What is Modern Progressivism

• In order to understand how progressivism departs from conservatism, it is helpful to return to the three necessary prisms through which one should think about politics: the individual, the community, and posterity.
• The first prism is the individual. Progressivism promises individuals unfettered autonomy. In this view, the individual should be sovereign and his will should be the highest and ultimately the only authority. Neither God nor nature nor tradition nor other duties we have contracted should hem in our ability to define and redefine ourselves at will.
• Progressives’ individual autonomy, however, is a costly proposition. Not everyone has the material means to be who they want to be or to express their true selves. As Progressives like to say, “rights without capacities are meaningless.” As such, they demand that the state subsidize people’s lifestyles. Contemporary Progressivism also believes that people should be shielded from offensive words and so favor restrictions on free speech.
• The second prism is the community. Whereas conservatism views the individual as being embedded in local communities, modern Progressivism has embraced identity politics which views the individual as being embedded in a particular identity group (e.g. women, Hispanic, LGBTQ, etc). Though these identity groups are called “communities” they stretch across the country and connect people who have never met one another and only share a particular characteristic.
• The third prism is posterity. Aside from uttering platitudes about our children, modern Progressivism is not deeply concerned about posterity. In this worldview, the desires of adults trump the well-being of children. Posterity is only invoked seriously when Progressives speak about the environment.

The Two Minds of Progressivism — By David Azerrad

Justice Kennedy and the Lonely Promethean Man of Liberalism — By David Azerrad

Obama’s Declaration — By David Azerrad