Best example of this I can give is about Radical Islamic Terrorism as it’s a hot topic atm.
During the Islamic Golden age the people in Bagdad were tolerance, and educated. They progressed socially and advanced technology in nearly every field. Then one day some batshit crazy traditionalist named Al-Ghazale brings up traditional islamic belief and a strict believe in the literal teachings of Islam. The result was intolerance, and the loss of a society that made more advancements in the world in a short period of time than had ever been done up to that point.
In modern times, islam still suffers from this extreme traditionalist view on religion. Guess what that gets you? Terrorism. Conservatism is bad, and we should be teaching our kids to be progressive, not batshit traditionalists who refuse to believe anything that contradicts what they’ve been taught. Conservatism is a literal mental illness, and people should be more aware of how dangerous it is.
It didn’t used to. And “conservative” means a lot of things to a lot of people. And of course there are a lot of liberals on the whole GMO/Frankenfood/anti-vax ignorance bandwagons.
But it’s really hard to argue in the age of Trump that you can be a Trump-supporter-type conservative and have even a basic grasp of reality, yes.
It’s not what they follow or don’t follow, it’s what they uphold, what they truly believe…
You can follow Christanity, and allow your wife to speak in Church, you can still eat pork, whatever other crazy christian things there are. But if you don’t allow your wife to speak, and you don’t eat pork, then you’re upholding ill traditions with no concern for modern society.
Perhaps you can help me wrap my head around the following:
In modern day pork eating America, it’s the crazy regressive conservatives that want to implement a Muslim ban while all the bleeding heart progressives want open borders to allow all the extremist Islamic terrorists into the country.
I said conservatism not conservative. I literally mean it by the definition I’m not arguing modern politics.
This is about one major issue in society, TRADITIONALISM. That word doesn’t have the zing that conservatism does, hence why I chose not to use it. Plus conservatism seems to fit my point better.
We cannot allow children to grow up believing something, then everytime they’re shown what they were taught is wrong they lash out in opposition. This isn’t productive, it stagnates the entire world.
See my underlining reasoning for this thread is this, we’re subjected to a million different falsehoods every given day. The problem is, those who have the power to subject you to falsehoods have their own agendas. This boils down to conservatism, when people refuse to believe new things that contradict old things, they allow the people in power to control their thoughts and opinions even more so. Whether it be religion, government, or corporations.
You know, the world has never had a true democracy. Because people don’t have their own opinions, they have the opinions of others. In democracy those with power subject those below them to things they want them to believe. So let’s say you’re a citizen in athens and today you’re going to vote on something. A rich person convinces some people(and pays off) that it would be better to vote for something that benefits them. Because the rich person has more resources to subject more people to his idea, the people who actually care about society or their community are drowned out because they do not have as much power. The only reason why this is the case is because human beings inherently want to believe things they can understand or make sense to them. Once you refine these ideas enough people will uphold them like zealots.
Conservatism, the belief in tradition, the opposition to new facts or new information, is what is killing the planet right now. We’re going to die if people can’t be aware of how they think.
In this sentence, you have used “conservatism” to indicate the current specific views of one portion of one political party. That is not a valid definition of conservatism and it does not accurately identify what conservatism means.
Conservatism has no opposition to new facts, although it may encourage a cautious acceptance of them and an even more cautious implementation of actions based on those facts. Drawing from that error the conclusion that conservatism “results in ignorance” is bad logic based on poor definitions.
Industry and natalism is killing the planet, something supported by pretty much everyone but anarcho-primitivists. Would you say the conservatives who opposed industrialization and pined for the fading agricultural tradition had a point?
Almost any extreme philosophy is bad; moderation has a virtue all its own.
Yes, conservatism is (generally) opposed to change, and that makes it reluctant to embrace progress. Then again, some changes should only be embraced slowly and with care. Taking a “safe and sure” approach to progress is conservative, but not bad.
The biggest enemies of knowledge are those who have “one size fits all” easy answers. Christians are not the enemy of knowledge, but that variety of Christians who say “The Bible is the only book worth studying” are not friends of wisdom.
Single party governing systems are also problematic, for lack of the “give and take” that is so much a part of intellectual growth. The Scientific Method, as practiced today, embraces a LOT of very open, very critical debate, and this is one of the best ways for knowledge to expand.
Agreed. Likewise progressivism takes a less cautious approach to new ideas, and that is not necessarily bad. In almost every life decision, some require caution while others require grabbing the bull by the irons while the horns are hot.*
Knowing which one is required in a given situation is a terribly difficult decision in most cases. Society is stronger with a healthy mix of progressives and conservatives and reasoned discussion and debate should lead to the best step forward in most cases.
Natalism is an actual word with a totally different meaning than nepotism. It’s basically any belief that leads to more babies being born and the human population growing.
The conservative aspect may not be the reason that one follows from the other, or the idea at the core of the belief may not be the key factor, I feel it is more the Group Dynamics that cause the issues that follow.
For example, who could predict from an that with a recent surge in Atheism that a church of Atheism would be created given the “Atheist ideology”?
Secondly, if a religious group splits from a pre-existing religious group is the subsequent religious group more or less “religious”? More or less “fundamental” in their belief?
In the early 20th century Russia had finally overthrown the Czar and instituted Democracy. Then one day a crazy progressive calling himself Lenin came in and overthrew all of the old ways in order to create a new society. This lead to mass starvation, genocide, scores of millions of dead people, poverty, backwardness, and tyranny.
In modern times some people still want progressivism despite what is happening in North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. We should teach our children conservatism instead of progressivism which only leads to tyranny.
Where is the tyranny in equal rights for racial groups, women, and gays? Seems that progressivism has taken away the chains of tyranny from a great many of our citizens.
The Islamic State overran the place, but that doesn’t mean they reflect the prevailing attitudes of people in Baghdad. While I’m no expert on 14th-century Baghdad, I know first-hand that Iraq has long been a very westernized Muslim nation. Saddam Hussein’s approach was very secular, until he decided after the first Gulf War to get that old-time religion, to turn rural Iraqis against the west. (If your question had been about Saudi Arabia, you’d have a point).
To the OP: beyond the fact that conservatism means so many different things to different people, even the simple definition of “opposing change” depends on place and time. In the Soviet Union, conservatives supported communism; in America, they opposed it.
