Yeah. About the word "liberal," that is kind of hard to completely demonize since there are the Liberal Arts --and in common speech, not questions of politics, about various things someone can be more liberal or more conservative, maybe about tastes in clothes or attitude toward modern art, etc, so you are right about that. Still "liberal" often is used as a cuss word by the Right and when it is so used the Left seems to have conceded. "Socialist" is another matter and precisely because of the old USSR. But in my case, and a lot of other vintage Democratic Socialists of yore, we would have loved to have driven Saabs or Volvos if we could have afforded to do so, we always were angry at the Commies for stealing the word Socialist since they weren't Socialists at all, they were Stalinists or Marxist-Leninist Bolsheviks, or etc. Those years are long gone but I have never forgiven the Commies for their word theft and still fight that fight. Especially since the concept and the word predate Marx by a good 25 years and the original "Socialists" include one of my heroes, Saint-Simon. Don't fret about now knowing too much about him, hell, most historians don't know jack squat about him either. Humor me , OK ? I'll return the favor some day when you need it most. Muchos Gracias, Guillermo ------------------------------------------------------------ 1/10/2012 10:18:36 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
Covered Socialist and Liberal elsewhere. Hope you find that. I don't like losing words either, but we don't want anyone to think that TR is one of today's progressives. David _ “A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.”—Fredrich August von Hayek On 1/10/2012 11:16 PM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: 1/10/2012 9:00:34 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) writes: You don't like language "corruption." Fine. Then what are we to do with the KJV in which Paul's vision has Jesus telling him "it is hard for thee to kicketh against the pricks." Does anyone today know what that means? Without an Old English dictionary, I doubt it. Throw out the KJV? The Fighting Fundies are going to be after you! :-) Actually this is anything but a problem for me. Most of the time I read the NEB, sometimes the New Jerusalem or Oxford. These are the best scholarly translations, and they are well done, at least the editions before about 1985 or so. The KJV is strictly for language as far as I am concerned. It is like Shakespeare. Simply inspirational. Otherwise I read the 3 translations, usually the NEB, well over 98 % of the time. Take back the language? Great idea, how is that done? We didn't quite get here overnight. We aren't going back overnight. We are now on the verge of losing two perfectly good words to the Right, "Socialism" and "Liberal." I feel like fighting to save those words also. On grounds of historical meaning and cultural relevance. But now it is the Left that has pretty much given up on the fight. If that's what they want to do, OK, I am anti-today's-Left anyway. But the classical US Left of the era 1900 - 1930 I feel like fighting for. Today's Left hates that Left and regards those people as backward and unenlightened. Being an historian means that some issues that draw blank stares from most people are burning issues to me --and to many members of the AHA ( American Historical Association ). But you're right, " We didn't quite get here overnight. We aren't going back overnight." That is absolutely correct. Its like SMU, no football program for decades, and now they're baaaack. Things like that can happen if you work at it. Billy ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- David _ “A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.”—Fredrich August von Hayek On 1/10/2012 11:37 AM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: Hrummmmph. There are advantages to the word "progressivism." If we are serious about assuming the mantle of Teddy Roosevelt then we need to find some way to work with the word and, in the process, break the identification the term now has with ( the sad excuse for ) today's Left. That is, partly what we have going-on is a word war, or "War of the Words." Creatures from Mars arrive in UFOs to teach us how to use language better and to provide Earthlings with better conceptual and communications skills. We are those creatures from Mars. Little Green Radical Centrists. So, let's not surrender any "heritage vocabulary." It can only be a fight but let's, win back all the good words that others have tried to appropriate for nefarious purposes. If you were an historian you might well be sensitive to this. Read texts written in previous decades ( historians read history just about every day ) and that may make absurd sense if we define words in them in modern-day ways. "Don we now our gay apparel," the Christmas carol ( one of about 20 with this problem ) sounds bizarre now. Solution, fight to discredit homosexual use of "gay." Similarly, in the era of the Korean war, the USAF referred to Mig jets as "fagots" ( can be spelled with one or two Gs ). Republicans like to demonize "liberal" and socialist." Why should we accept such word poisoning ? Both words have entirely good and noble meanings. All of this said, I also like your list of alternatives, evolutionary centrism, activist centrism, scientific centrism, etc, each of which can be used in the right context to very goof effect. Billy =============================================== 1/10/2012 9:16:13 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) writes: On Jan 10, 2012, at 8:42 AM, Chris Hahn wrote: a rational progressivism that supports testable change to improve the lot of the entire populace, rather than the traditional American progressivism which moves toward some moralistic utopia. I like your concepts, but I don’t like the word progressivism. It will be too easily be confused with American progressivism which already has a meaning. Instead of rational progressivism, how about “rational improvement” or “rational evolvement”? I'm with Chris; great insight, but potentially confusing terminology. How about: - scientific centrism - progressive centrism (adjective instead of noun) - progressive design - evolutionary centrism - activist centrism - improvisationalism Not quite there yet, but worth working on. As usual, I prefer a name that is oxymoronic and paradoxical in order to inspire cognitive dissonance. A good test would be whether it infuriates Solomon. :-) -- Ernie P. Chris From: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) [_mailto:[email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) ] On Behalf Of Mike Gonzalez Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 9:32 AM To: radicalcentrism Subject: [RC] Thoughts on this tenet? I want to home-in on this particular tenet and get to the heart of the point (tempered optimism + our brand of centrism = rational progressivism): When pessimism infects centrism, it becomes angry populism. When apathy blends with centrism, it creates the traditional view of the lazy, valueless independent. What is needed, instead, is a tempered positivity in scientific centrism, channeling the best aspects of an ideology that believes in the application of workable solutions in individual, piecemeal fashion to civil society. Consequently, a rejection of pessimism and apathy in favor of sober belief in a society's ability to improve itself is an essential aspect of centrism. The result of this is a rational progressivism that supports testable change to improve the lot of the entire populace, rather than the traditional American progressivism which moves toward some moralistic utopia. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) > Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_ (http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism) Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/) -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
