Well, I wish them luck. Maybe they'll toss some money my way. Nah! Probably not -- I'm far too skeptical of the "progressive" agenda. I really doubt that they'll have much success, though, and here's why.
The article quotes Simon Rosenberg, one of the coordinators of the movement, saying:
"When conservatives began in the 1950's, they had been ideologically discredited.... Conservatives rebuilt from nothing. Progressives, by contrast, are beginning from a much stronger foundation."Read it here.
Not only does this mindset advance an extremely limited view of what is intellectually creditable, it also illuminates the self-imposed shackles that hobbles the left. If, as Rosenberg claims, conservatives built from nothing, that means that they were free to construct a new ideological framework within which to effectively confront the exigencies of life in the contemporary world. And if, as Rosenberg claims, "progressives" are today attempting to build their new edifice on a pre-existing intellectual "foundation" they will find themselves severely constrained by the ideological assumptions built into that foundation. To truly begin anew it will be necessary for people on the left to take a wrecking ball to this foundation and to abandon many of their most cherished beliefs.
I seriously doubt that many will be willing to do so.
The basic problem of the left in recent decades has been its propensity to proceed from a theoretical foundation rather than from actual experience. That works well in academia, but is disastrous when carried out into the real world.
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