In this TNR piece (not sure if subscription required), Peter Beinart laments the Republican (mis)appropriation of the word “reform”, saying
“Reform,” in today’s Washington, has come to mean “change I like.” Which is to say, it means almost nothing at all.
However, he doesn’t really make it clear what alternative definition he proposes, and concedes, later on “today’s conservatives are reformers of the most fundamental kind”.
In fact, the whole set of ideas surrounding the terms “reform” and “progressive” are bound up with historicist assumptions that can no longer be sustained, namely that history is moving in a particular (liberal/social democratic/socialist) direction, and that any deviation from this path is bound to be short-lived and self-defeating. Reform is change that is consistent with this direction. But once you have, as Beinart notes, a decade or more of “reforms” that consist mainly of the repeal of earlier reforms, none of these assumptions works.
I’ve tried all sorts of devices, such as the use of scare quotes and phrases like “so-called reform”, before concluding that the best thing is just to define reform as “any program of systematic change in policies or institutions” and make it clear that there is no necessary implication of approval or disapproval, or of consistency with any particular political direction.
A more fundamental question raised by this semantic dispute is whether the assumption of being on the side of history, implicit in the use terms like “progressive”, is (or was) a help or a hindrance to the Left. This was debated at length in Marxist circles, not surprisingly, since Marxist theory seemed to provide a guarantee of inevitable success, while revolutionary political practice required sacrifices that could only be justified by the belief that the choice to make them was critically important to the future. I’ll leave it to commenters more expert than me to say how this debate turned out.
The issues weren’t nearly as sharp for liberals and social democrats, but in retrospect it seems clear that an assumption of inevitable success contributed to laziness and arrogance in all sorts of respects, from the casual dismissal of opponents (like the Goldwater Republicans) who turned out to be far more powerful than seemed possible at the time, to the extreme union militancy of the late 1960s and 1970s, which prepared the ground for massive defeats when the economic tide turned.
From Fukuyama onwards, historical inevitability has been the terrain of the political right. It’s new and exciting for them, but the hubris it has generated is already producing the inevitable blowback, most obviously in relation to Iraq but also in widespread global resistance to neoliberalism.
{ 19 comments }
abb1 05.23.06 at 2:42 am
Reform, schmeform. All I know is that the Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true, and that is good enough for me. And that’s good enough for me!!!
abb1 05.23.06 at 2:45 am
Hey, this software ate the three exclamation marks at the end, wtf? It’s not funny without exclamation marks.
Brett Bellmore 05.23.06 at 5:52 am
I think it’s simplest, and less argumentative, to just call these things “change”. All though some changes call for something worse, like campaign deform. ;)
Alex 05.23.06 at 6:25 am
No, I think it’s too far gone to be saved. The best thing to do would just be to drive it out of the public square through concerted ridicule. I’ll get the ball rolling – the 1941 German reform of the Soviet Union, the US Army’s reform of Iraq, Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s reform of her nationality and residence status…see, the possibilities are endless!
DivGuy 05.23.06 at 6:57 am
I think we just need to start pronouncing it RE-form, like the guy in O Brother Where Art Thou.
Tom T. 05.23.06 at 7:05 am
John Q,
Doesn’t everyone believe they’re on the side of history? I suspect that few politicians on the right actually think to themselves, “history will prove my policy wrong, but I’m going to do it anyway.”
harry b 05.23.06 at 7:09 am
#6: Metternich as a counterexample?
Patrick S. O'Donnell 05.23.06 at 7:22 am
Why cannot ‘progressive’ attach to any proposal or program of socio-economic and/or political change that endeavors to fuller embody, instantiate or realize the values and principles associated with liberty, equality, and, say, solidarity? Or sincere attempts to practically implement democratically expressed goals for distributive justice? Etc., Etc. There need be no assumption or presumption of historicism provided we are clear as to the criteria that outline the desiderata to be met, as well as acknowledge the possibility that we might fail, that we might encounter temporary or insuperable obstacles, have setbacks (on the order of two steps forward, one step backward), not live to see our dreams realized, and so forth and so on. The fact that people misuse the adjective ‘progressive’ in sloganeeering or as an all-too-convenient label, need not mean its referent has altogether disappeared or that we invariably subscribe to naive notions of invevitable progress. And there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging different rates of progress in different arenas of social life: for instance, rapid technological ‘progress’ in the affluent nations of the North, comparatively little progess on the moral front, some progess with respect to the development of international law….
Jacob T. Levy 05.23.06 at 7:25 am
“Standing athwart history and yelling stop” isn’t “history will prove my policy wrong, but I’m going to do it anyway‖ but it may be “everything tends to go to hell and in the long run I’ll lose, but I’m going to do it anyway.” That was a characteristic conservative attitude for a long time. A good number of the ex-communist conservatives continued to think that the Marxist view of history might well be right; they were just determined to try to stave the historically-inevitable moral catastrophe off for a little while longer.
I suspect that there were characteristic deformations introduced by this mindset, too– not least the victimhood attitude that’s proven so well-entrenched on the right, and the unwillingness post-1994 to really believe that they were in power and had to start governing.
Alex 05.23.06 at 7:27 am
Why cannot ‘progressive’ attach to any proposal or program of socio-economic and/or political change that endeavors to fuller embody, instantiate or realize the values and principles associated with liberty, equality, and, say, solidarity? Or sincere attempts to practically implement democratically expressed goals for distributive justice?
I deplore the criminal lack of attention your otherwise sensible proposal shows to the burning issue of our times, ponies.
soru 05.23.06 at 7:34 am
As long as global GDP keeps on increasing at 2 to 4% per year, then it will remain the case that the set of things that are sustainably possible today is greater than the set of things possible yesterday, and smaller than that of tomorrow.
Some localised intellectual confusion and political incompetence affects little but the relative standing of the unfortunate country so afflicted.
JRoth 05.23.06 at 8:36 am
As long as global GDP keeps on increasing at 2 to 4% per year
Two words, soru:
Peak Oil.
OK, I’m not convinced either, but I think that your basic premise is extremely dubious. It’s the working assumption of most 1st-worlders, and pretty much all 1st world politicans, but that doesn’t make it the best basis for planning for the future.
There are a lot of obstacles between us and 2-4% growth forever; the best way to effectively surmount those obastacles is to recognize that they exist, and will need to be addressed.
kharris 05.23.06 at 8:49 am
A ban on use of the word “reform” was issued many years ago by a competent writer (Who? Can’t remember) on the grounds that it is so overused that it no longer has any meaning other than “change that I want.” No preference for any particular nobler use of the word is needed, none has been needed for many years, in order to recognize the correctness of this view. “Reform” has meant nothing more than “change” for a very long time. Good writers should avoid words that diverge in denotation and connotation, unless they have a good, preferably funny, reason for using them.
Hogan 05.23.06 at 8:57 am
When I hear Republicans use the word “reform,” I reach for my revolver.
abb1 05.23.06 at 9:38 am
Reformer With Results.
C.J.Colucci 05.23.06 at 9:55 am
Some curmudgeon or other, I suspect either some Tory politico or Roscoe Conkling, once said something pretty close to: “Whoever said patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel has overlooked the potential of ‘reform.'”
Donald Johnson 05.23.06 at 12:13 pm
Perhaps we just need a political dictionary for various publications, one that translates “reform” into more objective language. In the New York Times, for instance, “economic reform” means neoliberal economic policies.
theo 05.23.06 at 1:23 pm
Doesn’t everyone believe they’re on the side of history?
Not everyone; isn’t that the spirit of Toryism?
Witness C.S. Lewis’s admirably Screwtape-esque attempt to recast Toryism as progressive:
Alan Peakall 05.24.06 at 3:48 am
Indeed Theo, perhaps Conservatism could get a makeover as “The Precautionary Principle in Politics”. Oh, David Cameron has already thought of that one!
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