rolling explaining conservatism

first amendment solutions

this thread is ridiculous & i'm wary of generalisations, but they are fun, so: i think conservatives aspire to collectively cultivate a certain dignity & elevated spirit through purity & abnegation

Prolly worth noting that these are generalizations drawn about a voluntary self-identification. We're not talking about, like, the French or people with brown eyes.

i think conservatives aspire to collectively cultivate a certain dignity & elevated spirit through purity & abnegation

I ... don't get this?

xp it's more like a generalisation about a religious group

Unless it was a joke? Like, I've known some people for whom this might be true, usually but not always deeply religious people, but conservative political views do not seem to be the determining factor there. And Gandhi, e.g., was far from a conservative. xp

i would say gandhi was very conservative, but obviously the word is loose and vague to the point of being nearly useless

I generally agree with Lunch in terms of effects. But in keeping with the project of showing Mordy we actually can try to see things from the perspective of sincere conservatives, this -

I'd be open to hearing more about any aspects of conservative ideology that don't rest on the premise that that's an awesome state of affairs which should be perpetuated ad infinitum

- is ascribing words to them they wouldn't say. The premise is not necessarily "that's an awesome state of affairs which should be perpetuated ad infinitum." That's lefty ventriloquism, not a way a sincere conservative would formulate it.

Try something more like "historical skepticism," which might be expressed as: traditions became traditions over time, through organic processes. SOMETIMES they need changing - slavery is an example - but they should do so gradually and through the same organic means. It should happen through an open and transparent process where the whole of the culture comes to understand that the change needs to take place. We should not toss aside long-held cultural traditions willy-nilly, or frivolously, or due to fashion. And we should DEFINITELY not have cultural changes thrust down our throats against our wills through aggressive Federal action. Bottom-up, not top-down.

On this view, the idea that people can just choose to be the gender that they "feel like," perhaps "feel like on a given day," and that men can go into women's bathrooms and compete in women's sports, is not just wrong but wrongly adjudicated and wrongly promulgated. It is the Government moving ahead of public opinion, and seeking to impose a change in values, rather than responding to an organic change.

Using government resources (like the military or Federal funding or highways or whatever) to perform "social engineering" is not just bad because conservatives disagree with the values being espoused. It's bad because the government should not be the mechanism whereby we change attitudes - whether it's on gay marriage, trans rights, or when the police should be allowed to shoot black people.

It sure is if it can be used to describe a pacifist anti-imperialist anarchist. xp

Lunch, is that ^ too much gymnastics for you?

It seems like a plausible Buckleyan position. Of course it's both (a) wrong on facts and (b) horrible in practice, but it's plausible.

traditions became traditions over time, through organic processes. SOMETIMES they need changing - kowtowing to russians is an example

you can be a pacifist anti-imperialist anarchist and still think desperately impoverished ppl need to hand spin for their edification. the obsession with an inward-looking moral order is still there, it just (claims) not to require a state to enforce it

bad brackets

Just getting super reductive.

Amodio et al, 2007. Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism. Nature neuroscience, 10(10), pp.1246-1247.

> our results are consistent with the view that political orientation, in part, reflects individual differences in the functioning of a general mechanism related to cognitive control and self-regulation. Stronger conservatism (versus liberalism) was associated with less neurocognitive sensitivity to response conflicts. At the behavioral level, conservatives were also more likely to make errors of commission. Although a liberal orientation was associated with better performance on the response-inhibition task examined here, conservatives would presumably perform better on tasks in which a more fixed response style is optimal.

Carraro et al, 2011. The automatic conservative: Ideology-based attentional asymmetries in the processing of valenced information. PLoS One, 6(11), p.e26456.

> In Experiment 1, we demonstrated that negative (vs. positive) information impaired the performance of conservatives, more than liberals, in an Emotional Stroop Task. This finding was confirmed in Experiment 2 and in Experiment 3 employing a Dot-Probe Task, demonstrating that threatening stimuli were more likely to attract the attention of conservatives. Overall, results support the conclusion that people embracing conservative views of the world display an automatic selective attention for negative stimuli.

Hatemi et al, 2011. A genome-wide analysis of liberal and conservative political attitudes. The Journal of Politics, 73(1), pp.271-285.

> The results point toward NMDA and glutamate related receptors as being worthy of further examination. Indeed, in every significant or suggestive chromosomal region these receptors were implicated. Of particular interest to political ideology is the relationship between NMDA and performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). The WCST is a neuropsychological test of the ability to display flexibility in the face of changing schedules of reinforcement. By definition Conservatism and Liberalism have much to do with flexibility of opinion in the face of a changing world

Kanai et al, 2011. Political orientations are correlated with brain structure in young adults. Current biology, 21(8), pp.677-680.

> We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala.

Schreiber et al, 2013. Red brain, blue brain: Evaluative processes differ in Democrats and Republicans. PLoS One, 8(2), p.e52970.

> Although the risk-taking behavior of Democrats (liberals) and Republicans (conservatives) did not differ, their brain activity did. Democrats showed significantly greater activity in the left insula, while Republicans showed significantly greater activity in the right amygdala. In fact, a two parameter model of partisanship based on amygdala and insula activations yields a better fitting model of partisanship than a well-established model based on parental socialization.

Ahn et al, 2014. Nonpolitical images evoke neural predictors of political ideology. Current Biology, 24(22), pp.2693-2699.

> Disgusting images, especially those related to animal-reminder disgust (e.g., mutilated body), generate neural responses that are highly predictive of political orientation even though these neural predictors do not agree with participants’ conscious rating of the stimuli. Images from other affective categories do not support such predictions. Remarkably, brain responses to a single disgusting stimulus were sufficient to make accurate predictions about an individual subject’s political ideology.

Old Lunch makes a lot of good points itt.

I've really struggled with making sense of my good buddies conservatism. He's sympathetic to Trump, flat earthers and many other things that frankly confuse me. What I've noticed is he seems to think these con. groups are counter to the majority and it's almost like he's engaging in a form of rebellion by choosing these beliefs. No matter how much I try to get him to admit there's an agenda in what his side believes, he seems to see their side as "facts" and that they're exposing lies. I love the guy and celebrate our differences but I also find it impossible to get through to him so I give up.

Ogmor, I think you're working with a definition of "conservatism" that is fairly removed from any that I'm usually familiar with. I do hope to see Republicans and Tories champion radical pacifism and decentralized participatory economics in my lifetime, though.

I think social & moral conservatism can (will?) manifest in pretty much any sort of society. I guess I'm saying it's that defensive tendency, that prizing of decorum & dignity & harmony, it's the concern with threats to the social/moral order & hegemony

if not, what is it that conservatism aims to conserve?

Status

I'm just not sure that conserving social order and hegemony (which is emphatically not what Gandhi was doing wrt Empire, capitalism, or the caste system, for starters, although, yes, he wanted to conserve certain traditions as well) is equivalent to cultivating dignity through purity and abnegation (which is not, generally, what I see in most mainstream political conservatism). xp

i think that getting something for nothing is humiliating and unenjoyable and that everyone wants to work to earn their way. no one wants to be on government aid bc it's a mostly shameful thing for most ppl.

Based on what? Is there a rash of middle-clash people refusing their inheritances? People LOVE getting shit without "earning" it.

You're conflating a sense of purpose, authentic life, etc. with 'earning' the right to feel fulfilled via a job - if not for the shame thrust upon people on government aid, they can find that fulfillment through any number of other activities. People feel ashamed of government aid because they're told to feel ashamed, that it's less than manly/adult/honorable to do so.

xp empire&colonialism make it even trickier to talk about conservatism, but i think conservatism can exist on any scale, & can be revolutionary in certain circumstances. i think conservatism prizes institutions/systems that bestow a symbolic conditional dignity onto those who can/will play along (obviously lots of conservatives don't have much economic/political status). the urge to protect the in-group & its moral order is conservative imo

The only contexts I can think of where conservatism and revolution got together are the US Civil War and the Taliban.

Status

― El Tomboto, Friday, June 23, 2017

otm

Conservatism uses the language of counter-revolution.

Yeah, the other contexts I was thinking about were coups in the Americas but if Kissinger is bankrolling you then "revolutionary" it ain't

Although I'm lukewarm on him, Corey Robin's collection of essays published a few years ago traces the lineage from Burke to Scalia.

hanging in the pub with a bunch of conservative friends and as per I can assure you a lot of the motivation is prejudice and contempt

i think that getting something for nothing is humiliating and unenjoyable and that everyone wants to work to earn their way. no one wants to be on government aid bc it's a mostly shameful thing for most ppl.

when I worked in kansass I used to hear this from students, many who came from farming families (so not just Johnson County kids)(and yeah yeah farming subsidies, it's not the point here). I honestly had never heard this point of view before: what would be more shameful about government aid than say familial aid with tuition and housing costs?

over here every family gets government aid (the program is called CAF, "AF" for "allocations familiales"), even if you're rich (as of a couple of years ago it's a little bit "means-tested" but just a little). when kids are no longer dependent on their families then they become eligible for CAF themselves. since everyone, rich or poor, shares this government aid, there's no shame; it's like health care or pensions.

so I wonder where the American shame comes from?

from our evil capitalist overlords who want to pit the proletariat against each other
i'm only half kidding

https://www.google.com/search?&q=not+growing+alfalfa+catch+22

Euler the prevailing theory on that has been, still is: Protestantism

in a more complicated way it's about yr conception of how you shd relate to the state. the US's rugged individualism doesn't really have a European analogy

That's interesting. I actually feel much worse about things I've got from my parents, esp as an adult, than about public services I've received, esp considering that the former are not available to anyone with citizenship.

4xp to Euler

But, yeah, Napster was shut down because of aggressive legal action from the RIAA, not because of public shame about acquiring music without paying for it.

Yes most other countries probably teach every student from 6 and up that a government is a thing you violently overthrow when it taxes your stuff too much

*don't* teach
Ugh

That and Protestantism.

Nordic countries are protestant and has some of the biggest safety nets, though. I'm guessing you think of Max Weber? It's not entirely the same thing.

Lutherans don't count

at anything

Yes fwiw Weber makes clear he is talking about Calvinists in the main. And also that America is the main arena for the Protestant ethic.

yeah my question was kind of rhetorical since it's obv a big topic i.e. Weber Protestant work ethic but it's gotta be more than that since I *think* attitudes differ in Germany Holland Denmark U.K. etc. Well actually I don't know if that's right!

who is the most True Conservative in this book

http://ebible.org/kjv/Job.htm

Protestantism is too broad a brush to use but the uniquely US strains of it are also the root of all our other idiosyncratic conservative attitudes/things/stuff

wrt to Weber it's probably best to understand his argument as being that Protestantism, due a variety of factors, prepared the way for a certain kind of subjectivity which is amendable to American style capitalism--in particular the idea of being an autonomous self tasked with discovering "signs" of salvation in inner-worldly terms. So it's not so much that Protestant lurks behind everything so much as it was the historical precedent for creating the inner life of an autonomous subject--and that being a kind of subject that looks at need *help* from outside (i.e. not the deliverance of grace) as an existential threat.

Try something more like "historical skepticism," which might be expressed as: traditions became traditions over time, through organic processes. SOMETIMES they need changing - slavery is an example - but they should do so gradually and through the same organic means. It should happen through an open and transparent process where the whole of the culture comes to understand that the change needs to take place. We should not toss aside long-held cultural traditions willy-nilly, or frivolously, or due to fashion. And we should DEFINITELY not have cultural changes thrust down our throats against our wills through aggressive Federal action. Bottom-up, not top-down.

i appreciate puffin's framing of conservatism in this way, and i don't doubt that there is a segment of conservatism that actually plays out in this way. but from my interactions with family and friends in MO, these ring more true to me:

if not, what is it that conservatism aims to conserve?

― ogmor, Friday, June 23, 2017 5:26 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Status

― El Tomboto

&

hanging in the pub with a bunch of conservative friends and as per I can assure you a lot of the motivation is prejudice and contempt

― pray for BoJo (Noodle Vague)

when it comes down to it, it's fear. fear of change, fear of people who aren't white, fear of traffic in the city, fear of losing status, fear of being on the wrong side of history.

i'm probably painting with a broad brush. but when conservatives try to describe the motivations of liberals, i don't think that "fear" would be one of the big ones, beyond the common fears that all humans share.

Xposts

in this way I've come to understand conservatism as, at bottom, the idea that the division between the saved and the damned is good and right. Some people are destined to be cast aside. And thus any social arrangement which tries to lift everyone up at once is against divine ordinance as well as a dangerous muddying of the waters wrt to salvation. No massive inequality would threaten the basis upon which I judge my own self-worth, etc. (put in secular terms).

Euler incidentally Charles Taylor's chapter on the disciplinary revolution in "A Secular Age" I thought really laid bare the bones of a certain strain of conservatism!

"Government's role is to act according to the restrictions of our Constitution or amend it accordingly. For the past 50+ years we have voted in politicians that hate our Constitution and continually expand the powers of the federal government and implement rule after rule that is not voted on by the legislature. Why even have the constitution anymore?"