5 ms·

I'm not sure how you're getting to this enormous generalization. Seems to me that for the past century or so, liberal societies have been the dominant societies

I'm not sure how you're getting to this enormous generalization. Seems to me that for the past century or so, liberal societies have been the dominant societies on the world stage. Which conservative, traditionalist societies are you thinking of that are more successful or have "higher fitness" than liberal societies? When I think of an archetypal "conservative, traditional" society, the first countries that spring to mind are Afghanistan and Iran, which I wouldn't call particularly successful countries. Some like Saudi-Arabia do better by virtue of sitting on an infinite source of money, but even these oil nations have something dysfunctional to them. They tend to be so corrupt and anti-meritocratic that they need foreign companies to perform any non-trivial task, as they can't get anything done themselves and do nothing to foster homegrown talent. They don't produce value beyond what they (or rather, a mix of hired and pseudo-enslaved foreigners) dig up from the ground.

throwaway4aday 4y ago
The United States was a conservative country at least until the 1960s
- epups 4y ago
  Not by the global standards of the 1960s.
  - throwaway4aday 4y ago
    I think we need an objective rather than a relative definition if we're going to do anything other than move goalposts.
    - ookdatnog 4y ago
      Your statement makes no sense. To begin with, the terms "objective" and "relative" are not antonyms. A definition can be both, neither, or either one of the two. And the terms "progressive" and "conservative" in particular describe attitudes towards the status quo and traditional institutions, which means that whatever exact position a progressive or conservative person takes on an issue will depend on context. By their very definition, the meaning of these words is bound to a particular point in time. As an example: anyone not on the extreme fringes of the political spectrum will agree with at least the broad strokes of the universal declaration of human rights today, but the adoption of a similar document [1] in revolutionary France was a highly contentious act that directly attacked millennia of institutional power (that is, the divine right of kings). Conservatives at the time fought this tooth and nail and sought to restore the old institutional power. But most conservatives today would for the most part support this text. In the short term, the Revolution didn't succeed, but on the long term they "won", their ideology largely got adopted and supplanted the old feudal ideology: the Revolutionary ideals are now the status quo in many countries, which many conservatives will defend (support for absolute monarchy is thinly spread even among conservatives today). Nevertheless, it would be deeply absurd to call the French revolutionaries conservatives. In fact, the usage of the terms "left" (supporters of the revolution) and "right" (loyalists to the monarchy) to denote political positions originates from this time. So yes, at the time, the positions of the French Revolution were progressive, even though the Revolutionaries weren't progressive by today's standards (in particular with regards to women). These terms are fundamentally relative, to try to give them an absolute meaning is simply to not understand them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Man_and_of_the_Citizen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_M...
      - throwaway4aday 4y ago
        So you're arguing that the conservatives at the time failed to conserve their traditional values resulting in their spiritual successors being more liberal. Which in the case of the traditional value of having large families resulted in the demographic decline that is the topic of the article. This seems to clearly support OPs argument that conservative societies will be more successful as long as the values they are conserving are beneficial to the individuals comprising those societies and they succeed in conserving them.
        ookdatnog 4y ago
        That's not at all what I'm arguing. My comment was purely a response to > I think we need an objective rather than a relative definition if we're going to do anything other than move goalposts. I claimed that this is a nonsensical statement for two reasons: 1. You imply that relativity and objectivity are at odds (they aren't -- "I'm taller than my mom" is both a relative and an objective statement). 2. You claim that in order to have a meaningful conversation about conservatism and progressivism, these terms must be defined in an absolute sense. But they are by definition relative. Most of my comment illustrates this point.
  - true_religion 4y ago
    I think they are talking about segregation… After the US, the last large segregated state was South Africa.
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  When did the US stop being a conservative country? From my European point of view you have a two parties system allowing you to chose between conservative and more conservative.
  - slaw 4y ago
    Around 2000. There are two parties now, neither is conservative.
krona 4y ago
> Which conservative, traditionalist societies are you thinking of.. Legitimacy laws were still prevalent across the western world until the 1970's. Furthermore, abortion was basically illegal in Britain until 1967. In the year that Legitimacy ceased to have legal meaning in Britain, the fertility rate dropped below 2, where it remains today.
- ookdatnog 4y ago
  I'm not saying that traditional values don't affect fertility rate. My comment was responding to the claim > It more and more seems like "traditional", conservative societies are more successful on aggregate. Which is a much more general statement. I see no evidence for that claim. Evidence that traditional values affect fertility rate does not provide evidence for this claim; for that you need at least some examples of traditional conservative societies outcompeting their more liberal contemporaries in some meaningful way.

throwaway4aday 4y ago

The United States was a conservative country at least until the 1960s

epups 4y ago
Not by the global standards of the 1960s.
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  I think we need an objective rather than a relative definition if we're going to do anything other than move goalposts.
  - ookdatnog 4y ago
    Your statement makes no sense. To begin with, the terms "objective" and "relative" are not antonyms. A definition can be both, neither, or either one of the two. And the terms "progressive" and "conservative" in particular describe attitudes towards the status quo and traditional institutions, which means that whatever exact position a progressive or conservative person takes on an issue will depend on context. By their very definition, the meaning of these words is bound to a particular point in time. As an example: anyone not on the extreme fringes of the political spectrum will agree with at least the broad strokes of the universal declaration of human rights today, but the adoption of a similar document [1] in revolutionary France was a highly contentious act that directly attacked millennia of institutional power (that is, the divine right of kings). Conservatives at the time fought this tooth and nail and sought to restore the old institutional power. But most conservatives today would for the most part support this text. In the short term, the Revolution didn't succeed, but on the long term they "won", their ideology largely got adopted and supplanted the old feudal ideology: the Revolutionary ideals are now the status quo in many countries, which many conservatives will defend (support for absolute monarchy is thinly spread even among conservatives today). Nevertheless, it would be deeply absurd to call the French revolutionaries conservatives. In fact, the usage of the terms "left" (supporters of the revolution) and "right" (loyalists to the monarchy) to denote political positions originates from this time. So yes, at the time, the positions of the French Revolution were progressive, even though the Revolutionaries weren't progressive by today's standards (in particular with regards to women). These terms are fundamentally relative, to try to give them an absolute meaning is simply to not understand them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Man_and_of_the_Citizen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_M...
    - throwaway4aday 4y ago
      So you're arguing that the conservatives at the time failed to conserve their traditional values resulting in their spiritual successors being more liberal. Which in the case of the traditional value of having large families resulted in the demographic decline that is the topic of the article. This seems to clearly support OPs argument that conservative societies will be more successful as long as the values they are conserving are beneficial to the individuals comprising those societies and they succeed in conserving them.
      - ookdatnog 4y ago
        That's not at all what I'm arguing. My comment was purely a response to > I think we need an objective rather than a relative definition if we're going to do anything other than move goalposts. I claimed that this is a nonsensical statement for two reasons: 1. You imply that relativity and objectivity are at odds (they aren't -- "I'm taller than my mom" is both a relative and an objective statement). 2. You claim that in order to have a meaningful conversation about conservatism and progressivism, these terms must be defined in an absolute sense. But they are by definition relative. Most of my comment illustrates this point.
- true_religion 4y ago
  I think they are talking about segregation… After the US, the last large segregated state was South Africa.
WastingMyTime89 4y ago
When did the US stop being a conservative country? From my European point of view you have a two parties system allowing you to chose between conservative and more conservative.
- slaw 4y ago
  Around 2000. There are two parties now, neither is conservative.

krona 4y ago

> Which conservative, traditionalist societies are you thinking of.. Legitimacy laws were still prevalent across the western world until the 1970's. Furthermore, abortion was basically illegal in Britain until 1967. In the year that Legitimacy ceased to have legal meaning in Britain, the fertility rate dropped below 2, where it remains today.

ookdatnog 4y ago
I'm not saying that traditional values don't affect fertility rate. My comment was responding to the claim > It more and more seems like "traditional", conservative societies are more successful on aggregate. Which is a much more general statement. I see no evidence for that claim. Evidence that traditional values affect fertility rate does not provide evidence for this claim; for that you need at least some examples of traditional conservative societies outcompeting their more liberal contemporaries in some meaningful way.