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Hmm, seems to me historically the left has been at the forefront of protesting against nuclear anything, while conservatives have been promoting it even for ene

Hmm, seems to me historically the left has been at the forefront of protesting against nuclear anything, while conservatives have been promoting it even for energy supply. That is an instance of conservatives promoting something new, while the left has been wary of it.

cauch 2y ago
Things are obviously not as simplistic. The left was also promoting something new: the renewable and less consumerist society where people are less wasteful with energy and more conscious about not screwing up the environment. Nuclear is an appealing option for people who want to maintain the consumerist society and/or avoid calling into question the fact that the current ways of working may not be ideal. I think the right was both okay with nuclear, but still also sympathetic to coal and gas industries. Also, not sure that "conservative = against something new" is the correct understanding of the usual definition of the conservative. The conservative is usually to maintain the traditional balance of power where bosses get the big slice of cake. If their rich friends are coming with something new that profit to the communities currently in power, the conservative is usually totally up for it. And if we are currently in a situation where the cake is more equally distributed, they usually are totally for new things that re-give power to the previous elite (it looks "new", but the goal is to come back to what existed in the past).
- hagbard_c 2y ago
  > The conservative is usually to maintain the traditional balance of power where bosses get the big slice of cake. That may be the usual definition of Conservatism in 'progressive' circles but it bears no relation to the actual definition. Also, this is now the second time in less than a week that I see someone coming up with something resembling this definition of Conservatism. See my previous reaction [1] to this failed definition of the term for an example of what the term really covers. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41249430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41249430
  - cauch 2y ago
    Not sure how this interview contradicts what I was saying. All good ol' monarchist Scruton is doing is using politically correct language to explain that he likes the traditional balance of power and that he wants to maintain it. (and funny, isn't it, that those people who are according to you not at all for maintaining the traditional balance of power where the bosses get the big slice of cake happens to often be pro-monarchy, the caricatural system that comes to mind when someone needs to think of a traditional balance of power where the bosses get the big slice of cake) But also, there is a logical flaw. You are saying that some people are building their own definition because it is convenient for them, by 1) lying to themselves about the real reason of their choice (the left-wing person will pretend they act like that because it's "fair and good" instead of admitting it's because they like to think they are better than the others), 2) finding stuffs to paint people they don't like in a bad way. If such people exist in the left, than such people exist in the right. But the question is: who are they, in the right? In his interview, Scruton mentions several times the left-wing people, always to explain how wrong they are, and explains how virtuous it is to be conservative. Don't get me wrong, it does not mean that my understanding of conservatism is correct. But if you want to convince me, please provide someone who is not obviously so biased. Someone who, for example, does not do swooping generalization to put all of the left-wing people in the same negative bag. For example, someone who see the good and the bad in both left-wing and right-wing, not someone who his experience of the most censorious and oppressive society was Californian hippies while at the exact same time there were so much oppression with racism, strike repression, anti-gay, ... (don't get me wrong, the Californian hippies were bad, but, come on, a neutral person that would have been talking about oppressive society would have mentioned that the Californian hippies were maybe not as bad in the grand scheme of things as all the other oppression that existed at the time)

cauch 2y ago

Things are obviously not as simplistic. The left was also promoting something new: the renewable and less consumerist society where people are less wasteful with energy and more conscious about not screwing up the environment. Nuclear is an appealing option for people who want to maintain the consumerist society and/or avoid calling into question the fact that the current ways of working may not be ideal. I think the right was both okay with nuclear, but still also sympathetic to coal and gas industries. Also, not sure that "conservative = against something new" is the correct understanding of the usual definition of the conservative. The conservative is usually to maintain the traditional balance of power where bosses get the big slice of cake. If their rich friends are coming with something new that profit to the communities currently in power, the conservative is usually totally up for it. And if we are currently in a situation where the cake is more equally distributed, they usually are totally for new things that re-give power to the previous elite (it looks "new", but the goal is to come back to what existed in the past).

hagbard_c 2y ago
> The conservative is usually to maintain the traditional balance of power where bosses get the big slice of cake. That may be the usual definition of Conservatism in 'progressive' circles but it bears no relation to the actual definition. Also, this is now the second time in less than a week that I see someone coming up with something resembling this definition of Conservatism. See my previous reaction [1] to this failed definition of the term for an example of what the term really covers. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41249430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41249430
- cauch 2y ago
  Not sure how this interview contradicts what I was saying. All good ol' monarchist Scruton is doing is using politically correct language to explain that he likes the traditional balance of power and that he wants to maintain it. (and funny, isn't it, that those people who are according to you not at all for maintaining the traditional balance of power where the bosses get the big slice of cake happens to often be pro-monarchy, the caricatural system that comes to mind when someone needs to think of a traditional balance of power where the bosses get the big slice of cake) But also, there is a logical flaw. You are saying that some people are building their own definition because it is convenient for them, by 1) lying to themselves about the real reason of their choice (the left-wing person will pretend they act like that because it's "fair and good" instead of admitting it's because they like to think they are better than the others), 2) finding stuffs to paint people they don't like in a bad way. If such people exist in the left, than such people exist in the right. But the question is: who are they, in the right? In his interview, Scruton mentions several times the left-wing people, always to explain how wrong they are, and explains how virtuous it is to be conservative. Don't get me wrong, it does not mean that my understanding of conservatism is correct. But if you want to convince me, please provide someone who is not obviously so biased. Someone who, for example, does not do swooping generalization to put all of the left-wing people in the same negative bag. For example, someone who see the good and the bad in both left-wing and right-wing, not someone who his experience of the most censorious and oppressive society was Californian hippies while at the exact same time there were so much oppression with racism, strike repression, anti-gay, ... (don't get me wrong, the Californian hippies were bad, but, come on, a neutral person that would have been talking about oppressive society would have mentioned that the Californian hippies were maybe not as bad in the grand scheme of things as all the other oppression that existed at the time)