rolling explaining conservatism

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?"

"It's too hard!" "Why should I help, somebody else will do it?" "I don't wanna share." "I don't wanna be responsible." "Why should I have to take out the garbage?" "Let me get this shiny shiny machine gun to show the Russkies, I mean, the liberals!"

Non-Christian cultures also have conservative/liberal divides.

Personally, I think innate differences in cognition play a role. The conservative mindset is built up from disgust and aversion to the body, and to the different. Refs in last post. When parents, peers, and cultures support these innate predispositions, those with them are reinforced with a community.

ILXOR is a self-selecting bunch of mostly musical neophiles, so can count few conservatives, but we're outliers.

In practice, this means that there will always be resistance to social change, as the consensus can take generations to catch up with progressive thinkers. Those who want change must present in benign forms, least likely to arouse innate disgust reactions. "Will & Grace", not leather parades, etc.

Fuck that though, if one person sees footage of a leather parade and realizes "there is a place and time where I can be MYSELF" then everyone wins imo

Also: psychology is in the midst of a replicability crisis, wouldn't count too much on any of the papers you linked

Also also: even if the notional arc of the moral universe bends toward justice eventually, what do conservatives have to say to people suffering right now?

(A: suck it up and die quietly)

"conservatives" aren't 'resistant to change' so much as bootlickers of the powers that be in the status quo. they're the ghouls staring around outside the gates of hell dante didn't think deserved entry even to the inferno. they're the suck-ups on the playground who don't do a thing, or worse, laugh, when the bully picks up and beats up the nerd. american culture enables this spinelessness so that fred koch's boys and their ilk can keep themselves in yachts and helicopters

Tombot may be on to something here:

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

But for this:

what do conservatives have to say to people suffering right now?

Feel like I've read enough conservative thought (both chin-strokish and spewy) to know that at least some conservatives understand that they are simultaneously on the wrong side of history and, that this is the right place for them to be (standing athwart it yelling stop).

They are often aware that there are people suffering. But they feel that left-liberal "cures" - statism, socialism, and communism - would be worse than the disease.

The solutions they favor for the plight of the downtrodden are local and voluntary as opposed to national and mandatory. Mainly familial, communitarian, and religious charity. It's hooey, of course, but this is an attitude that is widely expressed and, one presumes, sincerely held.

It is sincerely held, and shared by tons of folks who aren't conservative at all. The evidence that institutional philanthropy is insufficient at best and a total scam at worst is all there, it just doesn't have enough megaphones yet and it's dicey to distinguish the argument from "all yr religious charity drives are bullshit"

I've read enough conservative thought

I think what you write (see also: burkean/skeptical defense of organic tradition, above) is a good account of conservative thought, but I can't express too strongly that conservatism as practiced by Americans who call themselves "conservatives" has almost nothing to do with conservative thought as expressed in e.g. the National Review or the writings of Antonin Scalia.

XP

Because a charity drive with clear objectives is a great thing, it makes the donors feel better and such actions can absolutely improve lives of people in need, but giant NGOs with boards full of elites, chief executives who bring home annual compensation in the high-mid six figures or more, and use your milk money to do further fundraising need to end.

To explain to conservative men and women of a certain age that the Boston Tea Party happened because colonists thought the were taxed too little instead of, as the story goes, too much is to watch Virginian learn that Santa Claus is a myth.

I think what you write (see also: burkean/skeptical defense of organic tradition, above) is a good account of conservative thought, but I can't express too strongly that conservatism as practiced by Americans who call themselves "conservatives" has almost nothing to do with conservative thought as expressed in e.g. the National Review or the writings of Antonin Scalia.

Not as different as you think! Conservatism works to preserve hierarchies, and Burke loved'em.

Here's a good summary of Robin's thought:

Conservatism, he says, is a reactionary ideology. It is a defense of hierarchy against emancipatory movements from below. It’s not a disposition or an attitude; it’s not a philosophy of liberty or even of limited government. (It supports the idea of limited government, Goldman says, but that’s a consequence, not a premise, of the theory.) It is first and foremost a coherent set of ideas about inequality that gets forged in the crucible of revolution.

I think what you write (see also: burkean/skeptical defense of organic tradition, above) is a good account of conservative thought, but I can't express too strongly that conservatism as practiced by Americans who call themselves "conservatives" has almost nothing to do with conservative thought as expressed in e.g. the National Review or the writings of Antonin Scalia.

Quite agree! However, I am still trying to respond (however deludedly) to mordy's charge that liberals like us "can't even model" a viewpoint that is simultaneously conservative, and motivated by something other than hate.

I am interested in this question, partly because I keep seeing shit like that American Enterprise piece that says Cons understand Libs better than vice versa. But as I've said, I don't care if there are good intentions behind horrible policies. If you support those policies, you're morally on the hook for their consequences.

cons pick on libs. libs try to understand cons. and cons laugh even more

that's the problem. you can't even model a person who has empathy for others and comes to conservative conclusions about how best to express that empathy

THIS is what I'm trying to refute. I know full well that not every Red Hat Teabagger has read Burke, or even Ayn Rand; they just don't like that they can't tell the fag joke anymore and they think their jobs are gone because of brown people.