progressivism, individualism, and the public ... - Telmarc Group

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PROGRESSIVISM, INDIVIDUALISM, AND THE PUBLIC
INTELLECTUAL
8 CONCLUSIONS
We may now step back and attempt to assimilate these positions in the context of where
the U.S. is at in the early part of the 21st Century and where it may be going. It is clear
that, for many people who get involved in politics, that there are paradigms and world
views that dominate their behavior and that we must better understand these motivators
and elements which form the way they act.
8.1 PROGRESSIVES
If one looks at Paine as one of the earliest Progressives one can study his motivations and
see that in many ways he was reacting against what he perceived as a snub from the
Americans. He had contributed substantially in thought and deed to the American cause
but he felt he was short handed in return. He felt, and justifiably so, that he was denied is
remuneration, his distribution. Thus in his writings from France we see the birth of a
redistributionist, a logical redistributionist, but still a redistributionist 212 .
If one looks back to Wilson one sees the following. Woodrow Wilson had compiled into
the work, The New Freedom, his thoughts after the 1912 election 213 . This document is
well worth the read today.
I have included a small section for reflection:
What is liberty?
I have long had an image in my mind of what constitutes liberty. Suppose that I were
building a great piece of powerful machinery, and suppose that I should so awkwardly
and unskillfully assemble the parts of it that every time one part tried to move it would be
interfered with by the others, and the whole thing would buckle up and be checked.
Liberty for the several parts would consist in the best possible assembling and adjustment
of them all, would it not? If you want the great piston of the engine to run with absolute
freedom, give it absolutely perfect alignment and adjustment with the other parts of the
machine, so that it is free, not because it is let alone or isolated, but because it has been
associated most skillfully and carefully with the other parts of the great structure.
What it liberty? You say of the locomotive that it runs free. What do you mean? You mean
212 See various works on Paine, …
213 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14811/14811-h/14811-h.htm
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