Progressive Realism - emerging D concept?

[BoRaGard]

From Post Opinions on @Threads today

British politician David Lammy is telling us (US Dems) to keep doing what we’ve been doing, but to start calling it progressive realism,

@realrobertwrighter writes.
“Real progressive realism offers a better path.”

#ProgressiveRealism

OK. Now what does Progressive Realism mean?

Your entry must be 25 words or less, and include the box top.

[Think. Again.]

1. Never heard the phrase...

...but Progressivism is good, and realism is what sane people do, so....

[brush]

2. Progressive pramatism is another way of putting it.

What can get done.

[dansolo]

13. I've called myself a Pragmatic Progressive for a long time

I think I started to use that term around the time of Howard Dean's campaign.

[brush]

14. It's accessing what can get done, and how to do it.

[The Magistrate]

3. The Meaning I Would Take From It, Sir

Is to pursue progressive goals by means which can promise some degree of success in present circumstances. A lot will depend on how sound is the judgement of what present circumstances are, and of the likely result of a course of action.

You could boil it down to 'Progressives being pragmatic'. Which we here on the left damned well better be.

[BoRaGard]

6. Sounds good to me

In newspeak, "progressives being pragmatic" reduces to pragprogs.

#PragProgs going viral in 1...2...3...

#RealProgs should get some hits, too. I like that best, since there's so much fake russian and republican shit being shoved at us.

[betsuni]

4. Hillary said she was a progressive who likes to get things done and was viciously accused of .... oh never mind.

[Beastly Boy]

5. My immediate association was with Socialist Realism of Stalin's Soviet Union, and that is a bad thing.

The clue is in the phrase "keep doing what we’ve been doing, but to start calling it progressive realism". What is being proposed here is to replace the name but nothing else. This underscores the superficiality of the proposal rather than an "offer of a better plan". Why change the branding when it doesn't come with a change of direction?

More ominously, the proposal implies making a distinction between "progressive realism" and all other types of realism. This, as history shows us, is a well known technique that had been used by populist regimes and movements to separate "desirable" realism from the "undesirable" (and, therefore, punishable) version of it.

If the idea was to emphasize pragmatism based on existing realities, "Realistic Progressivism", although awkward, would be a far better choice.

[The Magistrate]

7. That Wouldn't Have Occured To Me, Sir

'Socialist Realism' being an artistic dogma, not a political one. Art was to focus on the class struggle, it was not to reflect bourgeois sentiments, There was political purpose behind it, but it was not something that guided Soviet policy.

The political dogmas behind Stalin's Comintern were far from realistic. The German communists followed orders and got Hitler, after early disaster the Chinese communists broke away from Comintern tutelage, and if they had not Chiang Kai-shek would have extinguished them well before the Long March.

[Beastly Boy]

11. The analogy is not direct, but my association was immediate.

It can easily be argued that Socialist Realism was as much an art form as it was a form of political propaganda and cultural indoctrination. It did not guide politics, but it was guided entirely by politics. In this respect, it is inseparable from politics, just as Gothic art was inseparable, albeit to a lesser extent, from the politics of the Catholic Church in medieval Europe (something that many art historians choose to ignore).

What disturbs me is the implied methodology behind David Lammy's proposal. And this is where the analogy gets more direct. Making distinctions between different types of realism on political grounds, one arguably "more equal" than the others, sounds too Orwellian for my taste.

[BoRaGard]

9. No matter what we call it, it needs to be a Big Powerful Vision

And the Campaign Vision needs a quick, and memorable name like New Deal, Great Society.

Maybe Applied Intelligence? Suggests coop twixt natural and artificial intelligence? Hmmm-have to think about that.

[tinrobot]

8. One election alone solves nothing, this will be a long haul.

I think too many people are idealistic and think electing some sort of "savior" candidate will make all our problems go away. It won't.

It took decades of concerted conservative effort to create this mess. It will decades of progressive effort to clean it up.

[JI7]

10. liberal Democrat is fine

[aocommunalpunch]

12. Sounds like nonsense.

I’m a progressive liberal. I labeled myself and don’t apologize for it with any qualifiers.

[BoRaGard]

15. Sounds ear catching to me

As my dear old wizzened grandmother often said, some like chocolate and others like vanilla.