Doing sociology and philosophy in real time by looking at developments in contemporary Western politics and culture, from a Moral Libertarian perspective. My mission is to stop the authoritarian 'populist' right and the cultural-systemist left from destroying the West.
Welcome to Moral Libertarian View, a podcast style program where we discuss big ideas to see if they can contribute to more individual liberty and equal opportunity, values that are at the heart of the Moral Libertarian idea.
Today, we are going to talk about what is meant by the word 'progressive'. For example, both Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden consider themselves progressive, but most Bernie fans don't consider Biden progressive. Furthermore, while most Democrats probably consider progressive to be a good thing, most Donald Trump fans and Republicans consider progressive to be bad, even though some of them like Tulsi Gabbard. It's a word that has created unnecessary confusion, and probably unnecessarily limited the support base for candidates like Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang, just to name a few.
So how does your average Donald Trump supporter define the word 'progressive'? Many of them think that progressive means super SJW, with all the identity politics, political correctness and anti-free speech that comes with it. You know, take how Hillary Clinton behaved in 2016, and exaggerate everything by ten times. Some on the right probably also define 'progressive' to include what Jordan Peterson famously calls 'postmodern neo-Marxism', which mostly comes from French postmodernists like Foucault and are definitely not progressive ideas. To your average Trump supporter, progressive doesn't have too much to do with stopping the wars. Rather, to them, 'progressives' are those people who will take away your free speech and tell you to check your privilege. No wonder they dislike progressives so much. Which is very ironic because, from what I understand, many people who consider themselves to be 'progressive' think that true progressives would focus on the important issues like ending the wars and leave the SJW issues alone because racial and gender equality has been largely achieved anyway (not my own views, I'm just describing what many 'progressives' think). But if you are going to self-identify as a progressive, the average Trump supporter will think the exact opposite.
This just shows how language needlessly divides us. The truth is, most people are against the endless, needless wars. Most people are against the power imbalance between globalist corporates and everyday working people. Most people are also against the divisive identity politics, and the many postmodernist excuses to undercut free speech. We are more united by these things, than divided by the label 'progressive', or its opposite, that is 'conservative'. Vaguely defined labels often prevent us from seeing common ground. That is why those who truly want to serve their people should have little use for vague labels like 'progressive'.
That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on my website, and my Medium profile. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.
