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It's easy to paint conservatism as reactionary -- in particular, a reaction to the progressive movement which drives most new policy changes (both good and bad)
by lend000 10y ago
It's easy to paint conservatism as reactionary -- in particular, a reaction to the progressive movement which drives most new policy changes (both good and bad), with conservatives resisting and slowly giving in over time.
So that's one theory, but it's difficult to really know because I (and probably most of the readers here) live in a blue city in a blue state, not a major city in the south where conservative ideas would be more likely to be intellectually fostered and furthered. Their strongest ideas tend to be related to economics and individual liberty, but they tend to just copy those ideas from libertarians and morph them in with other things that are not intellectually consistent (like being against regulation of non-localized forms of pollution). In general, both sides appear pretty consistently stubborn to accept anything that originated from the other side. Not HN intellectuals, but the layman (which makes up 95+% of both the Democrats' and the Republicans' voter base).
- eropple 10y agoWe aren't talking about a movement with room for intellectual development, though. I took the classes of one of the harder-core Straussian political philosophers currently operating while I was in school. I'm comfortable in my understanding of intellectual conservatism as the people who actually "further and foster" those ideas understand it, but I also realize that those people are without a shred of respect in the American conservative political movement.
- lend000 10y agoDepends on who you pick to represent the side, sure. If you throw on Fox News, or ask the average Trump voter, your initial point would very much be verified. But the same is true about denying or not knowing basic economic principles (again, counting economics as a science), if I threw on MSNBC or interviewed participants at a Bernie Sanders rally (or Bernie himself. Or Clinton for that matter.) And some of the other points would stick as well, like the anti-GMO junk science. Be careful not to confuse your circle of relatively well-educated, reasonable people for the politicians/political movement you feel you best align with.