Is Conservatism just NeoTraditionalism these days?

[Gary Childress]

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.

It seems to me that the overall topic is hopelessly mired in prejudice and misunderstandings, with one side trying to demonize the other. It seems to me that going back to recover some sense of what the terms "left" and "right" originally meant, might be helpful in understanding the debate today and where different views diverge from one another. Call me "conservative' in that sense.

[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.

It seems to me that the overall topic is hopelessly mired in prejudice and misunderstandings, with one side trying to demonize the other.

I don't think it is. I think we're just talking honestly about what each side actually believes. I don't see a lot of pejorative terms being thrown around: things like "oppressor," "social justice" and "revolution" are stock terms the Left uses in all its literature. What could be more fair than using the terms they themselves prefer to use in order to characterize their position?

But they get a lot wrong when they stop talking about their own position and try to describe their various opponents' positions: and that's usually when any "demonization" starts.

[Gary Childress]

But they get a lot wrong when they stop talking about their own position and try to describe their various opponents' positions: and that's usually when any "demonization" starts.

I think the above is very insightful and true.

[Gary Childress]

The Conservatives on this site don't match that description at all. They mostly want to roll back the clock a really long way, like they don't seem to have noticed how long ago the 1950s actually were. I hate to break the news to everyone, but there's old people here who hadn't even been born then. That's a really long timeframe to be trying to revert to.

I think conservatism probably goes with the idea of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There are some aspects of the past that are worthy of keeping and some that are not. Just as there are some aspects of "progress" that probably aren't worth pursuing and some that are.

[Immanuel Can]

The Conservatives on this site don't match that description at all. They mostly want to roll back the clock a really long way, like they don't seem to have noticed how long ago the 1950s actually were. I hate to break the news to everyone, but there's old people here who hadn't even been born then. That's a really long timeframe to be trying to revert to.

I think conservatism probably goes with the idea of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There are some aspects of the past that are worthy of keeping and some that are not. Just as there are some notions of "progress" that probably aren't worth pursuing and some that are.

Well, if you've read what I've written earlier, at all, then you've seen that we've noted that the 1950's is an odd and arbitrary point to pick in order to characterize all or even many "conservatives." Something's really weird and off-point about anybody picking that point. Things weren't all the same even in all of America, let alone in the UK or Europe during that time. Why would Flash have chosen that?

But secondly, conservatives don't want to "roll back" anything. They're just interested in "conserving" those elements of the past that have proven their worth. And that's just really common-sensical, actually; does it make more sense to favour radical revolution, in which all gains of the past are either binned or smashed? Why?

Anyway, if you go back and read my initial response to Flash's prompter, I think you'll save us all going over territory that's already been covered.

[Harbal]

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.

I hope you don't mind my making an observation: You are doing the same thing you do when the discussion is about God, or the Bible, and you don't have much of a case. You deflect the focus onto some straw man or other, and attack it, thus avoiding the more difficult task of defending your own position. You have said very little about Conservatism, which is the thread topic, but put much effort into criticising "the Left", which isn't the thread topic. It becomes very predictable and tedious, and probably has the opposite effect to that which you intend.

Just trying to be helpful.

[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.

I hope you don't mind my making an observation: You are doing the same thing you do when the discussion is about God, or the Bible,

I disagree with that claim, but okay, it's what you believe. The point here is that we're not talking about that. We're talking about conservatism. So it's funny that you want to drag the topic back to something you say you find so allegedly irritating and off-point. I didn't go there: why did you?

You have said very little about Conservatism,

Then you've missed my first response to Flash, which I invite you to go back and examine.

[Gary Childress]

Anyway, if you go back and read my initial response to Flash's prompter, I think you'll save us all going over territory that's already been covered.

I apologize if I'm covering something that has already been covered. I just wanted to state my position.

[Immanuel Can]

Anyway, if you go back and read my initial response to Flash's prompter, I think you'll save us all going over territory that's already been covered.

I apologize if I'm covering something that has already been covered. I just wanted to state my position.

That's fine. I don't know that the French Assembly is going to help the OP get very far, though.

[Gary Childress]

the whole value comes from a process of very slow evolution over long periods of time during which the collection of beneficial traditions happened by accident as people, now long dead, discovered without the need for any big plan to do so (big plans to do such things being the work of Radicals not Conservatives). It is supposed to age like a fine wine.

Not quite.

Unlike the Left, the conservatives do not have a blithe trust in some "History" to get things right. Things don't "age like fine wine." Rather, conservatives tend to believe that things have to be managed, and managed deliberately, cautiously and progressively, rather than radically and violently overthrown. The tendency among conservatives is also to point to the failures of history, not just the successes, and to point out that radical, violent change (think the French Revolution, for example) rarely turns out well, because people are fallible, foolish and flawed on many occasions. And this is why conservatism also places such emphasis on things like rights, constitutions, checks-and-balances, logic, rationality, scientific testing, historical knowledge, plain language, and so forth...these are assumed by conservatives to offer some bulwark against foolish, radical impulses that are so prevalent in mankind and so evident in history. (You'll also note that these same things -- rights, constitutions, checks-and-balances, logic, rationality, scientific testing, historical knowledge, plain language -- are all under vigorous seige by the Left today, which proclaims them the false tools of the "oppressors," and instructs us to be very ready to dismiss them all).

When you say those on the left have a "blithe trust in some 'History' to get things right." Can you explain what that means a little more? At first glance I'm not sure what you are referring to. Or what is an example that you have in mind.

[promethean75]

"You're absolutely right. And that's why they will have no Socialism for themselves; but they will impose it on you.'

Indeed that's what has always happened. Socialism from above. That's when socialist looking structures and policies are put in place by a government whether the citizens like it or not, and they have no more control over the means of production than they did prior to that change.

The first thing u look for when hunting for socialisms is what kind of control the wage workers have in production and distribution. We're looking for something genuinely corporatistic wherein ownership of production in that industry is shared by all the workers. More decision making power and bigger shares of the profits. Workers have an active say in what the 'company' does... more direct voting power.

That's the bare minimus non plus ultra feature of marxist socialism that we're looking for. The one thing that is both a necessary and sufficient condition for a marxist event to occur. If you're not doing at least that, u aren't doing marxism.

Now never before in history except for a brief period during lenins control when the soviets were working, have workers ever exhibited more direct control of (and decision making power over) their own labor and the product of that labor, after these alleged russian, chinese and cuban socialisms were installed.

U can make life better for workers by giving them soclialist looking things like free education, health care, housing assistance, welfare and unemployment, unions, etc., but unless they have executive decision making power over what they do, what they produce and how it is sold, they aren't doing marxism.

The state for marx was just a bunch of employees who got together and took over executive control of all the economic and social institutions they worked in. Government employees, private sector employees. Banks, public works and facilities, the courts, public transportation, housing industry, health care, the whole nine yards.

To envision a marxist instance just picture a car factory on a given day. The only thing that's different is the profit generated from the sale of the product of some labor doesn't go to an private party that 'owns' the business and by rights all its money. Otherwise, it's identical. U wouldn't know u were looking at a marxist car factory unless somebody told u.

It's ironic how the most subtle little difference in actual praxis - the distribution of company property rights to the workers - has been turned into a theater of comrades commited to the state in identical rigid brown suits over-saluting each other as they pass.

It wouldn't be like that, IC. A gestapo is not coming to the house to question your loyalty to the worker's cause. U have to remember it's 2024 not 1930 anymore. Also, u won't have to melt all your cooking pots and sell the metal to catch up with the capitalist west, so you won't starve to death from being unable to boil some rice on account of melting the goddamn pots.

To your point tho, that's all socialism from above. Socialism from below is what we need bro. We don't know what it would look like tho becuz we've never seen it happen before. Ergo the revolutionary nature of it. But it would very likely happen relatively quick if it did at all becuz it's going to be set in motion by mass striking in the cities of all the countries with the biggest GDPs. Whether it goes full retard and the thirty years war begins or government yields to the worker's demands and major changes happen with business property rights, we dunno.

[Immanuel Can]

the whole value comes from a process of very slow evolution over long periods of time during which the collection of beneficial traditions happened by accident as people, now long dead, discovered without the need for any big plan to do so (big plans to do such things being the work of Radicals not Conservatives). It is supposed to age like a fine wine.

Not quite.

Unlike the Left, the conservatives do not have a blithe trust in some "History" to get things right. Things don't "age like fine wine." Rather, conservatives tend to believe that things have to be managed, and managed deliberately, cautiously and progressively, rather than radically and violently overthrown. The tendency among conservatives is also to point to the failures of history, not just the successes, and to point out that radical, violent change (think the French Revolution, for example) rarely turns out well, because people are fallible, foolish and flawed on many occasions. And this is why conservatism also places such emphasis on things like rights, constitutions, checks-and-balances, logic, rationality, scientific testing, historical knowledge, plain language, and so forth...these are assumed by conservatives to offer some bulwark against foolish, radical impulses that are so prevalent in mankind and so evident in history. (You'll also note that these same things -- rights, constitutions, checks-and-balances, logic, rationality, scientific testing, historical knowledge, plain language -- are all under vigorous seige by the Left today, which proclaims them the false tools of the "oppressors," and instructs us to be very ready to dismiss them all).

When you say those on the left have a "blithe trust in some 'History' to get things right." Can you explain what that means a little more? At first glance I'm not sure what you are referring to. Or what is an example that you have in mind.

It's not easy to expound that, simply because the Left, all the way back to Hegel, have not really addressed that deeper question head-on. Rather, they tend to treat it as an assumption we're already all taking -- or at least, that they think is obvious -- so it's really beyond further examination, to them. But very clearly, they believe it. Marx, for example, thinks he can "read" future history, and that "the triumph of the proletariat" and "the classless society" are inevitabilities. More recently, think of Obama claiming that his opponents are "on the wrong side of History." How does he know what this "History" demands of people, and what "the right side of History" would be certain to be?

So why do they think this? How would we know it's so? What 'force' is alleged to offer us a guarantee of that?

But I would certainly want to put it to them, and put it this way: "In your haste to shatter the status quo and free the alleged 'oppressed,' what gives you certainty that the results will be improvement of the situation, even for the 'oppressed'?" I think that's a fair question: and historical precedent certainly gives us reason to want to ask it. And if we don't ask it, how are we actually looking out for the "oppressed"?

For example, in sub-Saharan Africa, a great many nations (such as Zimbabwe or the Congo) got their liberation from colonialism, then immediately plunged into a series of Socialist experiments that have been ruinous to those countries, even to the present day -- in fact, far more deadly and ruinous than colonialism itself ever was, as bad as it was. So what gives Socialists the basis for optimism that merely shattering an "oppressive" order will automatically produce any steps in the direction of a "just society"? In Africa, it often merely resulted in dictatorship, murder and economic collapse. (And it wasn't really much better in Russia or China, either, when those countries' "revolutions" dissolved into purges and "re-education camps," so this isn't a racial question. It's a question about the only thing they had in common: Socialist revolution.)

Or take the recent BLM riots, sponsored by an assemblage of activists who prided themselves on being "trained Marxists," as they put it: what happened to all the millions of dollars donated to the cause? Well, we know that now: they lined the pockets of the organizers, but never made it back to the people. And how many neighbourhoods have been rebuilt or improved after they burned them down? Why hasn't this mysterious 'force' that's supposed to make riots and property destruction result in progress not only failed to produce progress, but actually rendered these neighbourhoods immeasurably worse?

So there's a really important question to raise here: how is destruction going to guarantee us progress? Why dynamic or power makes sure that that is how things must work out? And I think the obvious answer is that they have some conception of "History" just "taking care of that" for us. But I can't see at all why they think that's to be expected.

[Immanuel Can]

"You're absolutely right. And that's why they will have no Socialism for themselves; but they will impose it on you.'

Indeed that's what has always happened. Socialism from above.

But wait: why is that ALWAYS what has happened?

That's a really, really important question, and I don't see that you're even trying to answer it. Were all those people, in those many, many Socialist regimes from Russia and China to Zimbabwe and Venezuela, just so "stupid" that they couldn't read Marx, or Marcuse, or Gramsci, or Freire, or whoever, and get it right? I don't think that's remotely plausible: they had many intelligent citizens. And yet, in every case, "Socialism from above," as you call it, was exactly what they got...and never anything else.

Why?

Why?

Why?

[Gary Childress]

When you say those on the left have a "blithe trust in some 'History' to get things right." Can you explain what that means a little more? At first glance I'm not sure what you are referring to. Or what is an example that you have in mind.

Marx, for example, thinks he can "read" future history, and that "the triumph of the proletariat" and "the classless society" are inevitabilities. More recently, think of Obama claiming that his opponents are "on the wrong side of History." How does he know what this "History" demands of people, and what "the right side of History" would be certain to be?

I think I see what you're saying now. I agree. It's a fair point. Claiming that "history" is on one's side is a bit like the notion of "manifest destiny" (a belief that created a lot of injustice, as it turned out). Although, I suppose in some sense "manifest destiny" (as it played out against other peoples who weren't "destined" to become supreme 'civilizers') more or less created the conditions which now cause some to say that history is or isn't on someone's side. It's a kind of backlash in that sense, I suppose.

[Harbal]

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.

I hope you don't mind my making an observation: You are doing the same thing you do when the discussion is about God, or the Bible,

I disagree with that claim, but okay, it's what you believe.

It's what I've witnessed over, and over again, and it's there to be seen by anyone who might want to check, so it isn't a matter of belief.

The point here is that we're not talking about that. We're talking about conservatism. So it's funny that you want to drag the topic back to something you say you find so allegedly irritating and off-point. I didn't go there: why did you?

While I might not be terribly interested in Conservatism, or left and right, I'm very interested in all the dirty tricks and misinformation that has got way out of control lately. It needs to be pointed out as much as possible, and I wish more people would do it.

You have said very little about Conservatism,

Then you've missed my first response to Flash, which I invite you to go back and examine.

Okay, I'll do that, but I warn you now; if I find any references to the "Left" in it, there will be consequences.