About the name. Ambiguous, capricious, yes. Malicious, perhaps, in deliberately leading on the innocent who will interpret "progressive" as noun, description of political affiliation, only to find sourballs vs. the world scribbling away. The truth is more closely approached examining the phrase, rather, in the senses of "progressive reactionary/progressively more reactionary", and not at all in the sense of "reaction of a progressive". Better yet, ponder "progressive reaction" in the medical description of inflammatory response. Think anaphylaxis.

It all began when D. and I noticed ourselves opening conversations more and more with variations on "maybe it's age and I'm become more and more of a reactionary curmudgeon...". On one of these ever-more-frequent occasions, I added, "But I'm a progressive, fair-minded, equal-protection sort of reactionary", providing a few sauce-for-the-goose samples of my enlightened reaction.

To which clever D. replied "Progressive Reactionary....Progressive Reaction would be a good name for a blog." We, of course, tend to take it mainly in the sense of inflammatory response, but are pleased enough with the ambiguity. So there it is.

Posted by Moira Breen at 12 January 2005 09:09 AM