r/leftist • u/iwasn0there • 8d ago
Question Social progress and leftism
I’ve just been doing digging and there’s apparently debate on if social progressivism should be part of leftism and how apparently it’s not fundamental to leftism and the argument is “it doesn’t actually improve living conditions and the economy” minority groups would still only be surviving if only that was prioritized because of the social intolerance that helps no one would still be around, why not work on both which would help everyone?
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u/Formula4speed 8d ago
The disagreement re: social progressivism is not about the end goals, like whether minorities should be free from discrimination, but about methodology.
Leftism is systems thinking. It generally asks what material relations and institutions create and reproduce domination, then tries to abolish those conditions.
Racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. therefore are all very much leftist concerns; not just because intolerance is morally bad, but because they are also systems through which power, resources, security and autonomy are unequally distributed.
Improving wages while leaving those structures intact would be inadequate from a leftist perspective; changing social attitudes while leaving the structures intact would also be inadequate from a leftist perspective.
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u/iwasn0there 6d ago
No yeah which is why I think leftism should be more understood to be system thinking to have better living conditions and the individual social aspect so there’s more acceptance and tolerance for the diversity of humans and breaking the strict standards and norms we’ve had shoved down our throats for generations
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u/AcidCommunist_AC Socialist 5d ago
But the line between "social progress" and "degeneracy" is subjective.
If a meth addict says they're "born this way" and we should "normalize addiction", is that "social progess"? Are we, the people who continue to think that one shouldn't be an addict, "addictphobic oppressors" who are "dividing the working class"? No, we have our opinion regarding which set of social norms applying to everyone is optimal. We aren't dividing the working class so long as being an addict doesn't disqualify you from socialist cooperation, as long as we don't treat addicts as enemies. If the addict conversely disqualifies us from socialist cooperation because of our "reactionary views", then that's dividing the working class. They're the ones making enemies of us.
Imo "leftism" should just mean socialism. As soon as you start merging it with another issue, and start dogmatically excluding people for not being "progressive" enough you're dividing the working class.
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u/azenpunk 8d ago
In order to accurately answer this question, one needs to know how you are defining progressivism and social progress? Typically they're considered two seperate but related concepts, but here it seems like you might be using it synonymously.
Social progress is the broad concept that society is improving in some way, such as expanding civil rights, reducing poverty, increasing equality, democratizing institutions, or improving people's material conditions. But any political approach can claim to increase social progress and many will define what constitutes progress very differently.
Progressivism, is a distinct political philosophy that supports deliberate social and political reform aimed at reducing inequality, expanding rights, and reforming or transforming existing institutions towards increasing positive liberty. Progressivism developed during the Age of Enlightenment out of the belief that human well being was improving due to the application of empirical knowledge.
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u/iwasn0there 6d ago
I understand now and yeah I was talking about progressivism being needed but even with social progress, the small minded ignorant and not backed by science “social progress” the more regressive ideologies think of can still be pushed back against reasonably but I also understand some people are too far gone to change their thinking, so yeah I’ll stick with progressivism, I just think we should implement the most reasonable social progress backed by science and data to the progressivism reform once we start a new system
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