Road map for liberals

The loudest voices on the right today speak of reversing, cutting, dismantling, eliminating. The overarching message is that all the progress made during the 20th century -- the institutions and innovations that modernized and civilized the world -- must be torn down, ripped out, erased.

Isn't it just a little odd to think that the civic and economic advancements of the past century were a big mistake?

Tony Judt thought so. Earlier this year, the widely respected historian published a book called "Ill Fares the Land." It is, essentially, a call for liberals to stop doubting themselves and embrace the bedrock principles of their political worldview.

"We need to apologize a little less for past shortcomings and speak more assertively of achievements," Judt wrote.

After all, those achievements were considerable.

"We take for granted the institutions, legislation, services and rights that we have inherited from the great age of 20th century reform," Judt writes. "It is time to remind ourselves that all of these were utterly inconceivable as recently as 1929. We are the fortunate beneficiaries of a transformation whose scale and impact was unprecedented. There is much to defend."

In a weird twist, Judt says liberals should adopt a "conservative" stance -- to defend what their predecessors created against right-wing marauders.

"It is the Right that has inherited the ambitious modernist urge to destroy and innovate in the name of a universal project," he writes. "From the war in Iraq through the unrequited desire to dismantle public education and health services, to the decades-long project of financial deregulation, the political Right -- from Thatcher and Reagan to Bush and Blair -- has abandoned the association of political conservatism with social moderation."

It's fascinating to listen to digital gurus talk about how technology is going to revolutionize public discourse, creating one giant town hall meeting where everybody can contribute to a productive dialogue. Actual evidence suggests the opposite is happening. In the political sphere, in particular, what you tend to see is citizens, usually anonymous, furiously typing out sound bites of partisan dogma or derogatory remarks intended to titillate or enrage rather than enlighten.

This happens on both sides of the aisle, but the most high-profile example is the Tea Party movement. Barrels of ink have been spilled trying to figure out what the movement actually stands for, yet its leaders seem to have no shortage of pithy slogans to shout into microphones.

"Demagogues tell the crowd what to think; when their phrases are echoed back to them, they boldly announce that they are merely relaying popular sentiment," Judt writes. "Twittering back to their audience its own fears and prejudices, they are relieved of the burden of leadership or initiative."

Liberals, meanwhile, seem tongue-tied when it comes to making the case for their political views. Cowed by the savvy and relentless rhetoric of their conservative counterparts, liberals struggle to coherently and passionately convey what they believe. Judt draws a possible road map for liberals to find their voice.

During the Progressive Era -- the 1890s to 1914 -- liberals asked these questions, according to Judt: "How was a liberal society to respond to the poverty, overcrowding, dirt, malnutrition and ill health of the new industrial cities? How were the working masses to be brought into the community -- as voters, as citizens, as participants -- without upheaval, protest and even revolution?"

The responses to these questions over the coming decades "proved spectacularly successful," Judt argues. "Not only was revolution avoided but the industrial proletariat was integrated to a remarkable degree." In short -- and this is important -- 20th century Western reforms proved Karl Marx wrong. Liberals showed that profound societal changes could occur peacefully, without resorting to revolution.

The reforms of the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the Great Society, environmental and consumer protections, minority rights -- these are a prodigious legacy that liberals can be proud of -- and that they should vigorously defend. Consider what this country would be like today without Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, worker protections, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, veteran benefits and more.

The advancements of the 20th century fell short of creating Utopia. War, famine and injustice continue to menace the globe. Some well-intentioned liberal initiatives have fallen prey to corruption and waste. Others are in decline.

But the answer to these shortcomings of Western progress need not be to cut, dismantle, eliminate. There is little credible evidence that the major advances of the 20th century were some huge blunder. The answer, then, is to fix them, and to continue the quest for greater justice and equality.

Judt asks: "Why have we been in such a hurry to tear down the dikes laboriously set in place by our predecessors? Are we so sure that there are no floods to come?"

Tony Judt died this week from complications of Lou Gehrig's disease. He was 62.

Geoff Schumacher (gschumacher@reviewjournal.com) is the Review-Journal's director of community publications. His column appears Friday.