At 11:28 AM 9/27/99 PDT, you wrote: >I see nothing wrong with the idea of progress. It has been a key component >of leftist thinking for a long time. Until recently the only critics have >been conservatives. It is strange to see a conservative idea smuggled into >left discourse by means of that great Trojan horse--post-modernism. what kind of "progress" are you talking about? The word "progress" is like the word "reform," having different meanings depending on peoples' political slants. The IMF/World Bank define "progress" in terms of the widening and deepening of markets, for example. Technophiles define it in terms of new techniques being developed, typically ignoring the negative side-effects (pollution, the destruction of public life, etc.) I would define progress in terms of the development of democratic mass movements from below pushing for and winning reforms that serve the collective interests of the working class and other oppressed groups (and in terms of dealing with the conflicting interests within this mass) and in terms of the movement toward a fully democratic socialism. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/~JDevine
