rolling explaining conservatism

seriously tombot otm please do not post post-apocalyptic handmaiden's fan fic and pretend like it explains politics irl

I still thought it was fun to read

it's waaaaaaaaaaaay more intellectually consistent than the assholes still insisting that prosperity trickles down

they're both fantasies

yeah the seating thing. was thinking of your resistance toward the characterization of conservativism as a drive to preserve hierarchies and how your orthodox communities, that you've said here give you a clearer eye into conservativism than others, sided on that issue (which is a clash over the preservation of a hierarchy imo)

the left has to be 1000% intellectually coherent while the right gets to be 1% intellectually coherent i guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In my 40+ years of experiencing Mississippi, I find most conservatives a) untroubled by inconsistency, and b) racist as fuck, to an extent that brushes aside "mutually exclusive options" before the first cup of coffee in the morning. The racism Trumps the need for an imported servant class; there are plenty of poor whites to handle the work, they just need to be poked harder.

does that actually square with what you think trump is about? he wants a birth explosion among poor whites in order to produce cheap labor? how does that square with any of his positions or ideas - even if they are half-baked? he isn't particularly anti-birth control. he is relatively pro welfare state compared to traditional (romney/bush) republicans. where is the evidence for his interest in this master plan of increasing US population to create cheap supply of labor? in fact, this is why the romney/GWB right is pro-immigration! bc they don't believe US whites are capable of fulfilling these labor needs. it's like u don't even have a negative interpretation of the right thing. like that article at the very top says - it's not that you're wrong, it's like you don't even understand what he's saying.

Re: post-apocalyptic handmaid's fanfic:

Missouri’s Senate is considering legislation that would allow employers and landlords to discriminate against women who use birth control or have had abortions. The bill, which has the support of the state’s governor, Eric Greitens, was approved by the Missouri House Tuesday.

Known as SB 5, the bill was first passed by the Senate on June 14 following a special session called by Greitens. His aim was to overturn an ordinance that prevents employers and housing providers from punishing women for their reproductive health choices, according to a report by Feministing, a feminist website.

The ordinance was passed by the city of St. Louis, and Greitens had said it made the area into “an abortion sanctuary city.” The Senate seemed to agree with him, as did the House, which on Tuesday passed an expanded version of SB 5 that included more anti-abortion restrictions. Given the Senate’s vote on June 14, it it seen as likely to approve the updated version of SB 5. This would mean that landlords could refuse to offer housing to women based on their reproductive health choices, while employers could fire female staff members who were using birth control, or refuse to hire them. And while of course this isn't information most landlords or employers have access to, under SB 5 they could ask women what forms of reproductive health care they are using.

http://www.newsweek.com/womens-rights-birth-control-abortion-missouri-discrimination-628538

there are republicans, esp evangelical christian ones, who want to eliminate abortion that's not a novelty.

That's a little more than "eliminating abortion." That's actively making someone's life worse because they've had one, or may have one, or may be taking active steps to be in the position of not needing one!

ANd while you might reply that that's, idk, "incentivizing" women not to have them, it doesn't do much to disassociate this subset of conservatives from the cruelty-based philosophy people itt have posited.

does that actually square with what you think trump is about?

Trump is about Trump, and doesn't seem to be in charge of the policy show at any level, local/state/fed. Trump is not relevant to a discussion of conservatism. In other words, Phil D. otm.

Missouri also prevented localities from implementing raises in minimum wage, so workers who were about to see a three-year phased-in increase to $11 per hour are still only making $7.90 per hour, a rate at which it's almost impossible to even live, let alone improve one's life. How does this square with a philosophy of "dignity in work, providing for oneself, bootstraps," etc. etc.?

mordy, i think trump is about being born into a vast fortune, cheating on women, enjoying a life of no consequences, and failing upward bankruptcy after bankruptcy

i think trump voters, petty and prone to false consciousness as they are, idolize that life

That strikes me as much more plausible

you have two mutually exclusive options. either trump is trying to reduce cheap foreign labor in which case the concern over deportations, immigration bans and building walls is legitimate, or that's all a bullshit smokescreen and the concern over it is hysteria (it's not). you can't have both. if he's motivated primarily by socially engineering an infinite cheap supply of workers then he isn't trying to keep cheap labor out of the country.

― Mordy, Sunday, June 25, 2017 9:31 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's completely bullshit. Rep Steve King is probably one of the most notable bigots in congress, fucking loves all the wall rhetoric, and Sioux City, arguable the central city of his district, is somewhere around 17% hispanic/latino as of the last census. The number one employer in the area is Tyson meats. I really don't think there's a long-term republican plan when it comes to employment, education, or business. It's literally "keep me and my family from having to do shitty jobs, don't make us pay for education for anyone other than our own kids, and make sure we don't have to pay our employees very much"

Missouri also prevented localities from implementing raises in minimum wage

pretty sure this was part of a Koch-funded legislative package several states passed at the same time

I believe you are correct -- Ohio passed such a law as well. But it was recently set aside by a judge who ruled that its inclusion in another bill violated Ohio's "one-subject" rule for state bills: http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/06/judge_tosses_out_state_minimum.html

it's still in effect in Iowa iirc

Forcing people to do stuff has all sorts of unwanted psychological consequences down the line. Liberals tend to be dimly aware of this and feel guilty when conservatives are all “you can’t force me to be good!!” It’s true; you can’t.

Imo the counterargument would be “you’re not helping to provide ppl with oppurtunities to be good” but that’s utterly anti-Calvinist

the idea that the division between the saved and the damned is good and right.

hm, I don't know if it needs to have an eschatalogical component - certainly not explicitly.

I think the fears & prejudice being described are fears of moral corruption, and it seems obvious to me that there are positive ideals that conservatives see themselves as trying to protect and (hopefully) foster in their group, something like: honour, respect, self-sacrifice, duty. if you're worried about barbarians, you're worried about civilization. conservatism isn't necessarily aggressive and confrontational, & the gentler british conservatism & politesse Ed describes is imo the product of the confidence & hubris of empire.

hitchens is an interesting case bc he has the zeal of a convert to conservatism but also a fairly astute view of the structural forces changing british political culture & reconfiguring its constitutional settlement that gives him a narrative of decline (thinks the british establishment never recovered from the first world war) & leads him to a sort of heroic pessimist voice in the wilderness position, detached & reflective, more mournful than bellicose.

I read Adam Tooze's The Deluge on the strength of a Hitchens' recc. I wouldn't go as far as saying I like him really, but I definitely prefer him to a twat like Tristam Hunt and would respect his book recommendations more than any Blairite airheads.

you can't force goodness, but you can offer people all the resources they need to live a decent life. providing a basic level of healthcare, education, housing, and nutrition isn't unattainable and there are still plenty of opportunities for people to fuck up and face consequences, if your morality feels that's necessary. it just means they're not blocked by extreme circumstances when they try to live their lives.

if overcoming great hardships is the proving ground for making strong contributors to society, I don't see it. I know bright people, kind people, creative people from across the economic and social spectrum and the only difference is that the broke ones, sick ones, are less likely to have opportunities because they spent a hell of a lot of time and effort to get the level of exposure someone with resources had to start with

if overcoming great hardships is the proving ground for making strong contributors to society, and "conservatives" truly believed that, then they'd be eager for a 100% estate tax, so that the heirs of great fortunes wouldn't be diminished by growing up transcendentally advantaged. but "conservatives" are totally full of shit unfortunately

is Adam Tooze conservative?

ah, but once your family is rich, you are part of the rich status quo, which must be vigorously defended. the only good path is poor to rich. throwing rich kids back into the struggle would be wrong!

maybe rich people are so awesome too that competing with other such awesome people at school and in sailboat races and on the rugby field and whatnot is probably much more of a hardship than growing up poor

I wouldn't go as far as saying I like him really, but I definitely prefer him to a twat like Tristam Hunt and would respect his book recommendations more than any Blairite airheads.

I think I mentioned on here before that Hitchens was in my place of work and was very polite and respectful and seemed extremely nice. Actually Tristram Hunt's been in before but I don't remember anything about him.

ah, but once your family is rich, you are part of the rich status quo, which must be vigorously defended. the only good path is poor to rich. throwing rich kids back into the struggle would be wrong!

^ This is almost always the bit where I lose sympathy with them, and why the 'they are just evil and hate people and like to be cruel' take is so tempting

either trump is trying to reduce cheap foreign labor in which case the concern over deportations, immigration bans and building walls is legitimate, or that's and the concern over it is hysteria (it's not). you can't have both.

While Trump's rhetoric spoke of deporting about ten million people and building a massive wall to keep all cheap immigrant labor excluded, his program since the election has not come within 0.1% of fulfilling his rhetoric. So, yes, it's all a bullshit smokescreen.

The stepped up ICE raids have simply spread rampant fear throughout the immigrant community, making them far more exploitable by employers and vulnerable to racist violence. Which is why the concern over it is not hysteria, either.

So, having it both ways does pencil out.

xp to self. It's the vehemence of their condemning attitude toward the poor people on state benefits, contrasted with the lack of any such condemnation toward the inheritors of great wealth

Who have got far more without working than the poor

I think what it comes down to is that conservatism is about protection of privilege and in this increasingly short term world any kind of intellectual or ideological consistency gets thrown out in favour of doing whatever is necessary to stay in power - not a recent phenomenon cf. rotten boroughs, Tammany hall, Jim Crow etc. etc. Say or do anything to hold back the slow tide eroding that privilege - that's how you end up with trump - at least they have their own moron in the White House.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/06/social-darwinism-is-what-truly-guides-trump.html

Rolling chiding conservatism.

"I think I mentioned on here before that Hitchens was in my place of work and was very polite and respectful and seemed extremely nice"

Apparently in his latest column he is ranting against our unusable waste of money Trident, when we can't even provide safe social housing. so on some matters he is actually shoulder to shoulder with Corbz.

Mitch McConnell will be 78 in 2020. We're seeing the last gasp of a man who knows he won't have to live with the consequences. And that might be one of the biggest factors in current conservatism, tbrh.

NRO book review here that aims to rethread the needle.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448924/henry-olsen-book-working-class-republican-ronald-reagan-lessons-gop

any kind of intellectual or ideological consistency gets thrown out in favour of doing whatever is necessary to stay in power

so yes just like the other side, tho i know people hate to hear that

I think Puffin's post upthread about historical skepticism is OTM: conservatives fundamentally do not believe that a more equal society is possible, and steps towards it will result in chaos/Soviet Russia instead. The belief in this impossibility also makes it possible to process the existence of ppl undeservingly left behind - it's a shame, but since there's no way to fix it, it is unfair to blame anyone.

I also don't think this is exclusive to academic, ivory tower conservatism: it trickles down quite well, partly because it fits in with a sort of common sense ("you can't invite every beggar into your home"), and because it is empowering on some level - if there's a limited amount of seats at the table, that means that if I become strong enough and smart enough I'll have earned my spot.

I think that a lot of the inconsistencies arise from what you take from this idea that a better world is impossible: you can go straight pseudo-darwinist and believe that regardless of social origins the best (within this self-confessedly flawed system) will win out. But another reaction is to think that if there has to be winners and losers, you want the people closest to you to be in the first category - that's where it becomes mutually reinforcing with all kinds of bigotry ("we need to take care of our own"), and also perhaps part of the reason why there's no move against inheritance (though frankly the concept, though blatantly favouring inequality, is so normalized in society at large that I don't think many conservatives have given it a second thought).

I dont think it has been mentioned yet so I wanted to say that along with the "prostestant" idea I think another related idea that comes from Weber, that of asceticism or self-control, is also really important. Conservatives tend to see liberals as hedonistic, as unable to govern their desires, etc. so for conservatives--who see themselves as disciplined, as governing themselves and their desires in a way that's not intended to optimize their gratification but to benefit society as a whole--any kind of "downward mobility" is attributable to a lack of self-discipline. (For instance, I think when you get right down to it they see repression as a vital societal necessity. That there is, pace Freud, perhaps an element of truth to this is what makes it all the more persistent as a mindset that will stay with us.)

any kind of intellectual or ideological consistency gets thrown out in favour of doing whatever is necessary to stay in power

cf. Garland / Gorsuch. An election is only "the people speaking" if a Republican won it.

Republicans love their Freud, love their Weber

Jumping off the Fat Trump pics in the Trump thread. The more grotesque Trump becomes, I think the more popular it would make him with his conservative base. Remember how much they hated Michelle Obama's White House vegetable garden?

Becoming morbidly obese and having your heart explode in your chest from too much bucket chicken is a weird point of pride for some of these people. "You can't tell me what to do, egghead!"

Yet they're defending their right to eat chemically-engineered lab food that's designed to make you addicted to it, which is cynically evil shit. Just the same they defend all sorts of other shit designed to hurt them for profit, like tax cuts for the rich, legalizing corruption, cutting medicare, public benefits of all kinds (including education...)

What the hell is up with these people? They really take pride in getting seriously fucked over.

Yet they're defending their right to eat chemically-engineered lab food that's designed to make you addicted to it, which is cynically evil shit.

nah, the food is engineered to provide the surface characteristics of tasting appealing while keeping the costs as low as possible, much like the veneer of gold and marble over the cesspool of shit that is every Trump enterprise

I was referring to stuff like this: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html

Not only to eat it themselves, but to allow (make?) schools feed it to everyone's kids over healthier alternatives.

These people who buy into this mentality seem to love getting exploited and taken advantage of, and hate and resent anyone trying to help.

How does someone go from healthy self-preservation, to an idea of "self-preservation" that's actually hurting them? They behave like people do in the worst kinds of abusive relationships, except it ends in shit like Paul Ryan and Trump as president.

scroll back up to where I suggested this has a lot to do with resenting the smart kids in school

don't forget "coal rolling"