One of the most successful rhetorical tricks in modern politics is the appropriation of the word progressive. It is an impressive piece of political branding. To call oneself progressive is not merely to indicate a policy preference. It is to claim alignment with history itself. The label suggests not just that one favours change, but that one favours the right change — the change that carries society forward, while opponents merely obstruct the march of progress.
That way of thinking did not begin with today’s self-described progressives, and it did not even begin with Marx. But Marx gave it one of its most powerful modern expressions.
Marx did not invent the broader notion that history moves in a meaningful direction. That idea was already present in Enlightenment thought, with its confidence in reason, science, liberty, and human advancement. But Marx transformed that general optimism into something far more muscular: a theory of history as a structured process, driven by material forces and class conflict, moving through intelligible stages toward a final social resolution. Feudalism gave way to capitalism; capitalism would give way to socialism; socialism would culminate in communism. History, in this view, was not simply unfolding. It was progressing according to an inner logic.
That matters, because Marx helped entrench a habit of mind that still survives even where Marxism itself does not: the habit of treating one’s own political preferences as the next stage of history.
To be clear, that does not mean today’s progressives are Marxists. Many are not. Some would reject Marxism emphatically. The point is subtler, and in some ways more important. It is that modern political rhetoric often borrows from the same deeper assumption: that history has a moral direction, that society is moving toward a more enlightened state, and that those who oppose the latest approved causes are therefore not merely wrong, but backward.
This is the real force of the word progressive. It does not merely describe a viewpoint. It flatters it. It wraps ordinary political preferences in the aura of historical necessity.
Yes it assumes that there is a telos to history. My long study of history indicates - no, not necessarily. Some people have said to me, “At least you know you’re on the right side of history.” Actually, I don’t, and that’s the point. All I can do is try to be the best person I can in the circumstances, and stand up for what I believe is right.
I wonder if we could do some good by demonstrating that 'identity politics', far from being the latest step in the march to the ordained future, is instead a regression to the state of affairs before the Enlightenment, and in some cases before Feudalism. Since I don't believe that history has a telos, I have thought that this would be a bad-faith argument for me to make, but things are dire enough now that I may reconsider.
I am coming to the conclusion that many progressives -- and many populists -- have the goal of doing away with the rule of law altogether, and live in a realm of pure power. It seems that law's impartiality is now considered, not a feature, but a problem. If a white supremacist or an Islamist shoots up a synagogue, then whether that act is condemned or valorised depends on the political power of the perpetrator, according to his or her social identity. The act, and indeed the victim is an afterthought.
I think we need 'The Rule of Law -- What it is, its History and Why it is a Good Thing' as a required subject for several years for elementary school students. It will be instructive to watch who comes out _against_ such classes.
This is my fear, Laura. In my submission, I say, “It is unacceptable to physically threaten and intimidate individuals and commit torts which threaten bodily integrity. I hold the same view regardless of whether protesters or counter-protesters target a Jewish person, a Palestinian person, or any other person. I take the rule of law as my lodestar. It is necessary to have clear boundaries to prevent wrongful conduct, preserve order, and to maintain civil society.” This identitarian view is a real risk to the rule of law. I too would want a subject teaching the importance of it.
It is also troubling that while in the past it was the identity of the _victim_ that was the guiding principle, these days it is the identity of the _perpetrator_. Neither focus gives you real justice, but the people wanting to overturn the rule of law to benefit actual victims at least are working out of some sort of shared moral order. The new version has exchanged the sacred victim for the holy avenger, who operates outside of the rule of law and whose actions are good by definition. There is no room for such people in my moral order. I am astonished at the number of people who have no problem with it.
Here, as so often, the horseshoe theory wins, the far right and the (sadly ever larger) far left united by their common incapacity for critical thinking and their common innumeracy.
Katy, I will be interested to read your submission to the Royal Commission. I am writing one of my own. My theme is that the Australian arts community, including writers festivals and the ABC, is heavily biased against the State of Israel, sometimes crossing over into antisemitism. Writers can write whatever they like, but the ABC and writers festivals are publicly funded in whole or in part, and therefore need to be more balanced.
It seems to me that part of the problem is a desire to divide this into a Manichaean battle between “Good” and “Evil”. And for those who are categorised as “Good”, any sins can be overlooked, while for those who are categorised as “Evil”, any sins must be emphasised. Who is categorised as “Good” has shifted in progressive circles, in ways I describe in the submission.
I increasingly feel that public funding has played into this: it incentivises status games. A lot of what I see on campus is a showy display of “Look, I’m a Good Person, I support the side regarded as Good and I stand against Evil.” This is, in effect, a declaration of superior moral status, and someone like me who says, “Well, look, it’s complicated, let’s look at the history,” has an obviously inferior moral status, or may even be Evil for pointing out complications. Often the person who is making the displays doesn’t even know much about the history or the situation, when one presses them, and has no particular reason to be concerned with this dispute, other than to show that they are a Good Person. But it is so necessary for them to be Good that anyone who questions must be attacked viciously.
This attitude is inimical to proper scholarship, proper journalism, and will not produce great art. It means that what we see are cartoons, stripped of nuance and complexity. I honestly believe that cartoon versions of history and disputes have no place in a serious academic institution. Go back to reading Superman if that’s what you want.
Of course, the part you can't say is that most people who think of themselves as progressive are basically incurious idiots (one can say it more nicely but given that many of them are not stupid, that is what it boils down to) with no idea of what progress is (i.e. widely-spread substantive improvements in daily life) or how to create it (more wealth), and as a result, whose concrete policy ideas are far more often inimical to progress than they are conducive to it, whilst many classically "conservative" (at least in Australian discourse) policies are rather conducive to progress.
Closely related: hard times make hard men, hard men make good times, good times make soft men, soft men make hard times.
I am afraid that I regard some of these supposedly progressive analyses as “colour by number”. You can tell exactly what someone is going to say on a given topic: crank the handle, out comes the expected opinion. It is supremely boring.
I think there's another layer to this, which is that the progressive view has now become the established orthodoxy in many areas. In Canadian public law, which is what I know best, it's been the view not only of the academy but also of the judiciary for 40 years. (I take it that this would be less true, at least so far as the judiciary goes, in Australia; the UK might be somewhere in the middle. But the academy is probably roughly similar everywhere, though the history of my own employment (and failed job searches) would suggest that Canada is especially bad.)
There is plenty of room to challenge the progressive, whether from a conservative perspective or otherwise — sometimes simply because its adherents have become sloppy lawyers in ways that would be reprehensible in undergraduates, let alone in apex court judges. But any challenge, even on doctrinal grounds, let alone ideological ones, is coded or perceived as right-wing and not worth attention in all the ways you describe, because no matter how dominant in fact, the progressives are committed to the view that they are plucky upstarts, and any criticism must be the work of the established order trying to keep them down.
Less true of the judiciary in Australia, although it varies. It’s academia, the arts and media which skews progressive.
It strikes me as very lazy to just write off criticism (whether conservative or otherwise) as “right wing” and therefore not worth considering. That really gets me - it’s as if these people are voluntarily wearing horse blinkers, turning their vision into a narrow one. They’re refusing to even think. And how is that “intellectual”? It’s all just a status game, showing off to other people in the group - “Look I carry the correct beliefs, look at me.” It’s so predictable - almost like they’re reading from a script. How boring, for both me and them.
And the progressive elite *are* the establishment—but you’re right, they’re constantly imagining resisting an establishment ghost which has been dead for maybe thirty or forty years—a ghost from the world of my childhood. I was thinking about it while writing this post, and in public life, there aren’t many conservatives, in my sense of those who defend past knowledge and wisdom. Often the “right” is as reactionary and utopian as the “left”, also projecting a fantasy.
I am really not a utopian. I don’t know if it stems from growing up with cerebral palsy - no manner of theorising or reorganising society or putting up flags makes my legs work like other peoples’ - calling me “differently abled” doesn’t make me feel less pain in my legs, or sleep better at night. What helps is actual practical treatment - operations, injections, physical therapy - and that’s how I currently walk upright without assistance. Maybe - maybe - this is why I became a remedies lawyer, because I am interested in the extent to which we can practically make things better after someone has been injured or wronged in some way.
If I had a criticism of the current world, regardless of the politics, it is that there is a lack of focus on what is really happening (for good or for ill) with a focus on the theory of what people believe should happen. Reality bites. But one has to look at it.
I should add - I don’t valorise or romanticise the past either. In any age but the present, I’d be dead: I would have died at birth. I try to look at it clearly - all societies and times have both good points and bad points - what are they and why are they like that?
Well written Katy. I'm a big proponent of Gadamer's concept of each generation revivifying classics through re-reading them in new context. The base structure is the same, but it is adapted to the times. Very similar concept to 'renovation'.
I agree regarding changing the incentives, but have little hope. The determination of who gets a grant and who doesn't isn't arbitrary. At the end of the day, somebody needs to part with money to provide a grant. One could call this altruism, but the cynic in me says that there is quid pro quo. There is some benefit to the person who provides the grant - perhaps the research being done suits their ideological agenda, like a study sponsored by a cigarette company that spruiks the health benefits of nicotine. The humanities are no different. There is a consistent agenda being served and those who benefit from that agenda 'buy' knowledge (think of the darlings of the left). It is corruption, pure and simple.
Those who are seekers of truth decry the unfairness in the system but they miss the point in my view. They see the system as corrupt and ask for incentives to change. But my question to them is: what do you have to offer those with money (would be grantors) or power (would be allies in the university system) in quid pro quo terms to change anything? A rebuke to this is 'why should I have to do that at all? I offer truth and that should be enough!'. And it's true - it should be enough. But it isn't - not even close.
So - I like to read books and judgments at different times of my life. I see different things.
I don’t know what I have to offer people, other than the truth, and teaching their children to think and learn the law, and producing (hopefully) helpful works. It may be that this is not enough, but it’s all I have.
Conservatives (should) love their inherited home as Roger Scruton argued. The inherited home is not just a place but a culture and a people. I notice in my philosophy studies how arrogant many philosophers have been toward their own society and history. They thought that through reason alone - or what passed for reason - they could upend everything that was. They may claim to look hard at why the fence was there, but the truth is an individual thinking his way to his own ideal wants the fence to be gone so they are unrestricted in their own individuality. From philosophy all academic disciplines that are not hard science have taken their cue.
One of the most successful rhetorical tricks in modern politics is the appropriation of the word progressive. It is an impressive piece of political branding. To call oneself progressive is not merely to indicate a policy preference. It is to claim alignment with history itself. The label suggests not just that one favours change, but that one favours the right change — the change that carries society forward, while opponents merely obstruct the march of progress.
That way of thinking did not begin with today’s self-described progressives, and it did not even begin with Marx. But Marx gave it one of its most powerful modern expressions.
Marx did not invent the broader notion that history moves in a meaningful direction. That idea was already present in Enlightenment thought, with its confidence in reason, science, liberty, and human advancement. But Marx transformed that general optimism into something far more muscular: a theory of history as a structured process, driven by material forces and class conflict, moving through intelligible stages toward a final social resolution. Feudalism gave way to capitalism; capitalism would give way to socialism; socialism would culminate in communism. History, in this view, was not simply unfolding. It was progressing according to an inner logic.
That matters, because Marx helped entrench a habit of mind that still survives even where Marxism itself does not: the habit of treating one’s own political preferences as the next stage of history.
To be clear, that does not mean today’s progressives are Marxists. Many are not. Some would reject Marxism emphatically. The point is subtler, and in some ways more important. It is that modern political rhetoric often borrows from the same deeper assumption: that history has a moral direction, that society is moving toward a more enlightened state, and that those who oppose the latest approved causes are therefore not merely wrong, but backward.
This is the real force of the word progressive. It does not merely describe a viewpoint. It flatters it. It wraps ordinary political preferences in the aura of historical necessity.
Yes it assumes that there is a telos to history. My long study of history indicates - no, not necessarily. Some people have said to me, “At least you know you’re on the right side of history.” Actually, I don’t, and that’s the point. All I can do is try to be the best person I can in the circumstances, and stand up for what I believe is right.
I wonder if we could do some good by demonstrating that 'identity politics', far from being the latest step in the march to the ordained future, is instead a regression to the state of affairs before the Enlightenment, and in some cases before Feudalism. Since I don't believe that history has a telos, I have thought that this would be a bad-faith argument for me to make, but things are dire enough now that I may reconsider.
I am coming to the conclusion that many progressives -- and many populists -- have the goal of doing away with the rule of law altogether, and live in a realm of pure power. It seems that law's impartiality is now considered, not a feature, but a problem. If a white supremacist or an Islamist shoots up a synagogue, then whether that act is condemned or valorised depends on the political power of the perpetrator, according to his or her social identity. The act, and indeed the victim is an afterthought.
I think we need 'The Rule of Law -- What it is, its History and Why it is a Good Thing' as a required subject for several years for elementary school students. It will be instructive to watch who comes out _against_ such classes.
This is my fear, Laura. In my submission, I say, “It is unacceptable to physically threaten and intimidate individuals and commit torts which threaten bodily integrity. I hold the same view regardless of whether protesters or counter-protesters target a Jewish person, a Palestinian person, or any other person. I take the rule of law as my lodestar. It is necessary to have clear boundaries to prevent wrongful conduct, preserve order, and to maintain civil society.” This identitarian view is a real risk to the rule of law. I too would want a subject teaching the importance of it.
It is also troubling that while in the past it was the identity of the _victim_ that was the guiding principle, these days it is the identity of the _perpetrator_. Neither focus gives you real justice, but the people wanting to overturn the rule of law to benefit actual victims at least are working out of some sort of shared moral order. The new version has exchanged the sacred victim for the holy avenger, who operates outside of the rule of law and whose actions are good by definition. There is no room for such people in my moral order. I am astonished at the number of people who have no problem with it.
Here, as so often, the horseshoe theory wins, the far right and the (sadly ever larger) far left united by their common incapacity for critical thinking and their common innumeracy.
Katy, I will be interested to read your submission to the Royal Commission. I am writing one of my own. My theme is that the Australian arts community, including writers festivals and the ABC, is heavily biased against the State of Israel, sometimes crossing over into antisemitism. Writers can write whatever they like, but the ABC and writers festivals are publicly funded in whole or in part, and therefore need to be more balanced.
It seems to me that part of the problem is a desire to divide this into a Manichaean battle between “Good” and “Evil”. And for those who are categorised as “Good”, any sins can be overlooked, while for those who are categorised as “Evil”, any sins must be emphasised. Who is categorised as “Good” has shifted in progressive circles, in ways I describe in the submission.
I increasingly feel that public funding has played into this: it incentivises status games. A lot of what I see on campus is a showy display of “Look, I’m a Good Person, I support the side regarded as Good and I stand against Evil.” This is, in effect, a declaration of superior moral status, and someone like me who says, “Well, look, it’s complicated, let’s look at the history,” has an obviously inferior moral status, or may even be Evil for pointing out complications. Often the person who is making the displays doesn’t even know much about the history or the situation, when one presses them, and has no particular reason to be concerned with this dispute, other than to show that they are a Good Person. But it is so necessary for them to be Good that anyone who questions must be attacked viciously.
This attitude is inimical to proper scholarship, proper journalism, and will not produce great art. It means that what we see are cartoons, stripped of nuance and complexity. I honestly believe that cartoon versions of history and disputes have no place in a serious academic institution. Go back to reading Superman if that’s what you want.
Of course, the part you can't say is that most people who think of themselves as progressive are basically incurious idiots (one can say it more nicely but given that many of them are not stupid, that is what it boils down to) with no idea of what progress is (i.e. widely-spread substantive improvements in daily life) or how to create it (more wealth), and as a result, whose concrete policy ideas are far more often inimical to progress than they are conducive to it, whilst many classically "conservative" (at least in Australian discourse) policies are rather conducive to progress.
Closely related: hard times make hard men, hard men make good times, good times make soft men, soft men make hard times.
I am afraid that I regard some of these supposedly progressive analyses as “colour by number”. You can tell exactly what someone is going to say on a given topic: crank the handle, out comes the expected opinion. It is supremely boring.
I think there's another layer to this, which is that the progressive view has now become the established orthodoxy in many areas. In Canadian public law, which is what I know best, it's been the view not only of the academy but also of the judiciary for 40 years. (I take it that this would be less true, at least so far as the judiciary goes, in Australia; the UK might be somewhere in the middle. But the academy is probably roughly similar everywhere, though the history of my own employment (and failed job searches) would suggest that Canada is especially bad.)
There is plenty of room to challenge the progressive, whether from a conservative perspective or otherwise — sometimes simply because its adherents have become sloppy lawyers in ways that would be reprehensible in undergraduates, let alone in apex court judges. But any challenge, even on doctrinal grounds, let alone ideological ones, is coded or perceived as right-wing and not worth attention in all the ways you describe, because no matter how dominant in fact, the progressives are committed to the view that they are plucky upstarts, and any criticism must be the work of the established order trying to keep them down.
Less true of the judiciary in Australia, although it varies. It’s academia, the arts and media which skews progressive.
It strikes me as very lazy to just write off criticism (whether conservative or otherwise) as “right wing” and therefore not worth considering. That really gets me - it’s as if these people are voluntarily wearing horse blinkers, turning their vision into a narrow one. They’re refusing to even think. And how is that “intellectual”? It’s all just a status game, showing off to other people in the group - “Look I carry the correct beliefs, look at me.” It’s so predictable - almost like they’re reading from a script. How boring, for both me and them.
And the progressive elite *are* the establishment—but you’re right, they’re constantly imagining resisting an establishment ghost which has been dead for maybe thirty or forty years—a ghost from the world of my childhood. I was thinking about it while writing this post, and in public life, there aren’t many conservatives, in my sense of those who defend past knowledge and wisdom. Often the “right” is as reactionary and utopian as the “left”, also projecting a fantasy.
I am really not a utopian. I don’t know if it stems from growing up with cerebral palsy - no manner of theorising or reorganising society or putting up flags makes my legs work like other peoples’ - calling me “differently abled” doesn’t make me feel less pain in my legs, or sleep better at night. What helps is actual practical treatment - operations, injections, physical therapy - and that’s how I currently walk upright without assistance. Maybe - maybe - this is why I became a remedies lawyer, because I am interested in the extent to which we can practically make things better after someone has been injured or wronged in some way.
If I had a criticism of the current world, regardless of the politics, it is that there is a lack of focus on what is really happening (for good or for ill) with a focus on the theory of what people believe should happen. Reality bites. But one has to look at it.
I should add - I don’t valorise or romanticise the past either. In any age but the present, I’d be dead: I would have died at birth. I try to look at it clearly - all societies and times have both good points and bad points - what are they and why are they like that?
Thanks Katy. Thoughtful as always. I’ve saved it to read again and think about.
Well written Katy. I'm a big proponent of Gadamer's concept of each generation revivifying classics through re-reading them in new context. The base structure is the same, but it is adapted to the times. Very similar concept to 'renovation'.
I agree regarding changing the incentives, but have little hope. The determination of who gets a grant and who doesn't isn't arbitrary. At the end of the day, somebody needs to part with money to provide a grant. One could call this altruism, but the cynic in me says that there is quid pro quo. There is some benefit to the person who provides the grant - perhaps the research being done suits their ideological agenda, like a study sponsored by a cigarette company that spruiks the health benefits of nicotine. The humanities are no different. There is a consistent agenda being served and those who benefit from that agenda 'buy' knowledge (think of the darlings of the left). It is corruption, pure and simple.
Those who are seekers of truth decry the unfairness in the system but they miss the point in my view. They see the system as corrupt and ask for incentives to change. But my question to them is: what do you have to offer those with money (would be grantors) or power (would be allies in the university system) in quid pro quo terms to change anything? A rebuke to this is 'why should I have to do that at all? I offer truth and that should be enough!'. And it's true - it should be enough. But it isn't - not even close.
So - I like to read books and judgments at different times of my life. I see different things.
I don’t know what I have to offer people, other than the truth, and teaching their children to think and learn the law, and producing (hopefully) helpful works. It may be that this is not enough, but it’s all I have.
Katy, as you would expect I entirely agree! Thanks so much for your careful explanation of these key issues.
Thank you so much! I keep thinking and thinking about these things - trying to work out a solution.
Conservatives (should) love their inherited home as Roger Scruton argued. The inherited home is not just a place but a culture and a people. I notice in my philosophy studies how arrogant many philosophers have been toward their own society and history. They thought that through reason alone - or what passed for reason - they could upend everything that was. They may claim to look hard at why the fence was there, but the truth is an individual thinking his way to his own ideal wants the fence to be gone so they are unrestricted in their own individuality. From philosophy all academic disciplines that are not hard science have taken their cue.
This rings true to me, as someone who dabbles at the edge of legal philosophy from time to time.