How We Define Progressive

If I receive an invite in the mail for a conference whose purpose is to finally define progressive, I decline. And if I happen to be at a political conference [which is rare], and someone raises their hand and asks, “can you define progressive,” I know it isn’t going to be productive.

When we first started New Progressive Coalition, I spent a lot of time in group discussions dominated by the topic of what it means to be progressive. I came to realize that this search for the perfect definition of a term that means many things to many people is a complete quagmire. These debates and discussions about labels divide us instead of embracing the people who define themselves as progressive for very different reasons and values. How does it help our country to spend time labeling people as moderate, centrist, or liberal instead of looking for different types of innovative and pragmatic solutions to our political problems?

The more labels we create, the more personal bias we add, which limits the ability for innovation to be fostered. It is just another political silo that limits the amount of people who can participate and collaborate.

So at NPC we define progressive based on its literal meaning.

PROGRESSIVE: CHANGE FOR THE BETTER; FORWARD THINKING

Most of the time, we don’t know innovation until after it has occurred. I think we should spend less time arguing what it means to be progressive and more time investing in the innovative and effective organizations that are making an impact.