- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Perhaps it’s true - ignorance is bliss. While I don’t shy away from “liberal” I’ve long preferred “progressive”. Lately I’ve been advocating that it’s high time we reclaim America’s proud liberal tradition (unionism, FDR’s New Deal, civil rights) and I’d hoped this was the thrust of Lind’s article, rather than a mishmash of historical references and the author’s notion that “progressive” is somehow mere euphemism. I’ve always remembered Reagan mentioning “the L-word” - being shocked that he would use this smarmy tactic to cast a pall of shame onto the Left - and I’ve been astounded at how effective this approach has been over the past couple of decades, during which time many who were once part of my Sixties generation have morphed into self-described “conservatives” and come to view “liberals” as effete, latté-drinking wimps who mysteriously “don’t get it”. These were, of course, the people who never really “got it” themselves back in the Sixties - wannabe hippies, the protesters who were just there to meet chicks. By the way, I’m dismayed to see Lind copping to the same sort of Sixties-dissing that too many writers indulge in today. “Deluded radicals” indeed - who says we despised the New Deal or the Great Society? Those were most assuredly steps in the right direction... oh wait, I mean the progressive direction.
It’s strange how words take on different connotations over time. In the Sixties, I came to equate “conservative” with words like: mean, uptight, narrow-minded, sexually-repressed - and frankly, I still do. But I recall at some point in high school being dumbfounded to learn that it was Southern Democrats who had been most notably racist. Democrats? How could this be? Democrats, I thought, were people who supported civil rights. They liked Black people - or at least they tried to - and inwardly fretted when they felt they might not be succeeding. Today one hears conservative terminology-twisters using the faulty logic that “Lincoln was a Republican” and “Lincoln freed the slaves” so why are these poor deluded Black people in the 21st Century strongly aligning themselves with Democrats? Well, times change - so do political parties - and especially the words bandied about to label them. Remember “Reagan Democrats”? “Log Cabin Republicans”?
Lind curiously refers to libertarianism as the extreme right wing of liberalism. Has he actually spoken with any Libertarians, I wonder? Those I’ve met struck me more as some bizarre wing of conservatism - indeed leading me to contemplate the notion that revolution turns things around all right - but if you go all the way around, you end up back at your original starting point. Libertarians today seek to abolish public education and deny that the population explosion is a real problem - perhaps global warming, too - hardly liberal viewpoints by any stretch.
I don’t agree that Liberals have necessarily resorted to the term Progressive as a euphemism, a way of pretending we’re something other than what we are. Perhaps some have... I had little awareness of centrist Democrats calling themselves “progressives” - though it makes sense in light of the profuse liberal-bashing on talk radio and Faux News. After all, if you can’t call yourself liberal, you must find another word to use - which indeed seems to have been Lind’s dilemma. I was ignorant about (or had forgotten) much of the history Lind points out in this piece. While it’s fascinating to be reminded that early 20th Century reformers of a certain ilk used “Progressive” (not to mention some obscure Germans in the 19th Century) it seems only sensible that most of us will use terminology in its current 21st Century incarnation.
Personally I’ve long associated the term “Liberal” with certain nice, particularly well-heeled folks who enjoyed martini lunches, drove Mercedes and BMWs, and lived in houses where I was more likely to be called in to perform repairs than invited as a dinner guest (though that wasn’t necessarily out of the question). In short, Liberals were the rich folk who were our friends, the ones who donated heavily to Democrats and supported causes I like: environmentalism, food and health care for the world’s needy, ongoing choice about abortion, civil rights, gay rights... and perhaps even peace. It would be nice to think Liberals are against capital punishment - and some are, of course - but I’ve been shocked and dismayed to learn Clinton (and apparently Obama) fail to oppose the death penalty.
As “more enlightened” rich folk, liberals’ money still came from somewhere - and in many cases it was inherited from ancestors whose social values may have been considerably more to the right, back when they amassed their fortunes. The term “liberal guilt” has long been used to describe the sensibilities of decent, well-educated sons and daughters of a certain segment of America’s wealthy families - fundamentally good people who have had their innate instincts for fairness and compassion confirmed and informed by the finest liberal education available. I have that sort of education myself, but I’ve never been wealthy and received my education on full scholarships - so, while I see Liberals as my friends and allies, I’ve always had difficulty identifying myself exactly as one of them. Perhaps I’m both progressive and liberal - but not “a Liberal”.
Perhaps Lind is precisely one of these folks - a true Liberal. His disdain for “deluded” Sixties radicals, for Castro and Ho Chi Minh, his shallow perception of the term Progressive as a mere “soulless ... manipulative exercise in rebranding” betray his biases. He’s certainly free to use the original “L-word” however he pleases. After all, liberal means freedom - so by all means, use it liberally. But then, as Jim Hightower says, trying to get people on the Left to agree on anything is like loading frogs into a wheelbarrow.
