Progressive
Progressive is used as a shorthand for the mainstream social democratic political view that is center-left in most democracies but considered far-left in the US.
Political Progressivism
Progressives support things like a strong social safety net, universal health care, personal freedom, a mixed capitalist and socialist economy, and other liberal policies that have proven to improve happiness in the countries that have implemented them.
The term must be used to distinguish progressives from the mainstream democratic party in the US, which does not advocate strongly for these things. And lacking an actual social democrat party, the term progressive is the best descriptor we have.
Secularism
Progressives also tend to be more secular, and share many of the beliefs that go along with that. Even though these are spiritual beliefs rather than political ones, the two are correlated. This is why the term "secular progressives" is often used in this wiki to describe the group who shares these two core beliefs.
Defining Our Beliefs and Goals
Believers of a religion can identify as "Christian" or "Muslim" or "Buddhist" and instantly convey gigabytes of information about their beliefs, as well as become part of an in-group. Secular progressives are just a loose affiliation of correlated political and spiritual beliefs, not a religion or even a political party.
metaculture attempts to define the core belief system that underlies secular progressivism and present it in a way that makes it easy to understand and communicate to others.
It would be nice if progressives even attempted to define their own beliefs. Instead they allow right wing propaganda networks to fill the search results for "what is progressivism" and similar terms with inflammatory strawman characterizations of their beliefs. If you don't define your belief system then your opponents will do it for you.
Defining Progressive Christianity
Not Politics, Best Practices
The use of Progressive also separates the support for specific policies like universal health care from support for a political party. metaculture supports the implementation of Evidence-Based Best Practices that maximize the happiness of a society. There is strong support for the efficacy of the policies supported by progressives.
Plus, metaculture is describing the belief system that already exists but has yet to be fully and accurately described. Secular Progressives are the group most likely to share it.
As political alignments shift in the future it may be the case that another group adheres more to the best practices strategy than self-identified "progressives". Should that happen, then this page will be updated to reflect that change.
Beware of Tankies
Tankies are online trolls and misinformed leftists that identify as communists but are just contrarians that take the opposite of the prevailing liberal view of any current or historical authoritarian regime that calls itself socialist. Many tankies are propagandists employed by those regimes to support their agendas and sew discord within democracies.
Given that it is impossible to tell the trolls from the propaganda farms from the actual persuadable leftists, and tankies are rarely encountered in the real world, it is best to assume all online tankies are trolls and never to engage with them.
Progressive Media
There is plenty of progressive media out there for those that want to follow politics.
The recent episode, "Why are Conservatives happier than Progressives?" from Derek Thompson's Plain English podcast, does a great job of breaking down the "happiness gap" between conservatives and progressives, and ways that we can approach progressive values in ways that are less catastrophizing, more productive, cooperative, and conducive to creating happiness.
Here are some short videos that outline the history and philosophy of progressivism.