Talk:Herbert Croly

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[edit] Liberal not Progressive

Herbert Croly and the New Republic self-identified as American liberal. See [1].

I can't read the link because Britannica requires a subscription. However, I think there is a difference between how a person defines themself and how history defines them. While he may have considered himself a early 1900s liberal, I see him as an advocate of Progressivism as one of the thinkers that shifted the liberal ideology from the laissez-faire to interventionism. If you read his work The Promise of American Life it seems clear he is advocating this sort of change. In fact one of the people the article notes he influenced with his ideology, Theodore Roosevelt, ran for President as a member of the Progressive Party. Though Croly may not have considered himself a member of the Progressive movement I would certainly see him as one of the ideological writers on which the movements based their reforms.

I see no problem with citing him as a progressive/liberal of the time. If your problem with using the term progressive is that you do not think he was in fact a progressive of the time, I would disagree. If this is your basis for not considering him a progressive, I would suggest you examine progressivism in terms of the early 1900s and see if you still feel the same way. If the problem is the criticisms/negative connotation many people associate with the word progressive (similar to how so many today will not define themselves as liberal), and therefore he should not be associated with it, I think I think it's incorrect to think of ideologies in terms of good or bad. They are what they are. I don't think there is any reason to leave out the term because of a lack of modern support for Croly's historical ideology. CRobey 21:49, 29 April 2006 (UTC)