishes the group of people called government is that this group holds an absolute monopoly on the use of force, including deadly force.
My question: Why do so many people love this group so much?
It was a government AND its people who put Jews in gas chambers. It was a differenct government and its people that freed them from those camps.
Of all the institutions that men create, their government should embody their hopes and aspirations. It should be the mechanism by which men can achieve their best hopes. IT ALSO IS UNIQUE IN THAT IT IS THE ONLY INSTITUTION THAT HAS SUFFICIENT AUTHORITY AND POWER TO BOTH DO HARM AND UNDO HARM. It is not that so many people "love" government, it is that so many people expect and should expect government to do what is right.
The only reason for people to hate their government is when the government does wrong. And the basic question for all Americans is "what is right and what is wrong?"
Thus far, we haven't been able to develop a consensus on that question.
But, as peace returns, so do right-wingers, and destruction of progress starts all over again until the next debacle.
Now we are in a particular period of social flux, there is little real consensus. While the pathological collectivism of Communism is generally considered a failure, some have swung to the pathological individualism espoused by Ayn Rand. I certainly hope we can build a new consensus for a social compact that maximizes individuality in ways that are only possible when everyone seeks to maximize the liberty of others, not just themselves.
Individual responsibility is certainly a social good, but most religious traditions, and indeed history teach that responsibility for others is a greater good. What do we tend to think of parents who put their own needs above those of their children? Is it really appropriate for those who have benefited most from our society to be unwilling to support it or even acknowledge it's existence?
Beautiful!
Conservatives want the government to protect their position and their advantages, regardless of whether those advantages were fairly gotten or fairly maintained. They want the government to protect the position of their religion, at the expense of all others. The "them" that they want the government to protect is NOT the whole population of the United States. They are perfectly willing to have the government persecute someone who has been in this country for 25 year as "other", because their parents brought them to this country without proper documents when they were a child.
They are perfectly willing to condemn whole swathes of the country as criminal, or lazy, or socialist evil and say that the government is under no obligation to protect them at all.
Perhaps more accurately would be to say that the conservative position is, "I demand that the government protect me and mine with all its resources, but be damned if any of those resources go to defend somebody that I disapprove of."