Steve McIntosh: Building a Post-Progressive Movement

Thinking Ahead with Carter Phipps

For this episode, I’m happy to welcome back one of the first guests on this podcast, my longtime collaborator and cofounder of the Institute for Cultural Evolution, Steve McIntosh. Since that earlier conversation (which you can check out here) Steve has continued his work to bring what he has called a “post-progressive” perspective to the political sphere. Recently, that work has taken an important step forward with the launch of a new media portal, The Post-Progressive Post. This site, to which I’m proud to be a contributor, is designed to bring a fresh, new perspective to politics—one that is neither left, right, nor centrist. Indeed, it attempts to synthesize the best of all three of these political positions by integrating the cultural values from each of America’s three major worldviews: Progressivism, Modernism, and Traditionalism. The launch of this site made it a perfect moment to have Steve back on the podcast and dive deeper into what a post-progressive approach to politics and culture might look like.

Here are a couple of links to items referenced in our conversation.

George Packer, “The Four Americas,” The Atlantic

Steve’s critique of Packer’s article

My first article for the Post-Progressive Post: “Who Wants to Skip the Civil War?”