Are the progressives on the correct side of the history?

[buritobr]

Consider the time periods: t, t+1, t+2, t+3 etc


What usually happens

time t: progressives and conservatives disagree on issue A.

time t+1: progressives and conservatives disagree on issue B. Both progressives and conservatives agree that progressives were correct on issue A.

time t+2: progressives and conservatives disagree on issue C. Both progressives and conservatives agree that progressives were correct on issue A and B.


Examples

In a distant past, conservatives though that the leaders should belong to a family supposed to have divine powers. Progressives though that the leaders should be elected. After that, both progressives and conservatives considered that leaders should be elected, but conservatives though that only rich people should be allowed to vote, while progressives supported universal male suffrage. After that, both progressives and conservatives agreed on universal male suffrage, but progressives started to support female suffrage too...

In the past, progressives used to agree on inter-racial marriage. Conservatives used to disagree on inter-racial marriage. Than, both progressives and conservatives accepted the inter-racial marriage, but conservatives didn't support same-sex marriage, while progressives support same-sex marriage. Nowadays, even some conservatives have no problem with same-sex marriage...

[Associate Justice PiT]

     In the past, progressives favored eugenics. Today they don't. It is likely the case that in any time period progressives win on a preponderance of the issues, but it is at best meaningless to say that they are "on the right side of history".

[RI]

First of all, having your preferred policies enacted hardly implies anything about "the right side of history." It's just a lazy secular way of saying "God is on our side."

I'll assume you're only referring to social issues as history certainly has not trended toward the left on economics. Great attempts at carrying out far left economics have failed dramatically.

On social issues, this is essentially an exercise in confirmation/saliency bias. The endeavors favored by progressive which have failed are generally forgotten/disavowed.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Stop cherry picking issues


Progressives also supported the communists in the Early 20th century, and now they don't . But does that make them wrong on every issue in history no

[Antonio the Sixth]

Considering the scales we're talking about, there's no way to prove decisively that History has a "sense". However, I personally choose to believe that it does, that this sense is toward progress, and that the modern left is generally (if imperfectly) the champion of such progress.

[Mr. Reactionary]

I'm a dispensationalist so I vote no.

[knight4444]

Because progressive "STUDY" history, conservatives wait for their MASSA's to tell them how to think!  that's why the conservative media is always foolishly trying to rewrite history!!  According to the conservatives, OBAMA was responsible for 911, hilliary and bill go around murdering people (VINCE FOSTER" or that BLACKS weren't SLAVES, they were migrant workers!  and MLK was a republican!  It's all BS used to con their sleep into voting for a party that really can't stand their redneck butts!

[knight4444]

Stop cherry picking issues


Progressives also supported the communists in the Early 20th century, and now they don't . But does that make them wrong on every issue in history no

LMFAO you obviously don't know the definition of PROGRESSIVE!!  at least not progressives since 1964!  now I strongly suggest, you, research SOUTHERN STRATEGY and educate yourself!  here is a helpful suggestion also, reagan speaks in Philadelphia, Mississippi on states rights!

[LLR]

Stop cherry picking issues


Progressives also supported the communists in the Early 20th century, and now they don't . But does that make them wrong on every issue in history no

LMFAO you obviously don't know the definition of PROGRESSIVE!!  at least not progressives since 1964!  now I strongly suggest, you, research SOUTHERN STRATEGY and educate yourself!  here is a helpful suggestion also, reagan speaks in Philadelphia, Mississippi on states rights!

Calm down, son.

Also, welcome to the site.

[Kingpoleon]

Conservatives are responsible for eugenics and the Japanese interment?

Huh, who knew.

[Vosem]

Sure, but this is a rather lazy way of thinking. Because conservatism broadly, especially in a historical context (modern American conservatism, not so much), favors maintenance of the status quo, and progressivism features a departure from the status quo, by definition the march of history is a march of "progressive" success. This does not mean every attempt at changing the status quo succeeds, or even that we know which modern figures will be seen as progressive in the future -- any movement now that opposes the status quo, whether it is seen as leftist or rightist, will be seen as progressive in the future if its goals are achieved.

[buritobr]

First of all, having your preferred policies enacted hardly implies anything about "the right side of history." It's just a lazy secular way of saying "God is on our side."

I'll assume you're only referring to social issues as history certainly has not trended toward the left on economics. Great attempts at carrying out far left economics have failed dramatically.

On social issues, this is essentially an exercise in confirmation/saliency bias. The endeavors favored by progressive which have failed are generally forgotten/disavowed.

I agree. In social issues, the progressives usually win. In economic issues, no. There was a conservative backlash in the 1970s/1980s both in the politics (Reagan/Thatcher conter-revolutions) and in the academic world (decline of the keynesian theory).

[RFayette]

First of all, having your preferred policies enacted hardly implies anything about "the right side of history." It's just a lazy secular way of saying "God is on our side."

I'll assume you're only referring to social issues as history certainly has not trended toward the left on economics. Great attempts at carrying out far left economics have failed dramatically.

On social issues, this is essentially an exercise in confirmation/saliency bias. The endeavors favored by progressive which have failed are generally forgotten/disavowed.

[RI]

First of all, having your preferred policies enacted hardly implies anything about "the right side of history." It's just a lazy secular way of saying "God is on our side."

I'll assume you're only referring to social issues as history certainly has not trended toward the left on economics. Great attempts at carrying out far left economics have failed dramatically.

On social issues, this is essentially an exercise in confirmation/saliency bias. The endeavors favored by progressive which have failed are generally forgotten/disavowed.

I agree. In social issues, the progressives usually win. In economic issues, no. There was a conservative backlash in the 1970s/1980s both in the politics (Reagan/Thatcher conter-revolutions) and in the academic world (decline of the keynesian theory).

Well, there's very little reason to think the "progressives win on social issues" narrative, even if true (which is highly dubious), is some sort of fait accompli. There are so many possible things that could happen that we can't foresee, and just as there was a backlash against the previous generation's Keynesian economic policies in the late-70s/early-80s, there's no reason there can't be a backlash against the previous generation's social policies (after all, much of the millennial progressivism is a backlash against their elders), even if they're "progressive." It's happened before, especially in other parts of the world.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Stop cherry picking issues


Progressives also supported the communists in the Early 20th century, and now they don't . But does that make them wrong on every issue in history no

LMFAO you obviously don't know the definition of PROGRESSIVE!!  at least not progressives since 1964!  now I strongly suggest, you, research SOUTHERN STRATEGY and educate yourself!  here is a helpful suggestion also, reagan speaks in Philadelphia, Mississippi on states rights!

And you need to learn how to read cause I said Early 20th century which is before 1925  and states rights is guaranteed under the 10th amendment so Reagan had no fault saying that

[DC Al Fine]

First of all, having your preferred policies enacted hardly implies anything about "the right side of history." It's just a lazy secular way of saying "God is on our side."

I'll assume you're only referring to social issues as history certainly has not trended toward the left on economics. Great attempts at carrying out far left economics have failed dramatically.

On social issues, this is essentially an exercise in confirmation/saliency bias. The endeavors favored by progressive which have failed are generally forgotten/disavowed.

*Cough* eugenics *cough *cough*

[Antonio the Sixth]

Where does this notion that eugenics were a "progressive" idea come from? Sure, a terrifyingly high number of left-wing figures embraced it, but just as many people from the right did. And unless its most "successful" application didn't take place under a progressive regime (I hope you wouldn't try to claim that Nazism was progressive, because that's just plain ridiculous). The idea that there's a clear-cut divide here is ludicrous.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Where does this notion that eugenics were a "progressive" idea come from? Sure, a terrifyingly high number of left-wing figures embraced it, but just as many people from the right did. And unless its most "successful" application didn't take place under a progressive regime (I hope you wouldn't try to claim that Nazism was progressive, because that's just plain ridiculous). The idea that there's a clear-cut divide here is ludicrous.

I mean, it's a somewhat disingenuous characterization, but less so than, for example, the idea that you find in Robert J.C. Young--in other respects a very good historian--that people who advanced ideas like polygenesis were 'extreme right'. The historiography of post-Darwin pre-Holocaust 'biopolitics' (for lack of a better, less Foucauldian word) is a hyperpoliticized mess in general.

Regardless, even if eugenics wasn't 'a progressive idea', it was certainly a future-oriented, as opposed to past-oriented and thus as opposed to small-c conservative, one.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Regardless, even if eugenics wasn't 'a progressive idea', it was certainly a future-oriented, as opposed to past-oriented and thus as opposed to small-c conservative, one.

It certainly was presented as such by its proponents, yes (I'd argue that some of the ideas that laid the groundwork for it were inherited from anti-Enlightenment thought, but I'm not well versed enough in the subject to really back it up). Still, defining progressivism as "any future-oriented ideology" is neither intellectually useful nor helpful to common understanding.

[Figueira]

"The right side of history" is a stupid term.

I do think that progressives are right on most issues, though. Whether the majority of people in the future will agree is another question.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Still, defining progressivism as "any future-oriented ideology" is neither intellectually useful nor helpful to common understanding.

No argument there--otherwise many forms of fascism would be 'progressive', which, as you said, is self-evidently ludicrous.

A better example of a policy idea that started with a recognizably (provided one accepts the premises of the time) 'progressive' motivation but is now considered ridiculously antiquated--albeit not as transparently immoral as eugenics--might be Prohibition, actually.

[Anna Komnene]

"The correct side of history" in your example is basically just the majority consensus in public opinion.  Do I think most people in the future will think legalizing same sex marriage was a good thing?  Yeah.  That doesn't mean everyone will think so.  You can find people that disagree with pretty much anything if you look hard enough.  There might even be historians that write books about how it was the wrong decision.  History itself is just a set of things that happened that can be good or bad.  Analyzing it is up to individuals.

That said, I feel like the characterization of "progressives" supporting all these policies and "conservatives" opposing them is a bit misleading.  Do you mean the people in congress who were considered "progressive" vs "conservative" at the time?  Because congress is rarely the driving force for change.  For example, without people like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Gerrit Smith, and Victoria Woodhull, universal suffrage would have been less likely.  Every issue has its advocates, and when the issue involves transforming society in some way, the initial advocates are rarely in the establishment.

[Antonio the Sixth]

A better example of a policy idea that started with a recognizably (provided one accepts the premises of the time) 'progressive' motivation but is now considered ridiculously antiquated--albeit not as transparently immoral as eugenics--might be Prohibition, actually.

That's actually a really interesting example, and one that has value to it beyond the "checkmate, liebrals" purpose of the argument over eugenics. I'd say that the social goals that animated early prohibition efforts (early as in before they became a transparent way to stick it to those people, at which point there was nothing "progressive" left about them) were goals that modern progressives can and should embrace. Here, it's more of a matter that the proposed means proved ineffective and in fact exacerbated the problems they were meant to ameliorate. Progressives can of course make mistakes, like people of any ideology.

I think there's some justification for the description if you look at the history of medicine, the medical professions, and public health in the United States and Western Europe throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Whether you agree might hinge on how inclined you are toward viewing any attempt to address a perceived social problem using scientific methods as "progressive."

This is a terrible definition for the same reasons the one discussed just above was.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Any ideological definition that groups together Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Per Albin Hansson, Mussolini, FDR, Stalin and Robert Moses doesn't strike me as having any kind of value for the study of political philosophy. It prioritizes a minimal and largely incidental commonality over infinitely more significant differences.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, for one thing, neoliberalism has far more direct and material consequences in terms of it's impact on society. Very different people might be characterized as neoliberal, but they are insofar as they carry out similar policies that stem from common assumptions of how the world works or should work. By constrast, "attempts to address a perceived social problem using scientific methods" can translate into support or opposition to almost any given policy - and this includes policies that are, by any reasonable account, the very opposite of progressive. It tells you absolutely nothing about their substantial content.