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Yes; thanks. Now I know what to call it.
Well, a conservative is one thing, and a reactionary is another.
I see three essential features of conservatism.
Tradition. Conservatives think the way they were brought up is right and if someone has different values or traditions, they are wrong. That’s why people from small towns and villages tend to be conservative - they don’t know anybody with different traditions and have no respect for them. Obviously it differs with culture. Conservative Muslims think all non-Muslims are evil and conservative Christians think all non-Christians are evil.
Authority. Conservatives are in awe of “important” people. They love the rich and powerful. They used to love nobility (I understand the terms “left” and “right” came about because the supporters of King sat on the right side of parliament and the opposition on the left). They believe what they are told by their leaders and tend to accept rules and dogma.
Punishment. They see the world in terms of good guys and bad guys and like violence and threats to keep the bad guys down. They like military, police, guns, and harsh punishments.
Liberals are less traditional, authoritarian, and punitive. My main concern with liberals is that they sometimes become so enamored with the “oppressed” that they forget that not every policy to help them is beneficial overall.
Radicals hack through the jungle and clear the campsite. Progressives come along right behind, build the cabins. Liberals arrive when the hot showers are installed and congratulate themselves on a job well done.
And then Greens come along and shoot the lot of them.
And conservatives long for the days when we lived in the trees?
Not me. I am where I am today because I am the luckiest person on the planet.
Liberals value egalitarianism, conservative value tradition and security/stability. Liberals will pursue egalitarianism even if it breaks with tradition or causes instability, conservatives will not.
And, in that spirit, then the conservatives show up and claim that everyone always knew cabins were a good idea so the liberals, progressives, and radicals should all stop taking credit for them.
I think liberals in general think “the way the world is” is a function of chance, history, bias, and other circumstances that operate beyond the individual’s control or, often, awareness.
I think conservatives in general think “the way the world is” is a function of design, immutable human nature, and deep structure and that individuals can navigate this world independently.
This seems to explain in part why liberals are more comfortable with “change to” rather than “change back,” and think that “what has never been” is an exciting proposition.
Conservatives are more comfortable with status quo or “change back” rather than “change to,” and think that “what has never been” is a scary proposition (you’re almost breaking the laws of the universe).
Liberals are more likely to be suspicious of old ideas.
Conservatives are more likely to be suspicious of new ideas.
Liberals are more likely to believe in ad hominem fallacies.
Conservatives are more likely to believe in argument by popularity or authority fallacies.
Conservative: Selfish, short-sighted aggrandizement of itself without regard for others
Liberal: Long-term aggrandizement of itself through communal betterment
Both conservatives and liberals are selfish and wants it all for himself, but that’s where the similarities end. The conservative mind can only see itself as the center of a crowd, short-term satisfaction is what it strives for as it goes from point to point pillaging wealth. It doesn’t care about burning bridges, it doesn’t even consider them, because it has an irrational belief in itself that it will be able to handle whatever obstacles that pops up in the future.
Think about all the times conservatives have said they don’t want to pay for “other people”, whether its education, health care, or food. They don’t care because they don’t think it’ll affect them. Even though they might ultimately want a rich, stable, and smart society, they support policies that do the opposite. This has been objectively proven and observed
Liberal minds want the same selfish things, but the way they go about it is different. They know they might feel like the center of the universe, but they are not, and maximizing their pleasure means pragmatically reasoning what one is realistically capable of obtaining. They see a move ahead of the conservative, or they are more cautious, or they are less confident of their ability to deal with unexpected outcomes, or they simply know that it is not worth the risk.
Liberals know that even if they don’t want to pay more taxes and selfishly want to hoard their money like conservative, if they don’t pay for education, then people are dumber, and they will be affected. If they don’t pay for health care, then ER’s will be flooded, and they will end up paying more anyways. If they don’t help the poor, then the poor might resort to crime, and they’ll end up paying more anyways.
I’m thinking back to my mindset when I was a conservative. I think one difference is this.
When liberals look at a set of poor people, they see people oppressed by society through no fault of their own. When conservatives look at this set, they see a bunch of lazy bums who could get jobs and do well if they just tried harder. Liberals will consider a poor person bad only with great difficulty.
When liberals look at a set of business execs they see people who are basically greedy and who got where they are through luck. Conservatives see honest and smart people who got where they are through skill. Conservatives will consider an exec bad only with great difficulty.
A perfect example is the mortgage crisis. Liberals tend to see all people who got bad mortgages as victims if the system. Conservatives tend to see all people who wrote bad mortgages as forced to do so by poor people or by the evil government.
Clearly the real story lies between these.
Liberals have a big picture perspective when it comes to social criticism. Individuals only have so much power; institutions have the ultimate control. It doesn’t matter how much morality you try to pump into individuals, if institutions are incompetent, oppressive, or corrupt, everyone will suffer. So liberals take a top-down approach to fixing problems. They believe that by regulating institutions and actively shaping the social environment in the “right” way, you can create the society you want to see.
Conservatives take a more small picture perspective. They give more weight to individual agency than they do to external factors. They believe that if you raise a person up “right”, then they will adeptly avoid or mitigate the problems resulting from incompetent, oppressive, and/or corrupt institutions. And if everyone in the population is raised “right”, then there will be no incompetent, oppressive, and/or corrupt institutions in the first place. So conservatives take a bottom-up approach to fixing problems. They focus on the family because this is where morality and values are instilled. They believe that if you get the family “right”, then you can create the society you want to see.
Not just luck. Also cheating, lying, and generally just not caring who you hurt or what rules you break to get to the top.
So what about the Tea Party? They seem to me revolutionaries who want to destroy.
However, if you go by the Jonathan Haidt critieria (see #10, etc.), the Tea Party people are definitely conservative.
That’s what I think. But it seems to me that most people who post in political discussion threads, whether liberal or conservative, believe in the great man/woman theory of history. It it wasn’t for – forgive the US-only examples — Boehner/Bush/Clinton/Obama, all would be right with the world.
Of course this is a US-hosted board, so it’s understandable that the OP is probably thinking in terms of Democrats and Republicans.
However here’s an example of why Czarcasm is correct:
What do you call a politician who believes in:
- strict gun control (no firearms for home defence; beat police unarmed)
- Universal Health Care (funded by taxation costing around $100 billion annually)
- working closely with another political party
- legalising gay marriage
- forbidding Creationism to be taught as science in schools
Why that would be David Cameron, UK Prime Minister and leader of the UK Conservative party.
And those are probably the only good or sane things about him. And, as for the gay-marriage thing:
Conservatives think some people are lions, and others are lambs. They admire the lions as the greatest among us, and despise the lambs for their mediocrity.
Liberals think some people are lions, and others are lambs. They resent the lions as predators who only know how to take advantage.