Ideology and the Progressive Agenda

Robert Buddan, Contributor

Ideology in word and description is missing from the newly launched Progressive Agenda of the People's National Party (PNP). The party admits to deliberately excluding a discussion of ideology. There is no reference to democratic socialism.

 I think there are two reasons for this. Socialism and the very word 'ideology' have been so politicised as to take on meanings that political actors prefer not to associate too closely with anymore. In America, for example, the word 'socialist' is badly misrepresented and Barack Obama's enemies accuse him of being socialist and, therefore, anti-American.

Furthermore, socialism is but one progressive ideology. The Progressive Agenda, though being primarily of the PNP, is not, I think, created for the PNP alone. It is created for a broad front of many progressive movements. These include environmental, feminist, Garveyite, Rastafarian, human rights, and anti-colonial movements. Indeed, 'progressive' applies to all victimised groups (youth, aged, disabled, and ghetto) who want transformation from the politics of victimisation to a society that is just and fair.

Truth of the idea

'Ideology', in its originally innocence, had meant a world view formed out of a more or less systematic set, branch or science (ology) of ideas (ideo). Some popular ideologies have been socialism, capitalism, and communism. Later on, supporters of each world view began to present their ideologies as the highest truth. Each would accuse the other of being 'ideological', that is, following impractical theories, being partisan or thinking dogmatically.

Ideologues felt that the truth of the idea lay in the idea itself. Religion is ideology too. But religion bases itself on faith - faith in the idea. Political ideologies, being secular, were required to test their truths with evidence. They were to be based on facts. They were to subject themselves to a scientific method.

They often did not, and so the word 'ideology' came to mean ideas that reflected bias. So, socialist, capitalist and communist ideologies came to be seen as merely pretending to represent the one valid universal truth though really representing partisan bias.

Worse, ideologues from each category were sometimes not the best people to emulate. In the name of some high morality, people were exploited, freedoms stifled, nations bombed, governments corrupted, and politics came to be seen as an instrument of all of this. Politics became 'dirty' and ideology came to be distrusted.

Ideology of Anti-Ideology

In fact, a new anti-politics world view has emerged to represent an anti-ideological ideology saying that politics (of all ideologies) is dirty. Groups calling themselves 'civil-society' organisations practise this new anti-party, anti-politics, and anti-ideological ideology. Though fragmented, they are bound by the common belief that politics is dirty and corrupt. Civil-society practices a modern form of political puritanism.

But civil-society organisations are really like a new partyless party. Some philosophers believe that everything is ideology. Ideology is ideological because everyone has a world view. They have biases nurtured by family, friends, party, church and media. We have biases against Catholics or socialists or Middle Easterners or Africans or working-class people or Patois-speakers or revivalists or white people or whatever, even without knowing them; and we believe that somehow they are part of the problem. Yet, we would deny that we are ideological. We prefer to believe that we are objective and non-partisan.

What the Progressive Agenda asks us to do is drop the pretence. It does not use words like 'socialism', 'capitalism' or 'communism'. It does use the phrase 'civil society', but only to mean those who do not primarily identify with political parties. It should not be taken to mean they are not ideological.

Philosophy

Instead of ideology, the Progressive Agenda uses the term 'progressive' as its philosophy and its method. As a philosophy, it aims for the just and democratic kind of society that provides equal opportunity.

Early socialists saw the exploitation of man by man, specifically of working-class man by capitalist man as a major source of inequality of opportunity. They wanted to change that system and formed socialist parties. Later progressives see exploitation in other ways, such as the exploitation by man of woman. Thus was born the women's or feminist movement. Still, others see a problem in the exploitation by man of nature. This gave rise to the environmental movement.

There is international exploitation by rich countries of poor countries, colonial exploitation, and racial exploitation, all of these giving rise to counter-movements. All of these counter-movements make up one progressive front aimed at breaking down exploitation in all its forms. Out of this would come a more just future where Jamaicans can live, work, play and raise healthy and happy families together.

In the Progressive Agenda, the PNP retains its socialist roots because it still sees itself as a party against social and economic exploitation. But it has created a common progressive agenda for all progressive movements to work on together. These movements might not consider themselves socialist or PNP. But there is a common agenda for all. This is the first meaning of the word 'progressive'. Progressive is a philosophy of working together, as nation, as partners, as stakeholders, as citizens, to build a new Jamaica.

The word 'progressive' is not synonymous with the word 'socialism', and the PNP is not the sum total of all that is progressive. Socialism is only one form of progressive thinking. A progressive movement accepts that exploitation and injustice come in many forms - economic exploitation, environmental degradation, oppression of women, child labour, human trafficking, systems of bad governance, and slavery and so on.

Method

The second meaning of the word 'progressive' used in the Progressive Agenda relates to the method of arriving at the 'truth', or the best approximation or the most widely accepted version of it.

Ideology, I am arguing, is susceptible to bias. That bias might be well-intentioned or caused by the available knowledge at the time. The individual does not come to his bias by his own hand. Society passes on or actively cultivates bias towards forms of religious practice, 'free' market competition, consumption values, forms of marriage, forms of sex, and even attitudes to life, study, speech and leisure.

When we think about the kind of society we want, we do so under the influence of these biases. It is, therefore, important to think critically and subject our ideas to evidence. Therefore, the Progressive Agenda says that whether we are socialists, capitalists, communists, racists, enslavers, feminists, ecologists, civil-society activists, or whatever we might call ourselves, we should subject our ideas to evidence and not to personal, class, ethnic or national bias.

The Progressive Agenda says that we must research, do fact-finding, engage in data collection, analyse objectively, think critically, and conclude realistically. This evidence-based approach is progressive because it is a more scientific method that gets us closer to the truth than the dogmatic method does.

The PNP has added a more inclusive progressivism on top of its socialism and seeks to replace ideology with science. In these two ways, it might have laid the basis for a new paradigm of politics. Jamaica does, in fact, badly needs something altogether new.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and robert.buddan@uwimona.edu.jm.