The Genesis of 'Isms'
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 2024
- A person espousing the ideas of liberal thinkers, in the vein of philosopher John Locke, can often be dismissed today as an unfeeling supporter of the status quo. “Neoliberal” began as a proud watchcry of progressives and is now a slur levelled by progressives at others. What, exactly, is a “progressive”? How has the label "Republican" been applicable to Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump? Linguist John McWhorter explains how ordinary principles about how words' meanings change has intersected with the current social climate to make our political terms some of the most dynamic - and confusing - ones in the modern American language.
Man if John started a speech by thanking us for coming to see him, id stand up and scream that i'm thankful i get to hear him.
Every time I turn around --- there's John! Which is a really good thing.
All the words adopted by the left as a self-description are the opposite of reality. 1984 does a wonderful job of illustrating how the only idea that exists on the left is irrational control of the world around them, using word play that only sounds rational to the mentally ill, or proud cowards. Which of course always ends in slavery. ALWAYS.
Always learn something new and cool with Professor McWhorter!
He is such a gifted speaker. Doesn't even look like he's using notes here.
Interesting, insightful & highly Informative (as per usual for John Mcwhorter).
Absolutely, he's an amazing speaker. 👏
One of the aspects of Moldbug’s work I always enjoyed is when he creates and defines new words in order to remove any and all connotations from the standard word with the same definition.
This is brilliant! Though "progressive' changed a lot quicker than he thought it would I feel like
Yeah this did not age well.
I think the flaw in his argument (if there is one) is that the rate at which a given term becomes a pejorative has been accelerated by mass media. He acknowledged this when he talked about the changing connotations of the word “woke” which he successfully predicted would become an insult. Since a majority of the American debate takes place along the x axis of the political spectrum we should just use “leftism”
@@toomuchsparetimeproduction7281 You’re right, but the issue isn’t just the fact it’s become a pejorative it’s that it’s trying to shoehorn very different ways of being broadly on the left under one term. The gulf there has also accelerated as even five years ago the numbers of people embracing what we’d call ‘woke’ ideologies were tiny, but there’s always been profound differences between what you could say was the centre left and the far left.
The other issue is that the Wokerati are so unwilling to accept reasonable disagreement that people who five minutes ago almost everyone would have happily accepted were on the left of politics are now being labelled ‘right wing’ or ‘conservatives’ for no other reasons than being critical of wokeness.
What is the label for people who still think John Rawls was mostly right?
@@daffyduck4674 well I think anything is a shoehorn when you’re talking about political theory. Obviously there’s some kind of spectrum, but which exact beliefs you’re going to include or exclude from a given term such as “progressive” or “socialist” isn’t going to be very clear cut anyway. I understand the tendency to want to distance yourself when people supposedly “on your side” go too far, but the idea is that we’re pointing in the same general direction from a theoretical standpoint. But the way progressive hits my ears is in a mostly social context. Leftism to me is more of an socio/economic stance. The idea is more around building an acceptable societal framework for us to live in, not necessarily as the “wokesters” would have it, that we all see things the same way and agree (not that that wouldn’t be nice I just don’t find it realistic and think it enflames the right wing in a dangerous way). Anyway, I doubt anyone’s ability to forcefully change the phrases we use, it seems to only be something that can occur naturally
@@toomuchsparetimeproduction7281 This isn’t about ‘going too far’ but a fundamental divide between those who’s view of political justice is rooted in a humanist universalism (most civil rights movement, a traditional mainstream left) and those whose conception is identinarian + ‘power’.
(Modern woke left) The later often explicitly deny the possibility of universal values and claim any appeal to such is simply a form white western hegemony in disguise. It isn’t a matter of degree, these concepts are fundamentally at odds. To describe both as ‘progressive’ makes the term meaningless.
Left identinarians often have more in common with right identinarians than they do with a humanist left.
The only reason it’s not more obvious and people talk simply of some people ‘going too far’ is because a lot of the woke fellow travellers don’t really understand the ideologies sitting behind the jargon.
Everything was perfect up until 32:10. I live in Denmark, and we're tired of being called socialists, or a socialist country. Yes, we do have actual socialist parties, at least 3 of them to my knowledge. And yes, often they're in government, like they are right now. BUT they're minority parties! The *social democrats* have been the biggest party by a large margin for a loooong time here. And it's because they are precisely NOT socialist. They are not anti-capitalist. They are merely regulatory, and sometimes a bit too big government-y, but nothing that comes close to seizing the means of production.
Sweden here, same story.
Both left and right in the US seem completely lost on what these countries are. It's pretty annoying to be caricatured for use as a political pawn.
But the pandemic has made it pretty funny given the policy here in Sweden. Must have really confused them to see us not lockdown when they've convinced themselves that we fit neatly into some box that fits neatly with them.
The problem is that occasionally, some not-generally-famous Dane, will appear on Fox News or the like, and confirm all the stereotypes the American Right has about conflating Denmark with pure Socialism. And so they figure, "Well, he's Danish, so he MUST know".
What is your tax rate?
@@Mr196710 Better question: What is their standard of living contingent upon their tax rate?
@@j.v.5499 Their standard of living is not contingent upon their tax rate though.
I could listen to this man for hours.
I think what’s interesting is that liberal means two things to two sets of people. It’s either a pejorative that equates to soft, weak, woke (whatever that means) unpatriotic and immoral, or for another group it means progressive, open, fair mInded and non judgemental. What’s weird is that what’s being enacted in the name of the word liberal, is completely opposite to the understanding of the people seemingly executing liberality. Cancel culture being an obvious example.
I’d be interested to hear him reflect on this in light of his most recent book ‘Woke racism’ on what he’s called ‘The Elect’. The Elect would I imagine be happy be to embrace the term ‘progressive’, so where does that leave everyone who’s on the broad centre left but who wants nothing to do with a identinarian power + privilege, CRT world view. How can those people be ‘progressives’ along side those who question their authoritarian tendencies or who still hold to a broadly humanist/universalist outlook that’s informed most social democracy, be it in the mainstream Democrat sense, the continental European sense or the Anglo ‘Labour Party’ sense.
I get where he’s coming from regard liberal and socialist but I don’t think progressive is any better.
If the majority of people who identify as on the left of politics aren’t woke and aren’t Marxists, what are they to be called? The reality is labels will always be put on people and as a life long moderate lefty I sure as hell don’t want to share one with Kendi or D’Angelo.
When I think of liberal , I think of liberty ... Conservative has me thinking of conserving , taking care of things ...
Liberal to Progressive? Lol, that's going from the fryng pan to the fire. Prog is rapidly becoming much more derogatory than the L word ever was.
The problem I see is Democrats that do not actually support Progressivism are calling themselves Progressive. Progressivism is quickly becoming a meaningless term. And they're going to call us Socialist anyway, so screw it. And people in their early 30s and younger aren't as scared of the word Socialist. The younger you go, the more positive the response.
He is probably right that the word is unsalvageable for people 50 and older.
I was thinking the same thing - progressive is just as bad, if not worse than liberal - not only will conservative talking heads immediately jump on the word as a new slur to throw around, establishment Democrats are ready to step on that term as well.
I get his message though. Libertarians have been successful in branding themselves, and socialist liberals should probably try to do the same. It needs a word that is new though. A word you can first introduce with your own definition, rather than attempting to wrangle liberal, socialist, or progressive from their current definitions.
Progressivism has been a useful word for a long time, but now mainstream Democrats are jumping on the bandwagon and screwing things up. When has that ever happened before? jajaja
This is all well and good... But much of this could be easily dispensed with the simple advice to read Hayek's "The Constitution of Liberty"... I learned to understand the precise and historical definitions of these terms and their derivation from reading this and other books by Hayek...
Though my guess is that I am probably on the same end of the political spectrum as the old guy speaking around 46:00, he was seriously making me cringe.
Populism is a prime example. Thomas Franks just wrote a book on it.
Brilliant!
Progressive is becoming regressive quickly with identity politics in play. I like John, but how did he not know this even a year ago? It’s been growing steadily over the last 5 years.
A problem with 'progressive'.
If 'progressive' denotes movement towards a _good_ end (which excludes such use cases as 'progressing to our doom') whilst denoting a particular political position, it is impossible to refer to that position in way that does not implicitly _endorse_ that position.
I suggest that this is a bad thing. The words we use to denote things, especially controversial thing, should not entail (eg moral) evaluation of these things.
My biggest takeaway: He is 53!? Damn!
Denmark isn't socialist just watch their prime minister blatantly say they are a market economy
No if I'm talking to someone who's a follower of Marx or proudhon or a leninist or a trotskyist or anyone who calls themselves socialist, I will call them socialist. Same with liberal. I can get an understanding of what kind of liberal they are by the policies they support. We should continue to inform people what these terms actually mean.
McWhorter's presentation of the word, Liberalism, within the American context only - and as purely evolutionary, is somewhat unhelpful to many consumers of the Media today. A lot of Americans read the Economist or Financial Times, where the meaning of the term as "Classical Liberalism" is still valid.
I find it interesting, but not surprising, that John tries to link the term socialism to Denmark. I recall Lars Rasmussen, then PM of Denmark, rejecting that it was a socialist country and insisting Denmark is capitalist.
I don't think the issue with the term socialist is that confused in most people's minds at all. Rather it is far better defined than a huckster like Sanders would like, and therefore Bernie tries make people think it means something else.
Bernie really wants sweeping government oversight of the lives of ordinary people. He praised Venezuela until it crashed. Then it, rather suddenly, wasn't "real socialism". He wants you to look at at the successful Nordic capitalist countries and think socialism will be like that. It won't, only capitalism has been that successful at producing broad based wealth. Yes there are poor under capitalism, they are the wealthiest poor in the world.
Usually hear John with Glenn Loury, he definitely keeps this aspect of his beliefs hidden there. Had no idea he was this ignorant on basic economics. Wow.
Yeah...but how long will the term "progressive" last until it is ruined?
It is a more literal term though...that is a good point.
Many people who believe in Classical Socialism also call themselves Progressives. So this wouldn't really work. If there will be people on the left who call themselves Progressive who in the past would be considered a Social Liberal but also people who call themselves Progressive who are legitimate Socialists then we'd be back at square one. I think John underestimates the amount of people these days who support Classical Socialism and not just "Democratic Socialism".
Isms a belief ( religion ) that cannot be expounded on . People who are fans of isms are in a state of fanaticism .
It seems to me that rebranding to progressive is just going to change how we define progress.
Maybe all these amorphous terms should be called Label-isms in quicksand!!
Socialism has gone pejorative due to its track record.
To have to call any movement or party ‘’democratic’’, means it is not. East Germany, Congo, North Korea ,… all had democratic in the title
i think progressive has already taken on a new meaning to some people
Words are the clay of Marxists.
John, "libertarian" is a mess too, if you look up the tradition from Proudhon
None of the conventional "isms" address the fundamental imbalance between human and property rights associated with access to and control over nature. In terms of labor and capital goods, nature has a zero cost of production. Nature is provided to humans as a commons for our use and survival.
Almost alone among the great political and economic thinkers, the American Henry George presented a cogent argument for a labor and capital goods basis for private property. Nature is, George argued, the source from which all wealth is produced. Thus, nature is the source of private wealth but is not legitimately to be treated as private wealth. The ideal structure for accessing any part of nature is under a competitive bidding system for a leasehold interest issued by the community or society. Note, therefore, that government acts as the agent of the community and society for administering such a system.
As deeds to nature had already become a widespread norm, Henry George argued that a second-best approach was for government to collect from every "owner" (i.e., deedholder) of land the full potential annual rental value of any location privately held.
Henry George went on to include in his definition of "land" all natural assets with an inelastic supply, such as frequencies on the broadcast spectrum or take-off and landing slots at airports. Laws adopted by communities that restricted competition also result in income that is unearned and is, therefore, appropriately capture as public revenue.
These sources of revenue would serve as the fund with which to pay for democratically agreed upon public goods and services, with the potential for an annual citizen's dividend to be distributed.
The principles embraced by Henry George and developed in his books, addresses and articles have a long history. Many other thoughtful analysts reached similar conclusions. The term that best describes these principles is, I suggest, "cooperative individualism".
Edward J. Dodson, Director
School of Cooperative Individualism
www.cooperative-individualism.org
Got apples?
Doesn’t freedom from by its definition also result in “freedom to”?
A « right to work » law promoting an enterprise’s freedom from unionization harms the employees’s freedom to collectively bargain without freeloaders
Linguist? This man has a fifth grade vocabulary!
Cite?