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During today’s book salon on Matt Kerbel’s book, Netroots: Online Progressives and the Transformation of American Politics, I had the following conversation with Mr. Kerbel:
khin November 1st, 2009 at 3:14 pm
99I’m hoping to get some clarification of this statement:
“The Left is better situated than the right to take advantage of open source Internet politics”
My experience with Daily Kos has been that, on the economic issue of health care, the editors are in fact not left wing compared with the general public. But on social issues, my guess would be that they are left wing.
So I’m hoping that Mr. Kerbel can clarify what, exactly, he means by the Left in his statement above.
Matthew Kerbel November 1st, 2009 at 3:19 pm
104
In response to khin @ 99 (show text)One of the points I try to make in “Netroots”, khin, is that the Netroots cannot be understood in traditional ideological terms, despite the ever-present characterization in the traditional press that there is a kind of ideological purity online that represents an out-of-the-mainstream, far-left perspective. I would apply this characterization to the broader progressive blogosphere, too — not just the editors at Daily Kos. When I use the term “left” I’m simply making a distinction that follows the linking pattern of political blogs, whereby the “left” blogosphere can be distinguished from the “right” blogosphere by their networking patterns.
Dave Karpf November 1st, 2009 at 3:23 pm
108
In response to Matthew Kerbel @ 104 (show text)Right, I really like how you handle that in the book. The progressive netroots are an identifiable network of people, organizing through new media to affect the political process. They don’t always agree with each other on policy preferences (anybody hang out on MyDD during the primaries?), but they do agree on some of the major ways that politics should be opened up, and they work together to accomplish those ends.
Matthew Kerbel November 1st, 2009 at 3:30 pm
114
In response to Dave Karpf @ 108 (show text)Exactly. And I think it’s useful to contrast Dave’s characterization with the power dynamic I was talking about earlier. Dave’s distinguishing policy from process, and at its core the progressive netroots wants to change the way politics is done in order to make progressive outcomes possible. I think that’s the best way to understand what’s happening with the healthcare debate. There are people on progressive blogs who advocate for different policy outcomes (single payer, for instance), but the overarching dynamic is about getting a bill that will benefit individuals rather than insurance and drug companies. And that can’t happen without changing the political process.
khin November 1st, 2009 at 3:43 pm
126
In response to Matthew Kerbel @ 114 (show text)That is an interesting comment about policy and process. My understanding of the term “progressive” was that it is a policy term; so process is necessary as a road to policy, but the definition is in terms of policy. What I wonder is whether Mr. Kerbel’s definition here is in agreement with that, or is it defined more in terms of process?
Thanks in advance for your response, Mr. Kerbel.
Dave Karpf November 1st, 2009 at 3:46 pm
132
In response to khin @ 126 (show text)Progressive is both a policy term and a reference to a historical movement. So I guess an offshoot of your question that I’d pose to Matt is “how do today’s netroots progressives compare to some of the historical movements you study in the book?”
Matthew Kerbel November 1st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
136
In response to khin @ 126 (show text)One of the observations I make in the book is that progressive policy objectives follow from a politics of community, so in that sense while progressives may (will) disagree on particulars, a politics of community would both mirror the communities that progressives have built online and would further progressive ends. It’s a variant of the old adage that good politics makes good policy.
khin November 1st, 2009 at 3:53 pm
141
In response to Matthew Kerbel @ 136 (show text)I’ll have to admit that I can’t quite understand how that answers my question. I’m sure if I read your book I would get your terminology better.
For anyone who has read Kerbel’s book, I am hoping for a few pointers. First of all, he states that "Left" is not in his usage an ideological term but instead denotes a feature of "networking patterns." Anyone have any idea what that means?
Second of all, is he defining "progressivism" in terms of process as opposed to policy?
My position is that we should absolutely not be defining progressivism in terms of "process": it has to be defined in terms of policy or possibly, as Dave Karpf said, as a historical movement. If we involve process in the actual definition then we have lost sight of our objective. A similar statement would hold for defining the left. Any comments on this, anyone?
3 Comments
Well, as someone who hasn’t read the book, I think we both should. Then perhaps these questions will be answered.
But as the conversation was happening on Book Salon today, I had the distinct impression that the author was speaking about the “lefty netroots” and you were speaking about The Left, as a political/policy position-holding group. That’s what I took your mutual disconnect to be: a misunderstanding of terms.
Again, though, I haven’t read the book and I think I should do so before getting into a longer discussion of this important topic. I just wanted to share my impression, since you asked for comments.
With the exception of one unfortunate experience last year, I am very new to blogging. Unlike you, however, I have been very fortunate to have immediately found the right place for me. I made some early missteps here, but they in no way affected my ability to participate in discussions or submit diary entries. So I have been very fortunate not to have had anything like the experience you had at Daily Kos.
Maybe the differences in our experiences can help here in sorting out the point that Matthew Kerbel was making.
My understanding of what he was talking about is that, while we talk about the “left” blogosphere and the “right” blogosphere, the terms “left” and “right” when it comes to blogs are really only shorthand, as blogs are not like political parties or movements.
For example, you seem to have identified a particular position or an agenda on the part of the powers that be over at Daily Kos, at least on the issue of health care reform.
But I don’t think that Matthew Kerbel thinks about blogs as having platforms, ideologies, or fixed policy positions as if they were political parties, but rather things of them as places that provide a forum for networking.
I think that he thinks more in terms of what I have experienced here at the Lake. There are leaders here who do an excellent job of organizing actions, often in response to very current events, that include things ranging from television ads to phone banks, but the people who come here can discuss the issues (right up until the point that they advocate the use of violence to achieve political goals or start spinning bs so badly that reality is no longer recognizable in what they’re saying, at which point moderators step in) without participating in the actions if they don’t want to.
I think that by asserting that blogs don’t conform to any fixed ideology, but instead show “left” and “right” networking patterns, he meant that sites like this one bring people with similar political views and dispositions together for the purpose of taking action and that most people who come to one site or another do participate in and contribute to those sites’ actions, though not everyone who frequents one site or another necessarily agrees at all times on all issues or on how best to achieve their goals.
I should probably have followed Teddy’s example and admitted at the beginning of this comment that I haven’t read the book yet. Anyway, I hope these thoughts made sense and helped a little.
I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know if it plays to any deeper, more pernicious emphasis of process over policy (and I agree with you, that is pernicious).
The impression I got from the OP and the discussion was that the book is simply about this particular process of netroot formation and activism, and that he was using terms like left and progressive as general descriptive terms.
So he didn’t really want to get into questions about subjects he considered extraneous, like about policy as such, or the way he blew off John Emerson’s question about using the netroots toward organizing non-internet action (which was too bad because I would’ve liked to hear more on that).
So hopefully the book is just simply about process and not policy, and isn’t claiming that the one is more important than the other.