My new progressivism. Part three, politics
The third instalment of ‘my new progressivism’ (I haven’t yet been consumed by my own verbosity and pomposity, but we are only half way through the week).
On Monday I argued for progressives to aim for a step change in human capacity and well-being, applying new insights into both the limitations of individualism and into the way our identities and actions arise from social context. Yesterday I suggested that we needed to take the study of society more seriously, with a richer evidence base, and an understanding of communities as organisms not machines. Today, some points about politics.
The progressive approach to politics tends to be associated with the reform of institutions and systems. There is nothing wrong with this. From creating a modern, representative second chamber, to a more proportionate electoral system in UK national and English local elections I support democratic reform. But what puts the ‘new’ into my new progressive approach to politics is an equally strong, if not stronger, interest in the content and form of political discourse. This has two dimensions.
First, politics at all levels should be much more about the ends; what kind of society do we want to live in and what are the preconditions for that society, rather than simply being about means; who can best manage public services or deliver the highest level of national wealth (defined exclusively in relation to the formal economy).
Second, politics should much less be an ‘us and them’ debate between decision makers and the mass of disengaged and sceptical citizens. Instead it should be an ‘us and us’ debate, in which citizens engage with each others’ views and in which we understand and accept that social progress requires us all to show some consistency, responsibility and altruism.
Demands for reform of existing institutions have been made for many years, which doesn’t mean they are any less cogent, but we also need innovation. Vast resources have been spent on improving consultation between decision makers and members of the public, but because this is fundamentally about improving ’us and them’ communication it can only go so far. We need to be much more inventive in developing new opportunities and incentives for citizen to citizen dialogue, problem solving and collective action. Devolving power to the most local level helps to blur the boundary between vertical and horizontal discourse, but it will take time, creativity and long term commitment to create the kind of vibrant egalitarian democratic spaces we need. The internet promises much (as thinkers including Clay Shirky to Stephen Coleman have argued at the RSA in 2008) but has so far delivered little.
A focus on the content and form of discourse also leads to a greater concern about the information driven at citizens. I am not arguing for censorship but for an attentiveness to the impact of the messages of popular culture, advertising and the news media. We don’t swallow wholesale the idea that badness and madness is as common as in Albert Square, we have developed some resistance to the advertisers’ insistence that shopping makes us better happier people, and we recognise that our own experience often contradicts the grinding blame mongering and social pessimism of the news media, but taken together these influences make the already hard job or developing a powerful civic democracy even harder. It often strikes me as strange that those sectors of the economy which have such powerful cultural externalities are so unenthusiastic about entering the kind of hard edged and open debate about ethical responsibility that is common (albeit often only at a superficial level) in much less socially influential big businesses.
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I am grateful for all the comments I have been getting this week. By co-incidence I got an e-mail today from my old friend Anne McElvoy of the Evening Standard teasing me for the use of words like ‘hegemonic’ and ‘heuristic’. But I can have my revenge by suggesting that readers listen to today’s Media Show on Radio 4, which was discussing the kind of ethical questions I hint at above. Anne’s job is to try to defend the indefensible. And she really does try her best, including claiming in all seriousness that when the Sun asked its readers if they agreed with the paper’s campaign to remove the Director of Social Services at Haringey this was a serious attempt at reader consultation!
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Comments
7 Comments on My new progressivism. Part three, politics
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David Wilcox on
Thu, 1st Jan 2009 2:34 pm
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Dominic Campbell on
Thu, 1st Jan 2009 8:07 pm
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matthewtaylor on
Fri, 2nd Jan 2009 5:26 pm
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Paul Henckel on
Fri, 2nd Jan 2009 9:39 pm
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anne mcelvoy on
Tue, 6th Jan 2009 9:41 pm
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matthewtaylor on
Wed, 7th Jan 2009 11:19 am
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RSA Connected Communities on
Mon, 9th Feb 2009 11:22 am
Another one for the sidebar: “Matthew can definitely claim the title of blogging boss of 2008 for his frequent and consistently thoughtful series of posts” – here http://socialreporter.com/?p=480 … with suggestions on how the new RSA Fellowship network could be great testbed for the citizen-to-citizen discussion you are promoting. Hope you like the idea of CEOs as social artists too 
Really interesting series of articles thanks Matthew. This one in particular chimes with a conversation going on over on my blog around the role of politicians in the new world as described by the recent film Us Now:
Cheers Dominic. Really liked your site. Us Now is an interestng contribution to the debate and I’m glad the RSA was able it support it. Sadly, the film makers couldn’t resist some cheap and dishonest politican bashing (editing an iv with Ed Milband to make him look idiotic) but it’s good otherwise
I am reading through this weeks posts now and must say it’s positively invigorating me by the minute. I like this progressive attitude, and feel that the ‘us and us’ approach for decision making already is starting to show some signs of emerging from the political landscape. Most recently I became aware of a site by the US government providing transparency of government budgets http://www.usaspending.gov/ (something which I at least haven’t seen a counterpart to here in Denmark yet). As I see it right now at least, transparency is a precondition for the ‘us and us’ to have something to work with. I guess that is also what was alluded to in your Part two – the data is out there, it just hasn’t been analysed yet (makes me think of Gapminder).
I am also thinking if Parecon will have a role to play in the future (http://www.zmag.org/znet/topics/parecon).
So Matthew, does the new progressivism really rule out asking people for their views on things: or only the readers you think will agree with you to start with? (seeing as you know best what is “indefensible” of course) .
Why should any paper not ask its readers for their views on a major story: which Haringey and the role of the director of social services was? That is the bit that strikes me as indefensible, now you mention it.
Hi Anne, hope you had a good break in the sun! I guess my point is that if you really want to consult people you would expose them to the arguemtns on each side of the issue. As the Sun had been running a powerful campaign to remove the Director its consultation was surely better understood as an attempt to confirm its stance? But, thanks for reading my blog – I am honoured!
[...] Now, just to get nerdy for a moment or three, that’s an interesting account of what being a citizen is. Andy P is not excited about us voting or paying our taxes. It’s what most people would call engaging with civil society, the stuff beyond ourselves but outside of the state. It’s not actually that new and, as befits an organisation that was founded by a group of friends in a coffee shop, we’re rather keen on it. [...]
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