Finn has some good points ... definitely.
For example on the ever more 'virtual' designation of "progressive" and "conservative" to parties and movements. Mostly the terms are used as just another equivalent of "left" and "right". But if you look at the economic policies the different parties today espouse, the contradiction in its use is kinda striking.
After all, its the liberal and conservative parties of the Right that now forever push for more "reform", for "overhauls" - of social security, disability benefits, bureaucracy, pensions, of well, everything, it sometimes seems! They're for privatisation, for liberalisation, for dismantling and restructuring and - well, change. Whereas its the "progressive" Left thats desperately trying to hold on to the achievements of the fifties through seventies, trying to conserve at least something of the welfare state. It is the Left that laments the loss of traditional solidarity and the sense of communal responsibility, while it is the liberal and conservative right that has embraced the "me"-era of yuppiedom. Economically speaking, it is the "progressive" socialdemocrats, socialists and greens that are being conservative, while its the "conservative" Right thats forever pushing for more change, promising us the perpetual economic progress of the market if we will just yield and embrace the neoliberals' recipes for reform.
Of course, when it comes to less material issues, whether its the cross on the walls of Bavarian schools or the right of French gays to marry, the roles are still as they always were: the conservatives/christian-democrats are, well, conservative, while the leftists and liberals see no problem in challenging ever new conventions.
Another hobbyhorse of mine Finn is confirming is how left and right are not the opposite ends of something linear - if anything, its a circle! Thats true especially now that the far left has dumped most of the more opaque and elaborate stipulations of marxist-leninist dogma, simply launching into populism (and in Eastern Europe,
nationalist populism) instead - and the far right, too, has been trying to downplay any actual links to the fascist past and reinvent itself as a flexible, pragmatic force. In Western Europe, the far left and far right are still passionate enemies of one another despite the collectivism, populism and suspicion of Israel they have in common, but in post-communist Eastern Europe the "red-brown" mix of the two has long established a clear, even dominant presence in politics.
Finally, there's his echo on how "the liberalism that I consider the foundation of Western Civilization doesn't require social programs and labor unions". Perhaps its due to the labour movement never having gotten a lasting party-political foothold in America (alas), that "liberal" and "leftist" have come to be collapsed into a single political category in the US. I want to "blame" FDR for it, but I guess the Democrats have often before co-opted some of the rousing working class rhetorics - after all, it was a William Jennings Bryan song that
went (I think I once posted it before <giggles>):
Quote:In heaven there's no millionaires, So the Good Book doth tell; They may be down with Satan, Monopolizing hell. Watch them close if they are there, They may you also fleece; Make them pay their bills, They've got wealth right from the poor they squeeze.
