[Technology]

Right-progressivism would be the hypothetical fusion of "left-liberal" social progressive values with a extreme cultural nationalist outlook. In some very very loose sense it could be read as National-Socialism-lite, except it would arise not from the right wing desire to use nationalism as a pressure valve to weaken class warfare, but from a desire to preserve the project of social progressivism against non-progressive cultures, and nor would it ever resemble anything like National-Socialism aesthetically and culturally. It's better to think of it as "neoconservatism" from the left (could also be "neoprogressive").

The reason I can see for this is if left-liberals begin to believe that social liberalism is actually fragile to cultural erosion, and thus adopt "right wing" stances on nationalism and the military, with the nationalism adjusted to reflect a cultural outlook rather than an ethnic one. They would jettison their commitment to cultural diversity in doing so.

Things that make such a movement "progressive" (as it's commonly meant now):

• pro social democracy and welfare expansion
• nationalization of key utilities in a mixed economy
• pro union power
• pro feminism and gay rights
• pro choice
• anti racism and pro affirmative action
• pro gun control
• pro drug legalization

Things that make such a movement "right wing":

• promotion of ostentatious cultural nationalism
• pro large military budgets and force projection
• pro pre-emptive intervention
• desire to spread social liberalism via "cultural imperialism"
• anti-multiculturalism
• anti-Islam
• pro-strong immigration control
• pro-cultural education and cultural conformity
• pro-surveillance state and therefore limited civil liberties

What vectors exist for this? The New Atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins fulfill the anti-Islamic part - to the aghast of more mainstream progressives - but would reject right wing views on cultural conformity and nationalism in a more general sense. Tony Blair as Prime Minister of the UK fulfilled some of the preconditions for what I'm talking about, but he managed to strongly promote multiculturalism and low immigration controls at the same time as increasing surveillance and engaging in pre-emptive war against "terror", so New Labour wouldn't fully fit the bill, though it still contains some elements that would be necessary for the political idea I'm referring too.

Would a spate of Islamic attacks and rising hysteria to be likely to "rightize" the mainstream left on the relevant positions? In some sense, the mainstream right (right-liberals or modern conservatives) have been "leftized" on social issues over time (especially in Western Europe and the UK), so such a shift is not totally without precedent. However, the other possibility is that the political milieu is too reactive, and the left try to move further away from the center in order to counterbalance the right.

The other possibility in which such an outlook is adopted, is that the center left becomes like this without announcing it as a formal reformation, because no one wants to draw comparisons to neoconservatism. There is simply an organic venn diagram shift of the relevant right wing positions onto the center left.

[KlassWar]

The problem with building such an authoritarian State in a democracy is that you run the risk of handing conservatives an efficient and reasonably popular police state to oppress the Left with.

If you're committed to an authoritarian surveillance state and don't want right wing boots stomping on left wing faces, you've gotta take that authoritarianism to its logical conclusion and ensure conservatives are unable to return to power by any means necessary. And once committed to leftist dictatorship there's no point in compromising with liberalism any longer (you're committed to war against the right anyway) and you'd be better off with a regular Marxist-Leninist programme.

[Technology]

The problem with building such an authoritarian State in a democracy is that you run the risk of handing conservatives an efficient and reasonably popular police state to oppress the Left with.

I don't think the left of liberalism devotes much of its fundamental cares to "the Left" you have sympathy with. I mean, they'll throw a bone to the idea of the romantic revolutionary, but push come to shove they'll make a lot of "ooh ah" faces and say "Isn't this problematic?" while the riot cops smash far left faces in.

If you're committed to an authoritarian surveillance state and don't want right wing boots stomping on left wing faces, you've gotta take that authoritarianism to its logical conclusion and ensure conservatives are unable to return to power by any means necessary. And once committed to leftist dictatorship there's no point in compromising with liberalism any longer (you're committed to war against the right anyway) and you'd be better off with a regular Marxist-Leninist programme.

But left-liberals or "progressives" in the anglo-block parlance don't typically want Marxist outcomes, so...

[quetzalcoatl]

But left-liberals or "progressives" in the anglo-block parlance don't typically want Marxist outcomes, so...

Your statement seems to implicitly accept a particular narrow view of what a "Marxist outcome" is.

But what really is a Marxist outcome? Why do we have to accept Marxist-Leninist conceptions? That the Bolshevik view continues to dominate contemporary Marxist thinking is a historical artifact; the Bolsheviks liquidated the Mensheviks and SRs and therefore are the true arbiters of the left? There's a sneaky catch-22 involved here - "I was brutal and manipulative enough to eliminate all competition, and therefore any alternative is counter-revolutionary?"

The intellectual heirs of the Bolsheviks are still calling the tune to this day, assuring the continued non-relevance of the left.

[Pants-of-dog]

....

The reason I can see for this is if left-liberals begin to believe that social liberalism is actually fragile to cultural erosion, and thus adopt "right wing" stances on nationalism and the military, with the nationalism adjusted to reflect a cultural outlook rather than an ethnic one. They would jettison their commitment to cultural diversity in doing so.

...

As a progressive liberal type, I would not say that i have a commitment to cultural diversity. it wold be more correct to say that I realise that cultural and ethnic diversity will only increase as long as the world continues on its path towards globalisation.

It doesn't matter if we want cultural diversity. We are getting it anyway. Unless we have some sort of First World-wide series of nationalist revolutions, or the economies of the developed world tank, this is the foreseeable future.

[Rejn]

The reason I can see for this is if left-liberals begin to believe that social liberalism is actually fragile to cultural erosion, and thus adopt "right wing" stances on nationalism and the military, with the nationalism adjusted to reflect a cultural outlook rather than an ethnic one. They would jettison their commitment to cultural diversity in doing so.

I came from a "right-liberal" background, but I came to this same conclusion and embraced nationalism.

I've considered myself national liberal for a long time now, but I've been wondering whether I can really consider myself to be liberal when I oppose drug legalisation, and support phasing out alcohol and tobacco. I can't call myself conservative because conservatives uphold traditional social institutions, of which alcohol is a part of, and abortion and same-sex rights not. I did consider a new label like "national progressivism", but as progressivism appears to be inherently welfarist, I'm not sure I could adopt that either.

I'm sticking with national liberal for now but here is where I stand on the issues you mentioned:

Things that make such a movement "progressive" (as it's commonly meant now):

• pro social democracy and welfare expansion No
• nationalization of key utilities in a mixed economy No
• pro union power No
• pro feminism Yes*
• gay rights Yes
• pro choice Yes
• anti racism and pro affirmative action No
• pro gun control Yes
• pro drug legalization No

Things that make such a movement "right wing":

• promotion of ostentatious cultural nationalism Yes
• pro large military budgets and force projection Yes
• pro pre-emptive intervention Yes
• desire to spread social liberalism via "cultural imperialism" No*
• anti-multiculturalism Yes
• anti-Islam Yes
• pro-strong immigration control Yes
• pro-cultural education and cultural conformity Yes
• pro-surveillance state and therefore limited civil liberties Yes

*With caveats

[Rei Murasame]

Right-progressivism would be the hypothetical fusion of "left-liberal" social progressive values with a extreme cultural nationalist outlook. In some very very loose sense it could be read as National-Socialism-lite, except it would arise not from the right wing desire to use nationalism as a pressure valve to weaken class warfare, but from a desire to preserve the project of social progressivism against non-progressive cultures, and nor would it ever resemble anything like National-Socialism aesthetically and culturally. It's better to think of it as "neoconservatism" from the left (could also be "neoprogressive").

It would be a tent that would be big enough to accommodate a lot of the far-right tendencies anyway, so it hasn't appeared yet, it ought to exist. But I think that this would inherently have to arise from the right creating it. The left-liberals would never be able to do this.

Where I stand on the issues you mention:

Things that make such a movement "progressive" (as it's commonly meant now):

• pro social democracy and welfare expansion: NO
• nationalization of key utilities in a mixed economy: YES
• pro union power: YES (corporatist institutions)
• pro feminism and gay rights: YES
• pro choice: YES
• anti racism and pro affirmative action: NO
• pro gun control: NO
• pro drug legalization: NO

Things that make such a movement "right wing":

• promotion of ostentatious cultural nationalism: YES
• pro large military budgets and force projection: YES
• pro pre-emptive intervention: YES
• desire to spread social liberalism via "cultural imperialism": YES
• anti-multiculturalism: YES
• anti-Islam: YES
• pro-strong immigration control: YES
• pro-cultural education and cultural conformity: YES
• pro-surveillance state and therefore limited civil liberties: YES

So I could probably move among the people in that hypothetical movement, and not be thrown out by them.

[Technology]

The left-liberals would never be able to do this.

A factor for whether social liberalism can be perverted in this direction is whether it is possible to be an extreme cultural nationalist while utterly opposing ethnic nationalism with all your power.

The theory makes sense to me, since "culture" is a set of common values and practices, and one of those common values could be anti-racism (meaning they'd crack fascist skulls). Taken together with pro-women's rights and gay rights as part of the culture, this culture may bolster itself against alien cultural projects like fundamentalist Islam, which is imagined to decay the social liberal cultural fabric. Although I don't agree with rightists about Islam's threat to the West, it is has always been legitimate to say that opposition to Islam is not racism inherently. To peg it as such is simply a smear tactic.

Logically, you can construct an ideology which would allow someone to burn down a mosque like a proper EDL fash, and then the next day take part in UAF type action to bash some ethnic nationalist nazis, but people don't actually think like that, do they?

Unless the "Islam will doom Europe!" people are right, and things get so crazy extreme that the difference between left and right is largely based on the difference between persecuting Middle Easterners for having crazy views, and persecuting them for being swarthy genetic untermenschen.

[ComradeTim]

This is essentially Left National Socialism or National Syndicalism as embodied by figures such as Ernst Rohm, Wilhelm Groener, Oswald Spengler, Werner Sombart, Juan Perón.

[*]pro social democracy and welfare expansion-Yes
[*]nationalization of key utilities in a mixed economy-Yes
[*]pro union power-Usually
[*]pro feminism and gay rights-Occasionally
[*]pro choice-No
[*]anti racism and pro affirmative action-Occasionally
[*]pro gun control-Yes
[*]pro drug legalization-No

Things that make such a movement "right wing":
[list]
[*]promotion of ostentatious cultural nationalism-Yes
[*]pro large military budgets and force projection-Yes
[*]pro pre-emptive intervention-Yes
[*]desire to spread social liberalism via "cultural imperialism"-Yes
[*]anti-multiculturalism-Yes
[*]anti-Islam-Yes
[*]pro-strong immigration control-Yes
[*]pro-cultural education and cultural conformity-Yes
[*]pro-surveillance state and therefore limited civil liberties-Yes
[/quote]

[Classicliberal]

In some very very loose sense it could be read as National-Socialism-lite, except it would arise not from the right wing desire to use nationalism as a pressure valve to weaken class warfare, but from a desire to preserve the project of social progressivism against non-progressive cultures, and nor would it ever resemble anything like National-Socialism aesthetically and culturally. It's better to think of it as "neoconservatism" from the left (could also be "neoprogressive").

I think this is definitely an interesting hypothesis, and amalgamation of views, to say the least. However, I find the idea dubious that the contemporary social progressivist culture could become unified and hegemonic enough as to usurp the role ethnic nationalism has played in Western history heretofore when faced with major external threats to its survival.

Moreover, the values expressed in the platform's "progressive" portion align, imo, is too universalist to exist within a state that would promote such exclusionary views on cultural legitimacy; insofar as those values mainly align with the contemporary Western conception of secular humanism that rejects the kind of reactionary security policy and politics this "right-progressivism" would adhere to, especially in regards to the anti-Islam and limited immigration planks. How could a party that supports so many different sects of modern identity politics: from feminism, to gay rights, to minority ethnic identities, to traditional labor form a coherent, lasting, and, most importantly, all-dominating and disciplined singular culture? What's the binding factor here because the vague idea of "shared, progressive culture" doesn't seem like it could really inspire people to go fight and die in preemptive wars to stop the halt of some extreme fundamentalist Islamic wave or any other anti-progressive cultural threat. I, frankly, don't think the kind of cultural solidarity needed for this ideology could be found in a conglomeration of social movements that have fairly exclusive identities of their own.

So another question seems to be: what would have to change, culturally, for so many seemingly heterogenous political groups to form such homogenous consensus on what culture ought to be and how they would amicably wield political power within such a big tent party?

My take

Things that make such a movement "progressive" (as it's commonly meant now):
pro social democracy and welfare expansion No
nationalization of key utilities in a mixed economy Yes
pro union power Yes
pro feminism and gay rights No
pro choice Yes
anti racism and pro affirmative action No
pro gun control No
pro drug legalization No

Things that make such a movement "right wing":
promotion of ostentatious cultural nationalism Yes
pro large military budgets and force projection Yes
pro pre-emptive intervention Yes
desire to spread social liberalism via "cultural imperialism" Yes
anti-multiculturalism Yes
anti-Islam Yes
pro-strong immigration control Yes
pro-cultural education and cultural conformity Yes
pro-surveillance state and therefore limited civil liberties Yes

[Saeko]

I think Left-''neoconservativism" or "left-nationalism" or whatever you want to call it is the ideology closest to my views.

Things that make such a movement "progressive" (as it's commonly meant now):

pro social democracy and welfare expansion YES
nationalization of key utilities in a mixed economy YES
pro union power YES
pro feminism and gay rights YES
pro choice YES
anti racism and pro affirmative action MEH leaning YES
pro gun control MEH
pro drug legalization NO


Things that make such a movement "right wing":

promotion of ostentatious cultural nationalism YES
pro large military budgets and force projection YES
pro pre-emptive intervention YES
desire to spread social liberalism via "cultural imperialism" YES
anti-multiculturalism YES
anti-Islam YES
pro-strong immigration control MEH
pro-cultural education and cultural conformity YES
pro-surveillance state and therefore limited civil liberties YES

[Max Linder]

My views:

Pro social democracy: Yes
Welfare expansion: No
Nationalization of key utilities in a mixed economy: Yes
Pro union power: Yes
Pro feminism and gay rights: No
Pro choice: No
Anti racism and pro affirmative action: No
Pro gun control: Some
Pro drug legalization: No
Promotion of ostentatious cultural nationalism: Yes
Pro large military budgets and force projection: Yes
Pro pre-emptive intervention: Yes
Desire to spread social liberalism via "cultural imperialism": No
Anti-multiculturalism: Yes
Anti-Islam: No
Pro-strong immigration control: Yes
Pro-cultural education and cultural conformity: Yes
Pro-surveillance state and therefore limited civil liberties: No

[Rei Murasame]

The theory makes sense to me, since "culture" is a set of common values and practices, and one of those common values could be anti-racism (meaning they'd crack fascist skulls). Taken together with pro-women's rights and gay rights as part of the culture, this culture may bolster itself against alien cultural projects like fundamentalist Islam, which is imagined to decay the social liberal cultural fabric.

Okay, but then you end up with someone like Pim Fortyun, right? Although he distanced himself from the far-right, he still ended up being assassinated by a left-liberal.

You cannot please the left-liberals, even if you point out the theory that you've described, the moment that you talk about opposing alien cultural projects, they will have you marked as an opponent. So you might as well not go out of your way to accommodate them, and recognise that they will be a large part of the opposition.

[Technology]

Okay, but then you end up with someone like Pim Fortyun, right? Although he distanced himself from the far-right, he still ended up being assassinated by a left-liberal.

Well, I was thinking about the position as being an evolution of left-liberalism to the point of developing into a new ideology, so it wouldn't be surprising if the bifurcation caused strife and political violence.

But yes, Fortuynism, is similar (minus his more center-right, non-progressive economic positions). How far do you have to go, how extreme do things have to get, before that position can move from being a minority one to a political force?

You cannot please the left-liberals, even if you point out the theory that you've described, the moment that you talk about opposing alien cultural projects, they will have you marked as an opponent. So you might as well not go out of your way to accommodate them, and recognise that they will be a large part of the opposition.

I mean, this whole conversation assumes right wing paranoia about the Islamification of Europe being a real and dangerous threat is true*. If it was true, and it threatened to change the character of the state, then surely people who are VERY invested in a particular kind of state would want to stop that. The mainstream left (and even the center-right/right-liberals in Europe; as I say, their positions have leftized) are very committed to feminism, gay rights, free speech, and so on.

If Islam was encroaching on that, surely a significant portion of them would throw it under the bus, along with multiculturalism, in an effort to retain the other things they want? I don't doubt they'd be torn into two camps; people who care about sexual minorities and half the population, and people who care about multiculturalism, but I can't see some alteration not happening, even if it's not as I have described (*being assumed true). The social traditionalist right are an opposing cultural project... surely that doesn't change if the culture is foreign.

What I can't work out is how this would interact with the far-right, which would clearly be growing for the same reasons.

[Rei Murasame]

The mainstream left (and even the center-right/right-liberals in Europe; as I say, their positions have leftized) are very committed to feminism, gay rights, free speech, and so on.

If Islam was encroaching on that, surely a significant portion of them would throw it under the bus, along with multiculturalism, in an effort to retain the other things they want? I don't doubt they'd be torn into two camps; people who care about sexual minorities and half the population, and people who care about multiculturalism, but I can't see some alteration not happening, even if it's not as I have described (*being assumed true).

Well, yes, but I am just saying that it is out of that altercation that the far-right will go mainstream. Since in order to defend those things it will become necessary to abandon the liberal axioms which liberals allege had brought these social projects - gay rights, feminism, ect - about in the first place.

Once you move from [1]"defending the legal rights of women because all humans are equal", to, [2]"defending the legal rights of women because our nation requires this so that it can be strong enough to defeat the external enemies", then that is the calculus that is essentially far-right in character. The change in the justification is non-trivial, and it leads to other things later happening which are decidedly non-liberal.

Those who believe the second statement will be those who mainstream the far-right in a way that the liberals will not be prepared to deal with. That would not be a bifurcation, that would be a fundamental change of ideas.

[Deutschmania]

There is already a more left leaning conservatism, called red toryism. But the ideas presented in the original post seem to me to be more like third positionism, and/or right-wing socialism. It should be obvious that this is definitively different from that of liberal socialism. And therefore, I do not expect that it will be making headway within progressivism/social liberalism.

[nucklepunche]

I think that there is already sort of a precedent for this sort of thinking. People like Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were progressive on economics but favored an assertive foreign policy (Roosevelt pushed for the Spanish-American war, Wilson got us involved in World War I). Wilson was an early supporter of going to war for purely ideological reasons of "spreading democracy" and established a police state at home while promoting labor regulation and anti-trust laws. Roosevelt of course later quit the GOP and founded the Progressive Party. Roosevelt was also an opponent of hyphenated Americanism.

In the mid-20th century from FDR to Nixon there was essentially a right-progressive consensus in American politics. Democrats were social democratic in economics, Republicans were centrist and often favored large public works projects (like Nelson Rockefeller), while both parties were internationalist and favored a strong foreign policy. Things changed in the 1970s when the Democrats moved hard left and became dovish and obsessed with political correctness and multiculturalism while Republicans moved further right on domestic policy.

[warsmith17]

I find this very intriguing as a potential label for myself. Certainly it has more mass appeal than straight Third Positionism which I find problematic in several areas.

A factor for whether social liberalism can be perverted in this direction is whether it is possible to be an extreme cultural nationalist while utterly opposing ethnic nationalism with all your power.

The theory makes sense to me, since "culture" is a set of common values and practices, and one of those common values could be anti-racism (meaning they'd crack fascist skulls). Taken together with pro-women's rights and gay rights as part of the culture, this culture may bolster itself against alien cultural projects like fundamentalist Islam, which is imagined to decay the social liberal cultural fabric. Although I don't agree with rightists about Islam's threat to the West, it is has always been legitimate to say that opposition to Islam is not racism inherently. To peg it as such is simply a smear tactic.

This is already where I'm at. As an American who is Third Positionist cultural nationalism is the way to go, due to numerous racial divides in the US. I also tend to believe that race is completely meaningless, while all significant differences are cultural. If cultural divides within can be eliminated in the favor of a single national culture race will cease to matter.

Things that make such a movement "progressive" (as it's commonly meant now):

• pro social democracy and welfare expansion - No (possibly work guarantees and other substitute measures)
• nationalization of key utilities in a mixed economy -Yes
• pro union power - Through corporatism
• pro feminism and gay rights - Yes
• pro choice - Yes (but restricted in 3rd trimester)
• anti racism and pro affirmative action - Yes-ish
• pro gun control - No with qualifications
• pro drug legalization - maybe

Things that make such a movement "right wing":

• promotion of ostentatious cultural nationalism - Yes
• pro large military budgets and force projection - Yes
• pro pre-emptive intervention - Yes
• desire to spread social liberalism via "cultural imperialism"- I have no desire to spread my beliefs
• anti-multiculturalism - Yes
• anti-Islam - Yes
• pro-strong immigration control - Yes (Though this will look different in an American context than it will European)
• pro-cultural education and cultural conformity - Yes
• pro-surveillance state and therefore limited civil liberties - Yes