Progressivism: The Strange History of a Radical Idea

by Bradley C.S. Watson, Charles R. Kesler (Foreword)

Bradley C. S. Watson has devoted a significant part of his career to studying the nature of American progressivism as it formed in the twentieth century, and this book represents his synthesis of the history of this idea. In Progressivism: The Strange History of a Radical Idea, Watson presents an intellectual history of American progressivism as a philosophical-political phenomenon, focusing on how and with what consequences the academic discipline of history came to accept and propagate it.

This book offers a meticulously detailed historiography and critique of the insularity and biases of academic culture. It shows how the first scholarly interpreters of progressivism were, in large measure, also its intellectual architects, and later interpreters were in deep sympathy with their premises and conclusions. Too many scholarly treatments of the progressive synthesis were products of it, or at least were insufficiently mindful of two central facts: the hostility of progressive theory to the Founders' Constitution and the tension between progressive theory and the realm of the private, including even conscience itself. The constitutional and religious dimensions of progressive thought--and in particular the relationship between the two--in effect remained hidden for much of the twentieth century. This pathbreaking volume reveals how and why this scholarly obfuscation occurred. The book will interest students and scholars of American political thought, the Progressive Era, and historiography, and it will be a useful reference work for anyone in history, law, and political science.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History

260 pages, Hardcover

Published February 28, 2020

Reviews

[David Wineberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Progressive is a political label bandied about easily, often and inaccurately. Even among progressives, the definition is fluid, and there are increments and flavors to it. Bradley Watson’s Progressivism is an attempt to collect all the statements and opinions in one place, and therefore, perhaps, come to some conclusion.

It is a microscopic examination of what political luminaries of the day, from the mid 1800s to today, had to say about their and everyone else’s thoughts on the matter. As we get closer to the present the voices become those of analysts – historians, lawyers and political scientists like Watson. Because there are no (American) progressive politicians to weigh in on the issues. Phrases and individual words are criticized, twisted and replaced to fill out articles and books in numerous disciplines. Proper labels are affixed to various politicians, philosophers, economists and writers. And they are all assembled in this book in an attempt to give clarity.

Progressivism suffers from having no manifesto or founding deity, like a Karl Marx for Communism or a James Madison for the US Bill of Rights. Progressivism doesn’t fill stadiums or even luncheon speeches. It is mentioned in passing while discussing other things. As Charles Kesler (who also wrote the introduction to this book) said: “Liberalism is the first political movement to seek endless reform rather than something in particular.” And liberalism is simply the current state of progressivism in the USA.

But it does have an interesting history.

Watson devotes a chapter to its religious connections. Christianity saw in progressivism a natural extension of its own philosophy – charity, doing unto others, tithing – all foundation stones of Christianity. Priests and preachers spoke openly about it, because it fit so well. It was not so much political as moral. One religious authority in the late 1800s came right out and claimed Jesus was a socialist. Walter Rauschenbush was also religious advisor to Theodore Roosevelt. By the time of the Wilson administration, progressivism was a “social gospel movement.” Today, Christianity has abandoned all for one and one for all in favor of democracy means the right to be left alone.

The main attempt to damn progressivism is that it is counter constitutional. It says that people need additional protections because everything changes. The founding documents say human nature never changes and what they wrote in the 1780s is all you ever need to know in a constitution. So there is a ton of commentary in the book on that aspect of progressivism. Watson says: “Very different from mere populism, progressivism as future oriented rather than nostalgic, scientific rather than ad hoc, and deeply concerned with the purported inadequacies of the constitution itself.”

One major annoyance to me is that, as usual, Henry George gets shunted aside with a couple of quick lines. Henry George all but invented progressivism when he determined how to tax real estate such that it did not promote inequality. He wrote a book about it, Progress and Poverty, and had to self-publish it, a death sentence in the mid 1800s. To everyone’s shock and awe, it became a bestseller – around the world. It influenced a number of politicians, notably Theodore Roosevelt, who is widely acclaimed as the political instigator of progressivism. But he was not. He squeaked by Henry George in the election for mayor of New York, and Henry George’s work clearly influenced him and changed him. George was more responsible for the rise progressivism than everyone else in this book. He deserves more than two lines.

For all its potential, Progressivism is a book that is unfortunately flat. It is not a book about how progressivism has or has not worked. It is almost a meta study of what everyone in the social sciences thinks about its definition (which is indeterminate). The most often cited is Richard Hofstadter, and once you’ve read a few dozen of the quotes, you really don’t need a hundred more to confirm it. For historians, there is wealth of names dropped and nits picked that will warm the academic heart. For the average reader, it will be a hard slog.

David Wineberg

[Mykolas Lozoraitis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Watson skillfully captured the propaganda-like orientation in American, which is also happening in Europe. There is nothing worse than today’s people confidence in their knowledge. This self-knowledge is a major feature of today‘s reformers. They have a concept of reasonable and reliable knowledge that they are trying to impose on reality. There is this weird and never-ending rape of reality due to the rules of someone who has invented it. Reformers believe in their mission so strongly that at some point it becomes more important than the human being. They believe that their reforms are hindered by the country, the habits and attachments of its people. In other words - screw countries and citizens, let the great world of reform live. Today's progressivists are identical to the reformers, who haven‘t completed their reforms since Martin Luther's time. Protestants have reformed so much since Luther’s time that today Protestant churches are close to extinction. The fervent desire of Christian reformers to return to early Christianity unexpectedly ended in a great decline of faith and belief in church. Thousands of new Protestant churches have emerged even though Luther attempted to reform the Catholic Church as whole. Reforms became more important than Christianity, faith and the Church. Something similar can happen with political, legal, economic and cultural reforms in countries around the world. They are gradually becoming more important than people and the countries themselves. Current politicians are thinking only about reforms. We live in a time of new reformation, when even Catholic European states are fascinated by progressivism policies. The problem are not reforms themselves, but the attitude of current progressivists towards a person, society and the world. By living for reforms, we begin to act as conquerors of a foreign country against our will. Christians knew that even the most powerful reforms would not improve the state of their faith, because the creation of social, economic, and other well-being would further open spiritual emptiness to the people. Sooner or later, the Reformers must either ban Christianity or drown it in never-ending reforms, because Christians don‘t equate their path to the salvation of the soul with political reforms. Reformers don‘t know what they are doing when their knowledge of themselves and those around them is not in doubt. The words „they don‘t know what they are doing" were said by Christ while being crucified. According to Christians, this is the greatest mistake of people – being satisfied with their knowledge in all of human history. Paul the Apostle repeated the words of Christ in his letters in a slightly different sense. In his first letter to Timothy, he admits that he persecuted Christians „because of ignorance". When Paul the Apostle persecuted Christians, it seemed to him that he was fighting for a good cause based on reliable knowledge. After a trip to Damascus, he realized he didn’t really know what he was doing as someone, who described himself as a knowledgeable person. The same motive can be found in St. Augustine’s confessions, when looking back he constantly talks about his mistakes. The topic of knowledge turning into ignorance is a necessity in the world today. It’s time to remember that knowledgeable people can be just as blind as ignorant ones. Reforms based on false assumptions can result in the destruction of the nation and the state. The same thing happened with the Christian Reformation, when Luther was forgotten in a sea of reforms. There were so many reformers, who were all for a progress that at the end there was no main Reformed Church left. Today it‘s simply necessary to ask wasn't the knowledge of our politicians and experts of various fields unexpectedly ignorant? Only by admitting this ignorance arising from „knowledge“, political and cultural renewal could be expected. People always find it difficult to admit that they were wrong due to ignorance. However, this is the only reliable way to fix things. There is no other way to break free from errors than to admit that wrong way of understanding things has been chosen. Paul the Apostle and St. Augustine were not talking about reforms and progression, but about wrong principles. The biggest mistake is where everyone seems to have an unquestionable solution. Politicians, who are all for progressive ideas and reforms usually start living according to the „reforms for the sake of reforms" principle. In today‘s world every new politician must necessarily promise reforms, otherwise he cannot justify his role. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t have a broader understanding of a human, society, and politics. Today‘s politician must trust his knowledge even in the conditions of complete society demoralization and cannot be imagined without progressive reforms, which are the main source of meaning of their activities. It’s an empty matter to ask if they know what they’re doing. They know everything even when they are not doing anything. During the Soviet era, a song about a never-ending revolution was sung. Even though the Soviet Union has collapsed, we are now living in a time of never-ending reforms. The progressivists decided to remove the tragedy from human and public life. While living in ignorance, Oedipus killed his father and married his mother. To prevent this from happening, the current reformers decided to close the gap between father and mother. Without a broader understanding of the world, they are boldly reforming a world they don‘t understand. It would be foolish to say that there is no need for progress. Even the creator of modern conservatism Edmund Burke said the conservatives‘ goal was to „preserve and reform." The problem is that progressivists distort even the most beautiful human intentions. With the expression of an all-knowing doctor, they give painkillers that are actually a dose of deadly poison. Who is responsible for country's internal problems? Their answer is „none". Today it‘s unclear what is the intention of the state itself and what is just adaptation to external circumstances. State‘s actions are beginning to look like a manifestation of deplorable conformism. Endless reforms are just hiding real problems. This is a great threat to the survival of any nation and state. Citizens of any state that wants to preserve its subjectivity must feel that the state is a creation of their thoughts and feelings, not an external circumstance. Citizens urgently need to feel something more than an inscription of external circumstances. When there remains less conscious action of the nation than the conformism and adaptation to external circumstances, endless reforms become a cheap cover for political stagnation and the helplessness of politicians. The literacy and development of today‘s students is worse than those, who attended universities during the interwar period. In this respect, it‘s not even worth talking about any progress in reforms, as the past is ahead of the present in important aspects. True politicians cannot accept the phenomena of public life that don‘t obey and contradict their will. They must see social injustice, the disappearance of civic solidarity and demoralization as their personal defeat. Any self-respecting state must also be held accountable for what‘s not the result of its actions. Faced with social inequality and a lack of solidarity, a true politician cannot say that these things are beyond him. In this kind of situation only progressivists are talking about extending the holiday. Friedrich Nietzsche described the reformers well: „...the „specialist“ emerges somehow - his eagerness, his seriousness, his ire, his overestimation of the nook in which he sits and spins, his hunchback - every specialist has his hump“. They see no further than accounting and economy. They see no dramatic moral consequences of their so called progress. Father is no longer a father, but perceived as one of the market participants, a woman is no longer different from a man, a teacher from a student, a decent man from a criminal. One of the consequences of our current „progress“ is that a person, who believes in God is being taught to perceived as an idiot. Good managerial reforms can go hand in hand with moral degradation. No one has ever proved that the moral condition of a person and society depends on political reforms. Good and evil come to society in its own ways, easily bypassing so called progress.
Current reformers operate as scientists in a closed military laboratory. They are not really representatives of the nation, but only people delegated to the role of politician. Today’s progressivists act as mechanics, not as people who know the human spirit. Citizens are only human capital and an object for manipulation. They don’t care what nation and political mechanism to reform. They are even more comfortable when there are no greater feelings, attachments and strong commitments from citizens to their country. Without that, it‘s much more convenient to carry out reforms, to manipulate people and public opinion. Christ was killed on the basis of so-called instrumental rationality. He asked for forgiveness for his killers, because they didn’t know what they were doing. To prevent this from happening, it‘s time to reform the approach to the progress. To do this, we must first abandon the vision of a bright future that doesn‘t disappear from the heads of politicians. At the very end of every person‘s life, the future becomes colorless. Without this truth, the current progressivists are doomed to drown in their knowledge because of their ignorance. With their cold, mechanical, and scientifically ruthless look, they humiliate their fellow citizens portraying it as something good. Instead of a noble way of life, a system of humiliation, degradation and intimidation of people has been created. This does not mean that there is no need for progress. It means that there is no need for reformers, who equate a person to a thing.

[Paul Sand · Rating 2 out of 5]

[Imported automatically from my blog. Some formatting there may not have translated here.]

While reading this book, I mused quite a bit about history, and what it is that historians do. On this particular topic, you wouldn't think the facts are much in doubt. Progressivism's origins are relatively recent, not lost in the rubble of ancient societies. Everyone was paying plenty of attention at the time, and wrote down what they thought and observed. The facts wouldn't seem to have been much in doubt. And yet…

It turns out (and I should have realized) that historians are interpreters of history. They need to filter out important and pertinent from the trivial and irrelevant. And (since they are human) they are prone to the same failings as the rest of us: biases, hubris, laziness, …

I'm not a historian, not even close, and this book seems to be aimed at historians. But I trudged through it anyway. It's a very scholarly tome, one contribution to one side of a contentious (but slow-motion) debate, and (important disclaimer) I may have missed some things, and badly misinterpreted others.

Watson briefly discusses the origins of progressivism, making the interesting point that it incorporated two main new ideas. The first (typified by Woodrow Wilson in the late 19th century) was advocacy that American politics should break away from the stale old "Newtonian" framework described by the Declaration and the Constitution set up by the Founders, instead moving to a "Darwinian" approach of the "fittest" state surviving due to constant adaptation to dynamic social conditions. Darwinism being the new cool paradigm of the day.

Even though the "Darwinian" label was slapped on progressivism by Wilson and others, they seemed to ignore that actual evolution proceeded by sheer dumb luck; the progressive vision of preferred political/social development was very much an "intelligent design" deal, under the centralized command and control of wise bureaucrats guided by a president with powers unforeseen by the Founders.

The other thread was (somewhat surprisingly, given all the Darwinism) from many of the Protestant religious leaders of the day. Watson'a prime example here is Richard T. Ely, trained as an economist, but also the founder of the "Christian Social Union" which advocated "the application of Christian principles to the social problems of the world." Very much into "immanentizing the eschaton", if you know what I mean.

But (bottom line) these disparate visions both advocated diligent state-directed social engineering, full of the hubris that implies. "We know what the future should look like, so toss us the keys, we're driving."

Despite the subtitle, book proceeds to not discuss very much the actual history of progressivism from its intellectual origins. (For example, Robert M. La Follette does not even rate an index entry.) Instead, Watson proceeds to review what other historians said about the Progressive Era. His main point here seems to be that those historians swept the underlying anti-Founder tenets of progressivism under the rug. (To a large extent, they agreed with that.) And there's little discussion of the general illiberalism of the early Progressives. You'll have to read Thomas C. Leonard's Illiberal Reformers for that sordid story.

Watson finishes up with a look at the "revisionist" Claremont/McKenna scholars who corrected this tilted view somewhat. (I think Watson himself is in this group.)

Again, Goodreads encourages me to rate the book subjectively, and except for the early stuff I found it (overall) less than interesting.

[Tommy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Establishes "progressivism" isn't "constitutionalism" but gets silly trying to obscure any sort of continuity existing there. Note in chapter four his out of hand rejection of William Appleman Williams notion of empire where he comes close to addressing "Americanization" but fails to deal seriously with any of it... the values were new to the older aboriginal regimes always getting changed. None of the main problems are explained. How can evangelical Christianity be an enemy of constitutionalism and progressive at one point but the opposite later? Also I seriously doubt most conservatives believe Theodore Roosevelt was a soyboy but Abraham Lincoln wasn't.

[Robert Federline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely not a casual read. It is slow and ponderous. For those who do not make a regular habit of reading political science it can be difficult to follow the many names thrown out and to keep their positions straight.

It is at times difficult to discern the author's viewpoint. This is due in large part to the fact that this work is more of a review of how progressivism has been reported than even how it was actually applied.