Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 2
nd, 2015 at 5:07pm:
Karnal wrote on Nov 1
st, 2015 at 11:46pm:
Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 1
st, 2015 at 7:35pm:
Is this where you want me to spend 45 minutes stating a position, only to have you engage in Marxist or Derridarian style critique where everything is meaningless?
No, I just want you to say what could possibly be above human labour and capital (value). I certainly have ideas, but I can’t quantify them, hence I don’t say you should either.
What do you stand for, outside your opposition to "progressives"?
The basic foundation of conservatism is to understand that you've inherited something good from past generations. Additionally, that the present isn't the result of random events or accidents, but that it was, to a large degree, planned. A sense of pride and duty is, or should be, embodied knowing that you're link from generations past to generations into the future. I understand that a lot of this is hard to live by today considering all the left-wing propaganda that circulates.
What you’re describing, Mistie, is ancestor worship.
The basic foundation of conservatism is that societies are akin to organisms. Burke, who invented the term, used the metaphor of a tree: cut off too many branches, and the tree dies. But trim dead wood, and the tree will grow better.
The trick lies in knowing what to preserve.and what to discard.
Burke’s main concern was the monarchy, a branch we’ve all but cut off. We aren’t feudal anymore, so it makes no sense having lords and serfs. We now have capitalism, which requires capital and labour. One day, this will wither and die too. All social "organisms" do.
Burke was not describing a process of change for change’s sake - this is a more modern.phenomenon still. He was reflecting on the French Revolution. France cut off the King’s head (and subsequently replaced it), where England evolved gradually, power shifting slowly through various changes of laws until feudalism died off.
Conservatism is not about enshrining a fossilised system for good, it’s a process of change. This separates conservatism completely from other theories of the right, like Nazism, for example, or Hayek’s economic anarchism, which inspired Thatcher.
Conservatism has inspired movements like the Greens, who placed conservative theory into nature as an eco-system. Conservatism has a host of republican followers in the US. For.them, the US is not a democracy, but a republic, with the emphasis on executive power.
Conservatism is not about fetishising the past, or being resistant to change. Nor is it nationalism, which was created by Whigs and reformists of the mid 19th century in preference to socialism. Cherishing a miscellaneous grab-bag of right-wing values is not conservatism either.
Conservatism is all about social change, it’s just about timely evolution as opposed to the mechanistic changes of social parts favoured by socialists and national socialists, both left and right.
And yet - environmental conservatives get all the free kicks and adulation.
The natural environment is to be conserved. The social environment is to be thrashed without a second thought. Progs are either stupid or hypocritical.
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