Is Conservatism just NeoTraditionalism these days?

[Consul]

Conservativism is a generlised resistence to any kind of change - traditions are but one aspect.

Conservatives don't like radical, revolutionary changes; but it's a mistake to equate conservative politics with a come-what-may freezing of the status quo.

"The desire to conserve is compatible with all manner of change, provided only that change is also continuity."

(Scruton, Roger. The Meaning of Conservatism. 3rd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. p. 11)

"Conservatives are not reactionaries. As [Edmund] Burke said, ‘we must reform in order to conserve’, or, in more modern idiom: we must adapt. But we adapt to change in the name of continuity, in order to conserve what we are and what we have."

(Scruton, Roger. Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition. New York: All Points Books, 2018. p. 3)

[Skepdick]

Can't be. Your article is about statistical variance, not about freedom of will or free markets.

It can't be that it can't be. Statistical variance is the same thing as freedom.

Total lack of variance is total lack of freedom.

[godelian]

Conservatives don't like radical, revolutionary changes; but it's a mistake to equate conservative politics with a come-what-may freezing of the status quo.

True conservativism recognizes that the blueprint of humanity is etched in stone.

Our firmware is burnt into its chips. It is immutable. The degree of freedom that it affords, is much smaller than what is possible in the fantasy of liberals.

Since the modern State liberally infringes on the boundaries dictated by our firmware, it has become necessary to encourage especially young men to thwart, undermine and sabotage the modern State.

It all begins at school.

Boys need to become even more unruly, and express even greater hostility towards the propaganda mouthpieces of the regime, their public-school teachers. Boys should show no respect -- because public-school propaganda teachers do not deserve any -- and not believe a word they say. Public-school teachers are all drag queens in disguise.

[Harbal]

If you say so...

Down with the workers.

Factory workers are now less than 10% of the population. Why should they and their Soviet councils be allowed to dictate everybody else's approach to the matter?

The approach to what matter?

[Skepdick]

True conservativism recognizes that the blueprint of humanity is etched in stone.

Our firmware is burnt into its chips. It is immutable. The degree of freedom that it affords, is much smaller than what is possible in the fantasy of liberals.

True liberalism recognizes that moral progress is all about overcoming out instincts and programming.

The degree of mutability is above zero; and the degree of freedom that it affords is greater than the self-limiting beliefs of conservatives.

In so far as those two mirror-alternatives exist; and you can choose to believe one or the other conservatism is the lie that you can't make the choice.
Of course, a conservative would insist that liberalism is the lie that one can't make the choice (because their firmware is immutable).

Then, I guess my firmware is programmed in a way that allows me to make the choice. I am so sorry that you got a defective firmware.

[godelian]

The approach to what matter?

Their true nature and their true desire are the policies of the NSDAP, i.e. the Nationalist Socialist Workers Party. That is why that party won the elections in Germany in 1933 and propelled their Great Leader to the forefront.

That is why the lower middle class is fundamentally white supremacist. Under the hood, they have always had some kind of racial theory. It is their hidden agenda. I cannot trust these people. I may sympathize somewhat with Donald Trump as a person, but not with his constituency of "deplorables".

Christianity used to somewhat keep them in check, but now even that is gone. This was to be expected. The clergy cannot keep substituting for a law. A religion without a law will eventually fail to keep anybody in check.

Look at how they sneaked in a higher authority than the State without admitted the fundamental problem:

Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal, 1945

Article 8. The fact that the Defendant acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility, but may be considered in mitigation of punishment if the Tribunal determines that justice so requires.

Higher principles should have kicked in and prevented the worst behavior but they didn't. This is still the essence of the West. Nothing has changed.

[Gary Childress]

Factory workers are now less than 10% of the population. Why should they and their Soviet councils be allowed to dictate everybody else's approach to the matter?

In theory, they shouldn't dictate everyone else's approach to matters. Soviets are supposed to be composed of workers who democratically run their own workplaces. Of course, putting theory into practice is the hard part.

[Harbal]

The approach to what matter?

Their true nature and their true desire are the policies of the NSDAP, i.e. the Nationalist Socialist Workers Party. That is why that party won the elections in Germany in 1933 and propelled their Great Leader to the forefront.

That is why the lower middle class is fundamentally white supremacist. Under the hood, they have always had some kind of racial theory. It is their hidden agenda. I cannot trust these people. I may sympathize somewhat with Donald Trump as a person, but not with his constituency of "deplorables".

Christianity used to somewhat keep them in check, but now even that is gone. This was to be expected. The clergy cannot keep substituting for a law. A religion without a law will eventually fail to keep anybody in check.

Look at how they sneaked in a higher authority than the State without admitted the fundamental problem:

Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal, 1945

Article 8. The fact that the Defendant acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility, but may be considered in mitigation of punishment if the Tribunal determines that justice so requires.

Higher principles should have kicked in and prevented the worst behavior but they didn't. This is still the essence of the West. Nothing has changed.

If you say so, but I don't know what that has to do with anything I said.

[Gary Childress]

It seems to me that one of the basic principles of Conservatism is to hold on to your own advantages and privileges, at the expense of everyone who isn't in your club.

No, actually: that's a mischaracterization promoted by the Left. Even the idea of "privileges" betrays that -- as if whatever benefits you have cannot possibly have been earned or warranted by anything. And the "at the expense" idea definitely is Leftist, for they imagine that economics is a zero-sum game, in which anybody who "wins" must create a concommitant "loss" to somebody else who doesn't deserve to "lose."

That's just not realistic. Value can be added or created, and it is, all the time. It does not just have a limited amount of value that is already present in the world, waiting to be "justly distributed." And one person's producing of value does not automatically deprive some deserving "other" of value.

Socialism is just petty envy and bad thinking, elevated to the language of political ideology.

The origin of the terms "left" and "right" goes back to the French Revolution where the French national assembly split their chamber up so as to minimize squabbling between individuals on the floor, keeping the groups separate. All those in favor of the monarchy sat on the right side and those opposed to the monarchy sat on the left. Of course, in the Western Hemisphere there aren't much in the way of true monarchies anymore, so now people split over a myriad of other things.

[Sculptor]

Conservativism is a generlised resistence to any kind of change - traditions are but one aspect.

Conservatives don't like radical, revolutionary changes; but it's a mistake to equate conservative politics with a come-what-may freezing of the status quo.

I did not say that. But for some cons it would not be a mistake. Many would reverse progrees too.

"The desire to conserve is compatible with all manner of change, provided only that change is also continuity."

(Scruton, Roger. The Meaning of Conservatism. 3rd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. p. 11)

"Conservatives are not reactionaries. As [Edmund] Burke said, ‘we must reform in order to conserve’, or, in more modern idiom: we must adapt. But we adapt to change in the name of continuity, in order to conserve what we are and what we have."

(Scruton, Roger. Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition. New York: All Points Books, 2018. p. 3)

We are in a meaningless semantic circle

[Immanuel Can]

Statistical variance is the same thing as freedom.

No, actually, it isn't at all. We don't even know if statistics have a relationship to human behaviour. You're mistaking a numerical generalization for an explanation of the volitional freedom of individuals. Statistics only tell us about averages, not outliers, which by definition "outlie" the predictions of statistics.

[Immanuel Can]

It seems to me that one of the basic principles of Conservatism is to hold on to your own advantages and privileges, at the expense of everyone who isn't in your club.

No, actually: that's a mischaracterization promoted by the Left. Even the idea of "privileges" betrays that -- as if whatever benefits you have cannot possibly have been earned or warranted by anything. And the "at the expense" idea definitely is Leftist, for they imagine that economics is a zero-sum game, in which anybody who "wins" must create a concommitant "loss" to somebody else who doesn't deserve to "lose."

That's just not realistic. Value can be added or created, and it is, all the time. It does not just have a limited amount of value that is already present in the world, waiting to be "justly distributed." And one person's producing of value does not automatically deprive some deserving "other" of value.

Socialism is just petty envy and bad thinking, elevated to the language of political ideology.

The origin of the terms "left" and "right" goes back to the French Revolution where the French national assembly split their chamber up so as to minimize squabbling between individuals on the floor, keeping the groups separate.

Yes, yes, yes...we all know that. It's old hat. But that is not the meaning that the terms have continued to have.

And yes, there are no actual "royalists" and "Thermidorians" in the West today. But the question here is not that. It's not even about "left" and "right" per se. It's about Flash's initial characterization of the present-day "conservatives," as understood by the Left -- about whether or not there are any actual "conservatives," and what they would look like. And Flash was asking for an accounting of them.

So I think we can skip the history, and get on to present realities. The French National Assembly is not relevant here.

[Immanuel Can]

Conservatives don't like radical, revolutionary changes; but it's a mistake to equate conservative politics with a come-what-may freezing of the status quo.

This is quite accurate. Thanks.

The idea that "conserving" means "freezing the status quo" or even worse, returning to some defunct past nostagically is really a sort of canard thrown at their opposition by the Left, in order to justify their desire for revolutionary overthrow rather than principled change. And it has the effect, for them, of forcing people to decide between a hide-bound commitment to the past and a passionate throwing of oneself into the next proposed utopian project: but that's a false dichotomy, and in between those radical extremes is the idea of a thoughtful, principled, selective progess, which is what small-c "conservatism" is really all about.

Scruton also has that right.

[Gary Childress]

No, actually: that's a mischaracterization promoted by the Left. Even the idea of "privileges" betrays that -- as if whatever benefits you have cannot possibly have been earned or warranted by anything. And the "at the expense" idea definitely is Leftist, for they imagine that economics is a zero-sum game, in which anybody who "wins" must create a concommitant "loss" to somebody else who doesn't deserve to "lose."

That's just not realistic. Value can be added or created, and it is, all the time. It does not just have a limited amount of value that is already present in the world, waiting to be "justly distributed." And one person's producing of value does not automatically deprive some deserving "other" of value.

Socialism is just petty envy and bad thinking, elevated to the language of political ideology.

The origin of the terms "left" and "right" goes back to the French Revolution where the French national assembly split their chamber up so as to minimize squabbling between individuals on the floor, keeping the groups separate.

Yes, yes, yes...we all know that. It's old hat. But that is not the meaning that the terms have continued to have.

And yes, there are no actual "royalists" and "Thermidorians" in the West today. But the question here is not that. It's not even about "left" and "right" per se. It's about Flash's initial characterization of the present-day "conservatives," as understood by the Left -- about whether or not there are any actual "conservatives," and what they would look like. And Flash was asking for an accounting of them.

So I think we can skip the history, and get on to present realities. The French National Assembly is not relevant here.

Very well, enjoy the conversation.

[Immanuel Can]

Very well, enjoy the conversation.

I'm not saying you can't participate, Gary...I'm just saying you need to catch up with the topic a bit. You don't need to be touchy about that. It's not an insult; it's just a word-to-the-wise.