Good post, but I disagree with your assertion that conservatives simply want to see life stop changing. Conservatives are not opposed to change at all (you don’t hear too many conservatives railing against the scourge of HDTV for example). What conservatives are opposed to is change that is viewed as negative or harmful, or which is born of good intent but creates more and worse problems than it solves.
The problem is that if this is true, some of the biggest believers in supernatural bunkum were the apostles, the authors of the New Testament, and the early Christians.
There just doesn’t seem to be much of a point in saying, “I personally think this Jesus guy only intended to start a movement of humanistic ethics, even though the only source of information we have about him, i.e. the Gospels, say that he performed miracles and was resurrected, and then his disciples went around teaching that he was the Son of God and that through his death and resurrection he somehow made atonement for the sins of men and that people can go to heaven and avoid hell by worshipping him.” Whatever one might want it to be, the religion conventionally known as Christianity has not been about following the teachings of Christ; it’s been about following the entire New Testament. I mean, I suppose one is free to found a new religion based only on the Jefferson Bible, but to avoid confusion, one should call it something other than “Christianity,” since by now that name is pretty well claimed by that other religion which believes in miracles, resurrection, substitutionary atonement, heaven and hell, etc.
I think there is an element of social consensus involved in group identity. You can’t just claim that you have personal definitions of what terms like conservative or Christian mean and your definitions are just as valid as the definitions used by society in general. That’s taking relativism a little overboard.
Suppose I believe I am the Pope. There’s a guy in Rome named Joe Ratzinger who also believes he is the Pope. But his belief that he is the Pope is reinforced by the belief of several billion other people who also believe he is the Pope. To pretend our two beliefs are equally valid is ridiculous.
This makes sense to me. When I thought of the question I was thinking more in personal terms. If I say that I am a Christian I am talking about how I relate to the world, among other things. My business, even though it’s fair for others to judge how good of a job I am doing living up to my claim.
But if I say I am the ruler of the Christian Catholic Church, that’s where the opinions of others would carry more weight.
I think the OP is glossing over the two different types of groups (or group membership)–(i) groups that one is a member of whether or not they want to be and (ii) groups that someone must affirmatively do something to be a member of. And the same word can be used to describe both types of groups.
Take “Christian.” It can mean someone who believes that Jesus was the son of God and everything else (or enough other things) in the Bible (a type 1 group). It can also mean someone who goes to church and says that they are a Christian (a type 2 group). So, you are kind of mixing things up when you call someone a Christian and they say they aren’t–you can both be right.
The term “conservative” is a little more slippery. I take the word all by itself to be rather meaningless (outside of other context clues)–it’s better to separate it out into fiscal conservative and social conservative, and both of those are type 1 groups. However, I can understand someone taking the term “conservative” to mean “Republican,” which is a type 2 group.
Yes, this post is actually quite clear. Being a Democrat, or Rebublican, means that you have registered as a member of an actual organization. You are officially a member. You have joined an organization. No one requires adherance to the group philosophy, but you are a member. Independants have no such official organization.
Now I generally tend toward conservative, but I am often registered as a Democrat because I live in a mostly Democrat run state. Sometimes I want to vote in the Democrat primary elections because those elections will actually pick who the final candidate, and possible victor, will be. The Republican candidates usually haven’t a chance in hell of winning so voting in the GOP primary has little influence.
It is also quite possible, and often the case, that someone can be a fiscal conservative and a social liberal at the same time. These values are not in conflict with each other.
By Little Nemo’s standards, a transsexual could not identify by his or her own gender, because the vast majority of people think that they are just delusional perverts.
He said there was an element of social consensus that goes into identity, not that it was the defining reason. The line may be thin in some cases, but I think we can separate issues that a large percentage of people find unclear because they don’t have any clue about gender and identity (beyond penis is man and vagina is not) and issues that are “I’m the mothafuckin pope!”
It’s a very thick and blurry line, not a thin one. I agree that “I am the Pope” (for values of “I” that =/= “the Pope”) is on one side of it, but most of the other examples here are on the other side. There is quite a difference between “I’m a Christian,” “I’m a liberal,” “I’m a man” (in the transgendered), and “I’m the Pope.” Ask yourself which one of those doesn’t fit, and you’ll see why Little Nemo’s two paragraphs are disjointed.
Well, I think the question I’m reading here is whether other people are allowed to define you based on your actions. Who has the ultimate authority in defining an individual?
There are some interesting political implications involved here.
