Progressing

EAVESDROPPING on a conversation among presumed intellectuals attempting to discern why the word "progressive' has become popular in modern political discourse, what amazed me most was the group's abject failure, not only that it missed the mark, but how badly. It was as if an old blind squirrel, or a group of them, feeling for an acorn, had no luck, and went hungty. They mentioned the progressive era, to their credit, an impressive display of historical knowledge.But tey offered nothing further of substance; a few vacuous remarks about the need for new terminology to suit new circumstances. Joe Biden used to be a moderate, now he's a progressive, blah blah blah. Well, whatever. Now, for the truth. The word "progressive" means the same thing as the word "liberal", and is in fact a substitute, a replacement for it. Conservatives have a tendency to effectively demonize words and people they don't like, and that is the case with the word 'liberal". The word 'liberal", in a nutshelll, has been demonized out of existence, liberals themselves having become too self conscious, too hummiliated, too intimdated by conservative bullies to even whisper it in private. Other examples of words demonized to extinction include "homosexual", which was harried out of existence about a half century ago by right wing hompphobes, and replace by the currently stylish "gay". When the term "mentally retarded" became the object of widespread ridicule it was replaced with "cognitively disabled". Bear in mind that the words "idiot", "moron", and imbecile" were at one time perfectly acceptable scientific terms, until the demonizers and ridiculers struck. And actually, "progressive" was itself banned by word police in the nineteen thirties,, and replaced by "liberal".So, we have flip flopped, as we like to say. "Liberal" is the latest word to be tossed into the dustbin of history, at least for the time being.Another factor in word replacement is the tendency in a mass media imitative society to turn words into fads. In the nineteen fifties, as television spread uniculture far and wide in America, the word "cool" took the place of the long standing word "swell". In the sixties "groovy" replaced "cool" for a time, but cool came back, as it did once again around the turn of th emillennium after the word "tight" took hold for a time, meaning "cool". "Cool" turns out to be the most resilient slang term in American history, many words have far less staying power. Today, we have an entire generation of cool retirees, who have been cool for decades. Once upon a time people had problems and difficulties. Now, they have "issues". problems ahd difficulties have not been hounded out of existence, they havd merely been supplanted by a more cool term. Where would we be without our word fads? In a more articulate culture, perhaps. the word 'ultimately" has morphed into "at the end of the day". One might hope that this increasingly silly dounding silly phrase is beginning to see its sunset. It is what it is, we like to say, nonsensically. Truer, more obvious words were never be spoken, and, with luck, the day will come when they are not spoken. Word fads, like all forms of fads, like himan imitative behavior, willalways be with us. Meanshile, I am content to call myself either a liberal or a progressive, your choice. Either one is, as they used to say, the cat's meow.