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Sure, if it was the 1960's it might be appropriate to call this topic a conservative position. That doesn't mean it's conservative two generations later. Your c

Sure, if it was the 1960's it might be appropriate to call this topic a conservative position. That doesn't mean it's conservative two generations later. Your comment basically demonstrates my larger point - if you tie your positions to how things were at some fixed time in the past, then as time moves forward you have less and less claim to being called "conservative" as what you want becomes ever more of a drastic departure from current society.

rayiner 4y ago
“Conservatism” isn’t defined (except maybe by liberals) in temporal terms. That’s like saying that liberalism is about change, without qualification. For example, conservatives don’t like the administrative state, even though it’s pushing a century old at this point. That’s because conservatives are generally skeptical of the ability of reason to organize society. The fact that we’ve been doing that a long time doesn’t make it any more palatable. Jacobin actually has a pretty good article on Edmund Burke: https://jacobin.com/2021/02/edmund-burke-conservatism-tradition-hierarchy https://jacobin.com/2021/02/edmund-burke-conservatism-tradit....
- mindslight 4y ago
  It's interesting that you're putting out that Jacobin article as a good description of conservatism. It is describing a bunch of characterizations that are often invoked by liberals, but would seem to be convenient straw men. (I'll circle back and read it again to see if I can pull anything else out of it, but that's what I've gotten so far) Running with what I've gotten from it - if we're not supposed to question power structures and just let them be, then why all the criticism and hate for the Cathedral? Isn't it just another power structure that actually came out of the Church and has existed for a few hundred years in its own right - pretty much all of modernity? And similarly with the bureaucratic state - it is what it is. Furthermore - trying to invoke a "better" power structure from some arbitrary time in the past as the way things should be - isn't this solidly venturing into the territory of trying to use reason to organize and change society? How else can you judge that a previous power structure was better? It would seem that starting with that article's description of conservatism's foundations, it's a quick leap to get back to my working definition of resisting change rather than trying to go backwards. --- For my perspective, reading Unqualified Reservations has informed my own thinking. The "alt right" seems to have descended from it and its contemporaries, so I don't think it's particularly wrong to reference it. For example, https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2009/01/gentle-introduction-to-unqualified/ https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2009/01/gentle-intr... has what I thought was a good mostly-above-the-fray attempt at describing left vs right, if you can stomach the hyperbole and overstatement. FWIW that post was part of my switching from seeing myself as an unaligned libertarian back to being liberal (thanks Yarvin!). I don't necessarily like the Cathedral, nor the direction it and the blue team tend to pull in. But I certainly don't want to go backwards and try to shoehorn society into more prescriptive hierarchies!
rayiner 4y ago
“Conservatism” isn’t defined (except maybe by liberals) in temporal terms. That’s like saying that liberalism is about change, without qualification. For example, conservatives don’t like the administrative state, even though it’s pushing a century old at this point. That’s because conservatives are generally skeptical of the ability of reason to organize society. The fact that we’ve been doing that a long time doesn’t make it any more palatable.

rayiner 4y ago

“Conservatism” isn’t defined (except maybe by liberals) in temporal terms. That’s like saying that liberalism is about change, without qualification. For example, conservatives don’t like the administrative state, even though it’s pushing a century old at this point. That’s because conservatives are generally skeptical of the ability of reason to organize society. The fact that we’ve been doing that a long time doesn’t make it any more palatable. Jacobin actually has a pretty good article on Edmund Burke: https://jacobin.com/2021/02/edmund-burke-conservatism-tradition-hierarchy https://jacobin.com/2021/02/edmund-burke-conservatism-tradit....

mindslight 4y ago
It's interesting that you're putting out that Jacobin article as a good description of conservatism. It is describing a bunch of characterizations that are often invoked by liberals, but would seem to be convenient straw men. (I'll circle back and read it again to see if I can pull anything else out of it, but that's what I've gotten so far) Running with what I've gotten from it - if we're not supposed to question power structures and just let them be, then why all the criticism and hate for the Cathedral? Isn't it just another power structure that actually came out of the Church and has existed for a few hundred years in its own right - pretty much all of modernity? And similarly with the bureaucratic state - it is what it is. Furthermore - trying to invoke a "better" power structure from some arbitrary time in the past as the way things should be - isn't this solidly venturing into the territory of trying to use reason to organize and change society? How else can you judge that a previous power structure was better? It would seem that starting with that article's description of conservatism's foundations, it's a quick leap to get back to my working definition of resisting change rather than trying to go backwards. --- For my perspective, reading Unqualified Reservations has informed my own thinking. The "alt right" seems to have descended from it and its contemporaries, so I don't think it's particularly wrong to reference it. For example, https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2009/01/gentle-introduction-to-unqualified/ https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2009/01/gentle-intr... has what I thought was a good mostly-above-the-fray attempt at describing left vs right, if you can stomach the hyperbole and overstatement. FWIW that post was part of my switching from seeing myself as an unaligned libertarian back to being liberal (thanks Yarvin!). I don't necessarily like the Cathedral, nor the direction it and the blue team tend to pull in. But I certainly don't want to go backwards and try to shoehorn society into more prescriptive hierarchies!

rayiner 4y ago