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I think that history is happening as we speak (Yo, media outlets/reporters interested in writing a feature! This would be an amazing topic.). The crux is real

I think that history is happening as we speak (Yo, media outlets/reporters interested in writing a feature! This would be an amazing topic.). The crux is really 2016/Trump, Adrian Vermeule's "common good constitutionalism", and outlets like Claremont's The American Mind. For lack of a better term, MAGA conservatives are building an intellectual infrastructure for a very aggressive conservative judiciary right now.

mindslight 4y ago
Can we stop miscategorizing reactionary regressivism as "conservatism" ? There is nothing conservative about it. They're essentially trying to drag us back at least a few decades and destroy longstanding institutions, including things like separation of church and state and the right to access medical care.
- bradleyjg 4y ago
  No. Because as much as your absolute moral certitude might feel good to express you aren’t changing anyone’s mind with it. On the contrary. There’s tens if not hundreds of millions of them and same for you guys. We are all stuck together in one polity. If we are ever going to achieve a synthesis and get back to a healthier place it’s not going to involve the kind of rhetoric you are indulging in here.
  - o_1 4y ago
    Whoa things escalated quickly, points like these are a complicated of saying no their baddies and here's some fear on top.
  - mindslight 4y ago
    Rhetoric? I'm making an objective point about the political spectrum. Moldbug labeled his own philosophy as the Reaction, and condemned conservatism as being doomed to perpetual failure because some progressivism inevitably occurs regardless. And it's just plainly nonsensical to label a movement aimed at undermining longstanding institutions as "conservative". As far as synthesis and reconciliation, for a long time I viewed the answer as that of respecting individual liberty. Each party seems to get its constituents excited about a desire for individual freedoms on topics that matter to them, and then transmutes that energy into enacting authoritarian regulations that benefit their commercial sponsors. I had hoped that over time the liberty would be an attractor that gained ever more ground. But the flare up of grassroots authoritarianism, specifically in the Republican party where it has gone mainstream, has shown this was too optimistic. So I'm left hoping that there are enough actual conservatives horrified by these developments that will end up voting for the actually conservative options (which now seems to be mostly in the Democratic party) to keep the off the rails reactionary populism from causing too much damage.
    - trimethylpurine 4y ago
      Some Republican movements have been authoritarian, but an effort to prevent people from saying that which is undesirable is definition authoritarian just as much if not more so. I don't know what example of authoritarianism you would offer as characteristic of the Republican party, but I'm sure you could offer more than one or two. That's because both political parties must push authoritarianism because both must accumulate authoritarian power to stay in the game, lest they be overpowered by the opposing party. While constituents, we the people, agree on most points like personal freedom, individuality, respect of human life, and liberty etc., politicians of both parties, out of necessity, must paint their opponents as the authoritarian regime, set on revoking personal freedom and individuality, and devaluing human life. If you dislike either party, it's not because one is more authoritarian than the other. It's because we lack the mental capacity to retain all the information that makes up the world around us, and must therefore make easier to process, generalizations to survive; Republican, Democrat, grassroots, mainstream, Black, Hispanic, White, etc. And it's obviously no secret that this necessity to generalize is very much exploitable. What you don't like about the Republican party is all the things that are also the Democratic party, but only in a generalized view that the opposing parties' electorate has succeeded to exploit in your mind.
      - fzeroracer 4y ago
        This is simply not true. You're trying to do a 'both sides are bad it's only your perception coloring your things' deal, but I live in a red state where Republicans encouraged bounty hunters to go after and harass women while also trying to control them if they leave to other states. The only 'generalized view' is the one being created by Republicans, which I see pushed by Republicans and supported by Republicans. You don't have to look far to see some of the dreadful things they're pushing, and trying to pretend both sides are equally bad is not only intellectually dishonest but it's also argumentally lazy.
        junofan 4y ago
        [flagged]
        4y ago
  - fzeroracer 4y ago
    You're posting in a thread about a topic where they're literally trying to do exactly what the GP is saying. I don't know what you view as a 'middle road' given that their starting negotiating point is 'users cannot be banned for any reason ever'.
- x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
  >...Can we stop miscategorizing reactionary regressivism as "conservatism" But that is conservatism though. I can't help but see the whole attempt at renaming it "regressivism" is to avoid "conservatism" from taking the fall when people look at it's outcomes. No one that would be "regressive" today was not a conservative yesterday.
  - mindslight 4y ago
    That is not my intent, but I see where you're coming from. Today's reactionaries were conservatives yesterday because that is what the politicians constrained their viewpoint into. To me, the only peacefully-resolving course is to hope there are enough actual conservatives (ie people who respect institutions and want to slow change, and would therefore be against the recent bans on fundamental medical care, the Republican party's disruption of the pandemic response, etc) that will distance themselves from the reactionaries and not continue to blindly vote Republican.

mindslight 4y ago

Can we stop miscategorizing reactionary regressivism as "conservatism" ? There is nothing conservative about it. They're essentially trying to drag us back at least a few decades and destroy longstanding institutions, including things like separation of church and state and the right to access medical care.

bradleyjg 4y ago
No. Because as much as your absolute moral certitude might feel good to express you aren’t changing anyone’s mind with it. On the contrary. There’s tens if not hundreds of millions of them and same for you guys. We are all stuck together in one polity. If we are ever going to achieve a synthesis and get back to a healthier place it’s not going to involve the kind of rhetoric you are indulging in here.
- o_1 4y ago
  Whoa things escalated quickly, points like these are a complicated of saying no their baddies and here's some fear on top.
- mindslight 4y ago
  Rhetoric? I'm making an objective point about the political spectrum. Moldbug labeled his own philosophy as the Reaction, and condemned conservatism as being doomed to perpetual failure because some progressivism inevitably occurs regardless. And it's just plainly nonsensical to label a movement aimed at undermining longstanding institutions as "conservative". As far as synthesis and reconciliation, for a long time I viewed the answer as that of respecting individual liberty. Each party seems to get its constituents excited about a desire for individual freedoms on topics that matter to them, and then transmutes that energy into enacting authoritarian regulations that benefit their commercial sponsors. I had hoped that over time the liberty would be an attractor that gained ever more ground. But the flare up of grassroots authoritarianism, specifically in the Republican party where it has gone mainstream, has shown this was too optimistic. So I'm left hoping that there are enough actual conservatives horrified by these developments that will end up voting for the actually conservative options (which now seems to be mostly in the Democratic party) to keep the off the rails reactionary populism from causing too much damage.
  - trimethylpurine 4y ago
    Some Republican movements have been authoritarian, but an effort to prevent people from saying that which is undesirable is definition authoritarian just as much if not more so. I don't know what example of authoritarianism you would offer as characteristic of the Republican party, but I'm sure you could offer more than one or two. That's because both political parties must push authoritarianism because both must accumulate authoritarian power to stay in the game, lest they be overpowered by the opposing party. While constituents, we the people, agree on most points like personal freedom, individuality, respect of human life, and liberty etc., politicians of both parties, out of necessity, must paint their opponents as the authoritarian regime, set on revoking personal freedom and individuality, and devaluing human life. If you dislike either party, it's not because one is more authoritarian than the other. It's because we lack the mental capacity to retain all the information that makes up the world around us, and must therefore make easier to process, generalizations to survive; Republican, Democrat, grassroots, mainstream, Black, Hispanic, White, etc. And it's obviously no secret that this necessity to generalize is very much exploitable. What you don't like about the Republican party is all the things that are also the Democratic party, but only in a generalized view that the opposing parties' electorate has succeeded to exploit in your mind.
    - fzeroracer 4y ago
      This is simply not true. You're trying to do a 'both sides are bad it's only your perception coloring your things' deal, but I live in a red state where Republicans encouraged bounty hunters to go after and harass women while also trying to control them if they leave to other states. The only 'generalized view' is the one being created by Republicans, which I see pushed by Republicans and supported by Republicans. You don't have to look far to see some of the dreadful things they're pushing, and trying to pretend both sides are equally bad is not only intellectually dishonest but it's also argumentally lazy.
      - junofan 4y ago
        [flagged]
      - 4y ago
- fzeroracer 4y ago
  You're posting in a thread about a topic where they're literally trying to do exactly what the GP is saying. I don't know what you view as a 'middle road' given that their starting negotiating point is 'users cannot be banned for any reason ever'.
x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
>...Can we stop miscategorizing reactionary regressivism as "conservatism" But that is conservatism though. I can't help but see the whole attempt at renaming it "regressivism" is to avoid "conservatism" from taking the fall when people look at it's outcomes. No one that would be "regressive" today was not a conservative yesterday.
- mindslight 4y ago
  That is not my intent, but I see where you're coming from. Today's reactionaries were conservatives yesterday because that is what the politicians constrained their viewpoint into. To me, the only peacefully-resolving course is to hope there are enough actual conservatives (ie people who respect institutions and want to slow change, and would therefore be against the recent bans on fundamental medical care, the Republican party's disruption of the pandemic response, etc) that will distance themselves from the reactionaries and not continue to blindly vote Republican.