The Difference Between Liberals and Progressives
If you’ve read a lot of the stuff I write, you might have noticed I don’t use the word “liberal” the way most Americans do, usually opting for the word “progressive” in its place. I make this distinction because, in my mind, liberalism is different from progressivism, although it has always been hard for me to describe exactly how in just a few sentences. (Yeah, I’m pedantic about words. It’s not like there isn’t any precedent!)
After lots of reading, listening to interviews, and thinking, I’ve finally managed to distill down what I see as the fundamental difference between “liberal” and “progressive” to a single question! And so, before we continue, ask yourself:
When it comes to matters of law, should we give preferential treatment to society’s least-advantaged?
Once you have your answer, read on.
If you said yes, you are progressive; if you said no, you are liberal (assuming your full answer is “no, everyone should be subject to the same laws”). In the interest of simplicity and maintaining focus, I’m not going to address other possibilities. As the title says, we’re here to talk about the difference between liberals and progressives.
In thinking about how people approach the question above, I realized something odd. No matter how you answer, you will use the same rationale as someone who answered the opposite way: This is just.
For liberals, the most important principle is equality before the law. No matter who you are or what you look like, you ought to be subject to the same rules as everyone else. Any other way is by definition unjust.
Now, if I’m straw-manning here, please correct me, but for progressives, it seems compassion towards the least fortunate supersedes all else. I think this is the crux of John Rawls’s definition of justice. Not giving preferential treatment — which is ultimately different treatment — to marginalized groups constitutes oppression, and is therefore unjust.
If you ask me, the premises of equality before the law and preferential treatment for any group — even for the disenfranchised — are inherently incompatible. So assuming these are our only options, which one is right?
I could go on to argue what I believe here, but I’ll soon run into a big problem. If Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) is correct, it’s going to be difficult for either side to “sell” its view to the other because we don’t all weight the various dimensions of morality the same. What I see as fair, you might see as heartless; what you see as compassionate, I might see as overly sensitive.
I think we’d all agree we want justice, but we have different views on what that entails. Furthermore, these convictions are deeply held. The pioneers of MFT say they’re gut-feeling, emotional reactions, and not views we arrived at through deliberation — although we would defend them with post-hoc rationalizations as if they were. Is it possible to reconcile these fundamental disagreements?
If you were looking for answers, well, I have some bad news for you: I don’t have any. I only have more questions and thoughts. I hope you will forgive the lack of structure here, but the rest of this “essay” is going to be more stream-of-consciousness because I don’t have a clean way to string it all together. Here we go…
Another thing I wonder about is if (or how) the whole assortative mating phenomenon plays a role in how we got here. There’s a lot of talk about how people seeking partners with similar backgrounds exacerbates income inequality. Does this also apply to the divides in morality and politics? When we pick partners who are like us, do we end up producing children with even stronger convictions than our own?
And what about physical mobility — is that a factor? What I mean by that is, with the advent of airplanes and cars, it’s never been easier in the history of humankind to pick where we live. When given that option, do we seek out communities with like-minded people and end up unintentionally forming enclaves where just about everyone has the same moral and political priorities?
Admittedly, I only have personal experience to work with here, but I would say it’s more likely than not (of course, if you have good evidence to the contrary, I’m open to changing my mind here). I could even see both phenomena working in tandem to create a feedback loop that speeds up the divergence. In other words, the divide gets bigger, and does so ever faster.
The obvious, burning question is, “What should we do to bridge this gap between liberals and progressives?” Truth be told, I have trouble even coming up with good answers to “What can we do?”
Here’s the best I’ve got: The differences in our perceptions of morality probably didn’t persist simply by chance. Had they been irredeemably detrimental, people with those traits would have died out long ago. Maybe these traits are still around because they are useful for survival in some way. My guess is they solved societal problems that would otherwise be nearly intractable.
As much as we despise the way the “others” think, unless we’re willing to kill for our beliefs — and I seriously hope that option is universally regarded as a non-starter—we have to believe humankind couldn’t have thrived as well as it has without these differences. If we want to keep what we now have, putting up with diversity in morality is the cost.
