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Notes -
"Representation" should be defined for this comment thread as people of diverse backgrounds being seen as protagonists, deuteragonists, and antagonists in fiction, being elected representatives, and being hired for visible jobs at management/executive levels.
Is Representation a primary goal of the progressive project? Or is it a secondary goal, a virtue signal for societal diversity, since it can be seen as a sign that oppression has ceased, a sign that diverse people should be expected walking around in public, using services, present in labor jobs, and other signs of diverse social integration?
Unsurprisingly, the replies you've gotten are not particularly charitable to the progressive project.
The progressive project is anti-hierarchy and believes in equality of all humans, that no person or demographic should have power over another. The other replies are mostly some variety of assuming that that's a lie and obviously it must be about instituting some replacement hierarchy to the one currently in place.
In that view, Representation is not the primary goal but serves multiple purposes. The primary purpose is merely a proxy for the success of that project: if all demographics are truly equal then their visible Representation should be equal. Although also if you're talking about elected representatives, the power part is pretty direct, not just about visibility. There's also a secondary purpose of visible Representation being a role model / propaganda for showing that better world is possible (or, as Bombadil points out, accurately depicting the existing world).
Proportional, no?
That would give power to demographics in proportion to their population, no? My understanding is the intent is equality, not proportional power.
Never heard about affirmative action for males in areas where female representation was more than male, for example, in academia: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=72. One would expect that if equality really held any value.
Not equality of number, but equality of power. My apologies, I should have specified. In reality I think it works out loosely to something like
(# of people in group1)X(avg power of people in group1)=(# of people in group 2)X(avg power of people in group2)
and so on for every demographic group and subgroup of people. Mind you it's normative rather than descriptive. This naturally results in the standard intersectionality ladder (hierarchy of oppression) that you can see in implementation when combined with intersectionality theory. Black women are both small in number and low in societal power, and so need an extra boost relative to proportional representation compared to white women, who are equal in size but smaller in power compared to white men. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, but we're lifting valleys here, not individual dirt flakes. We're flattening mountains, not flattening individual rocks Harrison Bergeron style.
Frankly I think it makes a lot more internal sense than a lot here give it credit for. Of course I'm sure the average White Christian man doesn't enjoy the idea of having the same amount of power at a group level as the average Roma woman, but hey, that's kind of the point.
Sorry, this still makes no sense. You just said no human can have power over another human. So what other kind of equality you are seeking, but zero power? If that were true, every progressive candidate would call for removing every state and governmental structure, and furthermore for abolishing all property and ownership in general. Not that it would help any. If I am stronger than you or more violent than you, I'd have power over you. In our society, you'd call the police if I threatened you, but police is power of one person over another, so you abolished it. And private security would allow one to exercise power over another, so you can't have any. So how would you prevent somebody stronger from exercising power over somebody weaker?
The answer is simple - you don't. That's exactly what is happening in many progressive-run zones - anarcho-tyranny. Under the pretense of equalization of power, there is absolutely brutal oppression hiding. Oppression that is random, chaotic and total - both law-abiding citizens and criminals are suffering (criminals get robbed and murdered too, of course). Except that since this oppression is condoned by the progressive regime - because if criminals are not punished, there's no oppression, right? - you are not allowed to talk about it anymore. Or, somehow in the society of equal power, you end up in jail.
Yes you will. You are not there yet, because the society is not ready to accept it. But you are getting there. Destroying the gifted education, for example, is classic Bergeron move. There are many other "progressive" moves that are not as blatant as binding dumbbells to people's legs or disfiguring their faces, but are even more detrimental to their lives in prosperity. "Harrison Bergeron style" is literally the only equality you could have, in your model.
I am not even sure what this means. So if I am a group of one, and I am compared to a group of a million people, I should have million votes? What does it mean "for every demographic group and subgroup of people"? People can belong to dozens or hundreds of demographic groups. Some groups could be tiny, and some could be enormous. It looks like the more you explain, the more nonsensical it gets.
I mean I’m no progressive, so I’m not surprised I’m failing to explain it well.
But yeah, if you’re a group of one and compared to a group of a million, and you, by your nature, have about the same amount of power as one of those million people, then the progressive project requires giving you massively increased opportunities, respect, and voice. In reality it’s not going to go for a 1,000,000X boost, but the point is leveling things to the extent practicable. However, progressivism doesn’t really acknowledge the “minority of one” that libertarians do, so it’s a nonsense example. But yeah, if you’re part of an otherwise equal really small group, progressivism will probably try to give you a hand up relative to the big group. That seems obvious if you look around, given the prevailing idea of assisting “minorities”. Once you factor in that both power and number is considered it ends up being basically exactly the expected order of priority.
And yeah people belong to a lot of groups, and yes it is beneficial under progressivism to slot yourself into increasingly niche and powerless groups.
Your police comments don’t make much sense frankly. The point isn’t that no person should have power over another, it’s that no group (and there are a set number of defined groups that qualify here, not just drawing random lines) has any more power in society broadly than any other.
Doing that necessarily requires some people to have power over other people. It requires those who would naturally be on the bottom of society (or near it) to band together to exert power over those who would otherwise be more powerful. It is attempting to neutralize the dog-eat-dog state of nature where the most capable win and the least capable die.
It’s not a freedom-maximizing ideology obviously. The crime and such are certainly problems but that’s what happens when you advantage a small, weak group (mentally ill homeless) relative to a large powerful one (urban professionals).
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