rolling explaining conservatism

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"

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.

I think this is related to what ogmor was saying - I will come back to this.

I read Ronald Dworkin's "Liberalism" yesterday, which I found to be good and helped clear some things up for me. (It's came from the coursepack of an undergrad course my fiancée TAd so I'm sure this is familiar reading to a lot of people who studied something other than music. Gonna work through it anyway.) His basic thesis seems to be that what distinguishes liberalism (of any variety from the 18th century onwards) from other ideologies, including conservatism but also e.g. more radical kinds of socialism, has to do with the way in which liberals believe that the government should treat all citizens as equals. While both liberals and conservatives (and many socialists) think the government should treat all citizens with equal dignity and respect, what this means for the liberal is that the government needs to be as neutral as possible on the question of what 'the good life' is, in order to accommodate the diversity of citizens' values and preferences. The alternative, non-liberal, view is that the government needs to hold some view as to what a good life is in order to treat citizens as equals: citizens should be treated as a good person would want to be treated and the government should promote virtue. According to Dworkin, both conservatives and many socialists would hold the non-liberal view but they differ in their conceptions of what a good life is.

Liberal vs conservative positions on social and civil liberties are fairly easy to deduce from this. This also explains, though, that liberals would also favour a market economy insofar as it enables individuals to pursue their conceptions of a good life with relative equality of choice, with prices indicating the costs of their choices to the community. Since, however, not all people are equal with regards to morally neutral (in the liberal's view) qualities such as inherited affluence, ability, racial privilege, etc., intervention in the market is required; similarly, certain valid conceptions of a good life may have less market value but still be worth preserving or promoting. A conservative, who believes the values of his or her own tradition and community to be generally virtuous or good, would also favour a market economy but for different reasons: success in the market rewards virtues of hard work, talent, thrift, self-discipline, etc., as they are applied towards doing work that is valued by the community, while market failure indicates a lack of virtue. Intervention in the market is only justified insofar as it allows citizens equal access to demonstrate their virtue (although, honestly, I'm not really sure that American conservatism even does this).

Where I think our confusion lies tbh, ogmor, is that Gandhi was definitely not a liberal. He had a very clear conception of what the good life is (simplicity, non-violence, community, social equality, ...) and wanted to reorganize society in accordance with this. However, I think his conception was a radical one, far from what would usually be called a conservative one (even by Indian standards of the time, cf. his assassin).

rolling coal is kind of hilarious in it's not prevalent enough to be an environmental problem on its own. the only people who are really going to be affected by it are those who are driving around a poorly-combusting machine. probably at least one of these dudes has driven around his bigass truck enough time to get blackened diesel lung or something

better to reason with the selfish, the ignorant, and the sociopathic who vote to throw people off healthcare, and deny that catastrophic climate change is occurring -- who wants to come off strident and 'impractical'? trying trying again to kick lucy's football is more 'professional' than appealing to (declasse) non-voters :)

xpost great post Sund4r

A conservative, who believes the values of his or her own tradition and community to be generally virtuous or good, would also favour a market economy but for different reasons: success in the market rewards virtues of hard work, talent, thrift, self-discipline, etc., as they are applied towards doing work that is valued by the community, while market failure indicates a lack of virtue. Intervention in the market is only justified insofar as it allows citizens equal access to demonstrate their virtue (although, honestly, I'm not really sure that American conservatism even does this).

Understandably, since it's an article on liberalism, I wonder if Dworkin explained liberalism better than it explained conservatism tbh: it seems clear enough to me that the free market has often worked against the interests of the moral values that conservatives profess, and in the era of globalization, there is no reason to believe that market success would even approximate an appeal to the ('good') values of one's own people. This might explain Trumpxit and the new nationalism idk?

xp Oh, thanks!

yes dworkin is using it as a foil for liberalism but I would identify conservatism as an older and deeper trend bc of the similarities between the ways conservatives function in different arenas through space & time (& under/outside of a wide variety of economic systems). conservatism will arise around pretty much any institution or ideology that tries to define/protect an in-group, it's the prizing of fidelity & preservation over broader more egalitarian concerns. I wld identify a lot of religious thinking as exhibiting conservatism of a kind, so gandhi's reformist impulse to maintain but defang the caste system seems essentially conservative to me when ambedkar was ready to scrap it. most people contain a mixture of impulses and totally pure fanatics are quite rare, but I would absolutely say that a lot of radical extremists are types of ultra-orthodox conservatives

Fwiw, afaict, his views on caste did change over time, in part because of Ambedkar. In historical context, I feel like a "reformist impulse" was left of centre for a Hindu at the time but we might be mostly arguing about semantics at this point.

non-fake news!

http://nypost.com/2017/06/27/trumps-travel-ban-triumph-hollywood-liberals-failure-and-other-notable-commentary/

ryan: 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.

repression as a political touchstone is an interesting problem to bring up, and probably a little more complicated even with freud - isn't this pessimistic "truth" one of the key points of civilization and its discontents? (e.g. lacan: "freud was not a progressive"). i've never bothered much with deleuze+guattari but their movement seems like it fits right into this question too, maybe as the point when freud died to the left. but anyway, wouldn't a more obvious reading of the state of current politics be that it's the left, not the right, that's the stronghold of repression - at least in the popular take on trump as a crude child (certainly in his opposition to clinton)?

There are probably different types of repression, and different schemes for the dispensation of repression

Like I'm both very much for and very much against sexual repression

well yeah, i don't mean to suggest that it's either one side or the other. (the ideal of society without ANY repression probably died with the utopian communes, right? i doubt anyone seriously holds onto that hope anymore, no matter how far left you look.) just that ryan's characterization, which sounds basically correct to me, also sounds a little old-fashioned when lately the left (already the regime of stuffy political correctness) has been scrambling to compromise effectively with the trump-style populism that's in the spotlight.

The Short, Unhappy Life of a Libertarian Paradise: This Politico story about Colorado Springs probably belongs here. An interesting read regardless.

https://www.thenation.com/article/the-trump-administration-is-planning-an-unprecedented-attack-on-voting-rights/

Skepticism/fear of democracy is def a conservative trope.

if scientists were as smart as they think they are they'd be in business, making fortunes, where the real quality is employed :)

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/science-division-of-white-house-office-now-empty-as-last-staffers-depart/

Well yeah, why would you ever talk to a smart kid unless you needed their lunch money

the only reason they have time to do their homework is because they're too weak and uncoordinated to play sports and too ugly and awkward to hang out with the opposite sex. science is a consolation prize profession alphas would never consider

so much of american life is subtext. what you're avoiding thinking about speeding to work after waking up late from drinking too much the night before because you hate your life. so much of american life is totally phony. mr. trump understands this as well mr. mcmahon does. i asked to see your birth certificate because i wouldn't hire you even to hide my tax returns or build my wall. mr. trump speaks for me when mr. mcmahon's and mr. limbaugh's programs aren't on and i don't want to think about what will happen if i get in an accident speeding home, thirsty for the first drink of the night. mr. trump is who i want to be, in a helicopter

fuck a helicopter I'm holding out for a jetpack

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/liberal-fever-swamps/530736/