Progressive and Reactionary

[High School Marxist]

I hear the two terms thrown around A LOT, and was wondering what exactly you guys consider 'Progressive' and what you consider 'Reactionary'. Also, are there any tendencies that you consider 'reactionary' or anything like that?

[The Jay]

Progressiveness refers to the quality of moving forward. In other words it means changing things from what they are, usually something that has never existed.

Reactionary means to bring back old practices like Monarchy, Feudalism, ect.

Conservative means wanting things to remain the same.

Radical is similar to progressive but more extreme.

I don't know the proper history of the words but this is the gist.

[Sea]

Generally, someone who's said to be progressive is for "the cause" whatever that may entail (depending on context, could be anyone from a run of the mill liberal to the aliens that lived in Marx's beard).

Reactionary generally has stronger connotations with the hard right, fascism, religious fundamentalism, etc. but is used to refer to anyone against "the cause" whatever that may mean, weather they be simply misguided or if they're bourgeoisie or otherwise against the left on a more personal level. This isn't the dictionary definition, but is how the term is usually used.

[Камо́ Зэд]

"Progressive," in a materialist sense, could mean that the attitude in question predicts or approaches the attitudes expected to usher in and dominate the coming epoch of human history. "Reactionary," then, could mean those attitudes that react against such progress and may attempt to resuscitate the attitudes of a previous epoch. In this way, the capitalist bourgeoisie was, at one point, quite progressive, and in many ways the bourgeoisie of the world can be. Karl Marx described democratic republics as a most progressive form of government, in that it approximates the values that will become dominant in the socialist epoch (social administration of production, egalitarianism, etc.). He noted, as we should note, that "progressive" attitudes do not perfectly reflect the attitudes of the coming epoch. One would call the gains of the Civil Rights Movement progressive, but by no means have racism or sexism been eliminated. "Radical" attitudes may more perfectly reflect the attitudes of the coming epoch and so may seem alien from even a progressive point of view. "Conservative" attitudes typically seek to maintain the status quo of society. In this way, many Usonian "conservatives" may be more appropriately called reactionaries.