Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2024 7:37 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2024 2:11 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2024 7:55 pm
I don't think so, and I did say why. The Left has a particular, identifiable set of ideological derivations and theories. They've got their Marx, their Foucault, their Gramsci, their Freire, etc., all penning manifestos of what kind of Socialism they aim to create.
Conservatism, by contrast, is a sort of general impulse that binds widely disparate groups together, and has no central ideological commitments. They have no singular manifestos, and for anybody one might name as the progenitor of conservatism, one would find most of the field would disagree with that. Conservatism's just a kind of "mood" or "impulse" to preserve some legacy but it's a little thin on saying what the specific legacy is that should be "conserved." With regard to content, it's highly variable, actually.
That also explains why rounding up any single "conservative movement" is like trying to herd cats. They're not naturally inclined to stick together at all. But Socialism seems to be the glue that keeps the Left a monolythic ideological entity.
I'm sorry but here you are simply sbjecting the thing you like (the right) to a less difficult test than the thing you don't like (The Left).
For a very good reason: that both sides misunderstand each other when they imagine they're the same.
That's a very common human error, called "projection." It means when one takes one's own motives, and attributes them to somebody else, as if one is that person, even though that person has very different motives. The Left projects onto the right its own ideological conformity, its authoritarian intentions, its monolythic political-engineering ambitions, it's lust for power, and so on. The conservatives, on their side, tend to attribute to the Left a potential for individual thought (rather than conformity to an ideology), a willingness to be convinced by things like reason and logic (rather than the Left's stark rejection of both), a willingness to respond to arguments (rather than the belief that all arguments are inauthentic and power-aiming anyway), and so on.
The result of this is that they end up talking past each other and attributing inaccurate intentions to each other all the time. The very first thing that both sides would need to realize, in order to see the other clearly, is that they are
not the same.
I'm afraid you skipped my actual point there. I just noted that the way you analyse use of the term you intend to use as a broad brush is incongruent with the way that you explain how to use the tool that you prefer others not to use as such. I view them as equally broad brushes and I find your complaint against that seems to have more motivation than reason. I maintain that if we are in a position to use "the left" as a catch all term for all left-leaning things than we should be in a position to use "the right" and "the centre" as similarly broad terms, and that we can live with with the inevitable outcome that we cannot take something so wide to also be very deep.
That said. I did not introduce all this left/right stuff anyway and I view it as a hijacking of the original intent. I am contrasting traditionalism of the conservative sort (with the antipathy to radical change) against a neo-traditionalism of a radical sort and this isn't really intended to be another boring thread about how evil The Left are. You have plenty of those, and they are all the same as each other.
Modest disclaimer: In the spirit of pragmatism (colloquial prgamtatism not a reference to James or Dewey) I will consent that in most countries the left are usually viewed as the more progressive movement than the right. This is a complex misnomer in my view and the Trade Unions and Labour end of the left are actually massive traditionalists, I imagine Connsul would agree to an extent. But I can't argue every front at once so I will allow a certain drift to the left/right dichotomy here, but I do so under mild protest becasue I find that the left wing in general are quite poor as progressives and that is because they are not.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2024 7:37 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2024 7:55 pm
I don't think they really do. "Manifest Destiny" is an ideological curiosity very peculiar to America, not to conservatives. The Protestant work ethic is actually a construct of Weber, which he premises on a minority religious position known as "Calvinism," and not even most Christians are Calvinists: secular conservatives are certainly not. And the idea of that the market has an "Invisible Hand" is a weird one from Adam Smith. A person could easily be a conservative while believing in none of these things at all. That's what I mean about "herding cats."
These handy little myths
They aren't myths. They're the real history of those ideas. And while I know that the Left thinks history is all fake (or "a tale told by the winners," as they so often say), it's not. In this case, I'm telling you exactly where those ideas originate. And if you know what "Manifest Destiny" or "the Protestant Work Ethic" or "the Invisible Hand of the Market" are, you already know I'm telling you the truth.
If you refer to the sentence I wrote, the sort of thing I was referring to before you cut it short are myths. We have a new example today of a similar foundational myth from
Wizard22 here
"Now we can begin to understand how Catholicism originally began in the Roman Empire, when this exact same type of Hedonism, Decadence, Perversion, and Pedophilia became pandemic to the Romans. The populace, plebeian, proletariat needed a strong, powerful institution of Morality, to protect them from these Satanic and Evil forces. And from these Catholic institutions, a new class of 'Holy' and 'Purified' individuals arose who could not be smeared or slandered politically. Baptism, became a method of 'Sanctifying' the Ruling Class."
My actual poin,t against which I am happy to see counter argument is that these handy little myths that we tell ourselves to explain how the world we see around us got to be the way it is are a universal part of human psychology and everybody is prone to this form of narrative explanation. Certain types of radical such as Marxists may be prone to elevate them into pseudo-sciences but the seeds of that error lie in us all and we would all be well advised to bear than in mind.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2024 7:37 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2024 7:55 pm
Well, they're not keen on institutions, and tend to have less belief in the intrinsic goodness of government than the Left does, for sure. But I would argue this stems from them tending to have a more realistic and less naive view of basic human nature, and a stronger belief in personal liberties than in the possibilities of human social engineering.
I think you are using a more limited defintion of "institution" than I am here.
I am. I'm not talking about everything that can be "instituted," like a marriage, or something like "mental institutions"; I mean governmental-type "institutions."
As such, I do believe it is fair to say that "modern Conservatives would be expected to have the highest regard for institutions that check the power of the excutive and so on" in such terms.
Quite so. But then, you're using the term "institutions" in its most general sense, as in "something instituted," not in terms of governmental organizations, as I am.
Whatever. I wrote what I wrote using a perfectly common version of the word and what I wrote makes sense with that version. I thought it was worth looking at this supposed commitment that Conservatives have to checks and balances. But if we cannot get past some confusion about the word "institution" then that would be a pipe dream.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2024 7:37 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2024 7:55 pm
Of whom are you thinking?
Wizard22 considers himself a conservative, he doesn't meet any definition of conservatism I can see though. He's a Hitler apologising white-supremacist with a long list of grievances aimed at Jews. The traditions he wishes to bring back are a grab-bag of old racist and sexist tropes. He's a radical with a platform of faux-tradition to sell. His links to tradition are not about respect for the process but are actually just aimed at giving himself greater access to white women. This is far-right Neo-Traditionalism. Jacobi is the same really.
Out in the real world, I think there are many such people.
I don't find there are. I mean, I'm not doubting your word regarding Alexis or Wizard22, since I really don't know them, and maybe you do. But outside of them, I don't find many among conservatives. I do think you're right about this, though: that such would be only a radical fringe, whose views I would never share, nor would most conservatives. And I'd agree with you that any such have gone way too far with their views. But I don't at all think conservatives in general are akin to any such.
It would make a mockery of my OP if I were arguing that actual conservatives hold the views of neo-trad radicals such as Wizard and Jacobi.
But I would also say that in many places around the world, traditional conservatives are getting spanked by neo-traditional radicals. And I am wondering to what extent have these neo-trads borrowed the
LEFTIST tradition of Entryism to surreptitiously dominate the conservative agenda.
There is an opposite of people like Wizard and Jacobi within the conservative movement, but I would say that the persons who represent that tradition are the likes of Mitt Romney in America, David Cameron in the UK, Angela Merkel in Germany and so on. But in the 2 party US system, the right wing party is being MAGAfied, in the UK the centre rigth is in collapse and seems to be approaching a hostile takeover from the right fringes...
... In Germany the centre right is being slowly eaten by the AFD, in Italy the same has already happened and their current PM is quite horrifying. Holland and most of the Nordics teeter on a similar brink.
And in most of those countries, the left, being never so committed to progressive causes as is carelessly supposed, are absorbing some of the problematic rhetoric about immigration, certain religions that must be suppressed and so on. This is unsurprising if we take into account that most ofthe left are just as inherently conservative as most of the right, but it is suggestive of the early stages of a breakdown similar to that which happened in the right since the emergence of the Tea Party.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2024 7:37 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2024 7:55 pm
Good. I'm gratified we're finding grounds for a pleasant, civil conversation on this particular issue. It's very nice.
Likewise
Well, let's continue in that vein, since it's mutually pleasant. Before responding, I shall endeavour to hear you with the most charitable reading I can muster; and you may, if you wish, continue in the same vein with me.
