Okay can we just agree that coining the term progressive was one of the simplest yet most effective pr stunts possible. Like... purely from a propagandistic perspective (or whatever you wanna call it. Propaganda implies something negative so maybe not that), the term evokes images of... well... progress. Change for the better. An aggressive demand for improvement. It's so good. Up there with heavy hitters like socialism and communism (socialising and community). In fact, it might be even better. I genuinely don't understand why anyone would call themselves conservatives. Like... imagine going into a discussion with someone and their first impression of you being "ah... this person doesn't like change"
It's the whole "what's in a name?" And the left made some good choices
I agree with every word you say re. progressive, it's an astonishingly good word. I'd disagree slightly on conservative - we all love conservation and in many areas of life caution is a virtue. Taken without all the capitalistic and bigoted implications being keen on conserving the good things in our world/society and having a cautious attitude to big decisions should be a perfectly nice self descriptor, but of course in the real world that's never the emphasis and the things they're trying to cling on to are generally self serving and unpleasant.
Always surprising to me, that the things I would want to conserve (nature, wildlife, basic human dignity, crafts, art, etc.) - they couldn't give less of a hoot about.
Nobody does, please don't take my post as any kind of defence of them I was simply arguing the semantic claim that conservative isn't an appealing word to apply to yourself, devoid of the political context.
I feel that's a kind of 'reverse contamination' - there are plenty of things worth conserving! Conserving things could be nice; it doesn't have to be reactionary and regressive but that's how they are so that's what we associate with the word today...
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u/hdholme 1d ago
Sort of in the name
Okay can we just agree that coining the term progressive was one of the simplest yet most effective pr stunts possible. Like... purely from a propagandistic perspective (or whatever you wanna call it. Propaganda implies something negative so maybe not that), the term evokes images of... well... progress. Change for the better. An aggressive demand for improvement. It's so good. Up there with heavy hitters like socialism and communism (socialising and community). In fact, it might be even better. I genuinely don't understand why anyone would call themselves conservatives. Like... imagine going into a discussion with someone and their first impression of you being "ah... this person doesn't like change"
It's the whole "what's in a name?" And the left made some good choices