Progressive. That seems suddenly to be a dirty word. Tarred with all manner of political overtone. But surely it’s a notion that can be embraced by the right as much as it can by the left, writes Jonathan Green.

There's been a lot of talk about this lately, of elites, chattering classes, mainstream opinion, and the place of journalism and politics in respect of any or all of it.

Which is probably as clear a sign of the presence of some idle intellectual elite as you could find.

The argument, conceived no doubt in tertiary-educated repose, is that this country is burdened by an 'insider' class of over-educated inner-urban progressives, people divorced from the mainstream interests and opinion of the country's overwhelming majority: simple plain-thinking folk, who care not a jot for same-sex marriage, climate change or the internationally acknowledged right of the marginalised and oppressed to seek asylum and refuge.

To which, I'd suggest, the only sensible response is to be thankful.

But no, comes the counter argument, these elites are fracturing that treasured and idiosyncratically Australian notion of egalitarianism, where Jack's the equal of his master, even though - and we don't like to dwell on this awkward complexity - his master's still his master.

The suggestion here is a culture war re-framing of egalitarianism as conformity to a series of common denominators loosely defining politics, social, even moral aspiration; to be egalitarian is to hold to what is most popular to the exclusion of ideas not commonly shared.

It's a stultifying recipe for the most inward looking conservatism, a running argument for intellectual stasis that dismisses new and progressive thinking on the basis that it is simply not common.

Surely a truer version of the egalitarian ideal is a state that encourages social and intellectual growth from a level playing field of shared opportunity. The existence of an intellectual and cultural elite is not proof against the chance of this sort of growth, it's more of a vanguard.

This is not how, for example, Nick Cater would probably define it. In Cater's view - currently much prized by those happy to have found an intellectual framework for their instinctive sense of bewildered dislocation - Australia is slowly succumbing to sophistication.

We are falling prey to the warped cosmopolitan thinking of 'insiders', a group at odds with the common wisdom of the Australian crowd.

In his book The Lucky Culture and through the numberless elsewheres only normally accessible to that small band of media/intelligentsia insiders to which clearly he does not belong and rails against, Cater argues against this new breed of 'sophisticated' Australians: overeducated types leery of corporate success and distrustful of the Murdoch media, sworn foes of the 'fair go'.

The sophisticated Australian, apparently, just does not get it. Does not understand that his or her fellows rate gay marriage as a curious irrelevance, if not an outright affront to convention. Does not twig to the fact that the right thinking majority is sceptical of climate change and certainly of no mind to alter any aspect of its behaviour as an ecological prophylactic. Fails to appreciate that most of their country folk would give their right arms to pay less tax and given their druthers would whittle the reach of government to a rump of social necessities. And so on.

According to Cater and his ilk it is the unrepresentative hold that sophisticated Australians have over both political and media mechanisms that propels these fringe enthusiasms into the middle ground of the national discussion, a discussion they then dominate through a cunning monopoly over soft, leftist media to the detriment of the common good.

What are we to make of this?

Presumably sophisticated Australians should pull their heads in at the rebuke; should acknowledge the greater wisdom of the crowd.

But perhaps it is the duty of the intelligent, connected, politically engaged minority (elite if you like) to stick to their guns and provide some sort of point of difference in a culture that otherwise would be subsumed by commercially manipulated mass-taste at the expense of cultural adventurism, by xenophobic smugness in the face of a seething world rattling at our borders and by head in the sand over-consumption against the pressing challenge of a increasingly unstable and threatening nature.

Surely it is the tension between new thinking and the safe comfort of the status quo that drives us forward as a culture? This is the important place, for example, of the arts, exploring the challenging fringes of our world, seeking new ways of rendering it and provoking the sorts of reactions and introspections that lead to greater, progressive, truths.

Progressive. That seems suddenly to be a dirty word. Tarred with all manner of political overtone. But surely it's a notion that can be as embraced by the right as much as it can by the left? By libertarians and social democrats … as a idea, progress seems blithely agnostic and overwhelmingly positive.

Which just seems so obvious and points to the true political distortion at play.

It is a particular, currently quite popular, version of conservative politics that bridles against the perceived sleight of progressive thinking; not because of its innate qualities of forward thinking and intellectual adventure, but because of the current specifics of its agenda: climate, same-sex marriage, migration and all the rest.

The honest, sophisticated thing to do would be to own this antagonism for the deeply partisan and political thing that it is and not try to dress it as a defence of fairness.

And sophisticated Australians? Well they should keep on keeping on. They’re the hope of the side.

Jonathan Green is a former editor of The Drum and presenter of Sunday Extra on Radio National. View his full profile here.