Here's a brief look at what progressivism looks like to me.
In my second year at a public high school and in my world history seminar class, my classmates and I were taught the political spectrum (essentially to throw out party labels and grasp the core of each political ideology).
And so as many educators taking on the idea of POLITICS 101, Patty Hixson told her students to blurt out political identifications. 'Conservative' yelled a person in the front row, 'Liberal' blurted another and they were added to the poles of the spectrum, Moderates were placed smack dab in the middle.
We must have extended this chart to political parties because by the end of the period, I remember the labels 'Democratic' and 'Republican' were in black and white on the board. But I also remember the terms 'Socialist', 'Communist' (which she did not mention with disdainful tone, but merely indicated it was on the far left).
Next she stuck general terms like 'Radical' and 'Reactionary' into the melting pot and by the end, as I'm learned most political learnings become, there was quite a bit of messiness and arrows pointing every which way. But before the brief discussion of generalities had come and gone, I vocally offered the term 'Progressive' to the mix.
Her answer to such an offering has always kept me thinking. She basically said that there are progressives on either end of the spectrum.
And even today, especially today because of the follow: I read Defining Progress by Reagan_Fan42 in which the blogger explains
I would like to see "progress" in returning power to the marketplace and allowing the individual consumer more choice and businesses the freedom to carry out their work more effectively with that lessening of government regulation.
If this is defines progress,
- What can be said (rather broadly) of Teddy Roosevelt's pressure on Congress to create the United States Forest Service and its effect on the future of public land and conservation?
- What can be said of the New Deal Era and its effect on the 1930s Depression?
- What can be said of The Great Society and its effect on poverty?
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What can be said of Carter's policies of environmental regulation and their effect on stewardship?
Do each of these examples serve the public good? Do I myself believe the promotion of the public good determines whether something is alone progressive? And if so, do opponents of progressivism simply disagree with the Constitution? For Example, does civic participation (what is sometimes referred to as civic duty) benefit the body politik?
These are the expansions of thought that have plagued (inspire may be a more constructive term in this case) me since sophomore year.
