Let’s take this discussion completely away from the idea of a person’s supposed responsibility to society. We hear and read the views associated with liberalism and conservatism and we think about then and form our own opinions. To give a stereotypical example of an opinion we may form; we may say, “The world is full of suffering and extravagance, I believe that somehow that should be evened out.”
Or: “People who work hard shouldn’t have to support people who don’t.”
I believe that those opinions often come from personal motives. Here is some guesses as to what people may say to themselves after carefully considering those personal motives:
“I have guilt and want to relieve some of it; I’m overly energetic; I wish to be part of something bigger than myself; I wished to be praised by others as being good.”
Or: “I work too hard; I’m tired; I’m under-paid and under-appreciated”
Those are only examples. But, I believe one can take from them an idea as to why one would have one type of view on the debate rather than the other regardless of the logic associated with the view. It’s about having a way of thinking that helps one cope. The liberal in the above examples would likely change their opinion if they didn’t have guilt, weren’t energetic, didn’t wish to be a part of such things, and weren’t in need of praise. The conservative may change their opinion if they weren’t working too hard, tired, under-paid and under-appreciated.
The question one must ask themselves is not what views associated with the liberalism and conservatism are right or most logical, but what views are best for their survival. - And I don’t mean one should ask what views would be best for their survival if the policies inferred from them were implemented, only what views are best to simply have. Also, if one can’t see how their own personal survival revolves around their views it doesn’t mean that it isn’t true for those they know. Since one has more influence on those they know than strangers it’s relevant that one considers what personal effect the views they believe in and speak on could have on those they know.
I’d like to know if anyone would reconsider any of their opinions on these matters when relating them to the specific personal perspective I argued above or if anyone has any ideas as to what various opinions various peoples would personally benefit most from having.
Well…when it comes to political philosophy, isn’t that just the current debate in a nutshell? Liberals think the answer to that question is liberalism, conservatives think the answer to that question is conservatism- with a few exceptions, i suppose there are ideologues on both sides that would insist on certain moral absolutes even if it were inimical to survival.
I am a paleoconservative that is a little more hawkish than is the norm for them, and not a neoconservative, because I’m a little less pro-corporate than they tend to be. That’s as summarized as I can make myself. I don’t really fit you rmold, but I don’t want to be that “Guy on the Internet Who claims to Defy Generalizations to be a pain in the ass” guy.
So unless you’re the exception there seems to be a contradiction between the above two assertions.
I don’t believe I set a mold - I gave examples, but I made sure to mention that they were examples twice lest anyone would think that I was setting a mold with them.
I’m far from an expert on political ideology so I had to just look up the term “paleoconservative”, but from what I read I can see plenty of reason why it would be important for various people’s own well-being to be a paleoconservative. So that I’m not stuck with the text book definition, would you mind expanding upon the term as you define it?
Only if you assume that my personal political beliefs are going to have any great effect on the society in which I life, right?
Well, I’m basically a conservative who is poor, but is also well aware that I could have way more money if I wasn’t a lazy bastard. I definitely don’t feel overworked, and if anything, I am over appreciated.
I don’t blame you, I had to look it up myself like a year ago, it’s definitely not in common parlance.
I think that people need structure, and that disciplined societies with a strong sense of culture, morality, and tradition are important- but I believe that those norms are best cultivated by people naturally participating in semi-consensual organizations like churches, families, and communities, and not through the dictates of the State- especially a very large State. I believe that large corporations can be almost as coercive and dangerous as the State can, and also needs to be monitored- but I also believe that capitalism is the best, most-free engine of innovation and growth. Lastly, I recognize that we’re part of the world, and that we are, like it or not, competing with the world for resources, and that how we treat the State and how we treat our large businesses will have an impact on our place in the world.
The most important thing about conservativism (and the least talked about) to me is belief in absolute moral paradoxes. But that might be a bit of a side track.
I don’t mean that at all. Pertaining to this thread; I’m not concerned, nor am I asking anyone to be concerned with how any given person’s personal beliefs will affect society, I wish to discuss how they will affect the person holding those beliefs.
That’s fine, I don’t doubt your still a conservative. I’m not interested in differentiating between liberals and conservatives so much as I’m interested in differentiating ideas which may be implied to be a part of liberalism and/or conservatism - then, as I said, discussing how holding those ideas affect the person holding them.
I guess now’s as good a time as any to bring my own views into the discussion. Concerning all but the first sentence above, I have no strongly held opinions. As for the first sentence, it is antithetical to what I used to believe. But, recently I’m question my old beliefs.
I don’t necessarily understand how this emphases on discipline and strong cultural ties is any more productive for society than ideologies that don’t. But, it’s relevance to this thread is that I find it to be something which I would benefit personally from believing. It’s about respect for me, not a general betterment of society. I believe that if I respect those with strong cultural ties I will be more able to emulate them. I’m nihilistic, it’s unhealthy to be so, many liberal values seem to have made me more nihilistic - even if they did seem to be more compassionate.
Ok, well, as I see it, the political beliefs I hold won’t affect my survival unless they change the world around me. Like for example, maybe capitalism is the most dangerous, survival-hurting belief ever. But if I live in a socialist society, me quietly thinking capitalism is cool isn’t going to get me killed. Oh wait. In most socialist societies it actually WILL get me killed…but I hope you see my point anyway.
eciated.
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Do you think it’s an age thing? Like, when you were against heavily structured societies, were you a stereotypical rebellious youth, or does that not have anything to do with it? I know that happened in my case.
Belief in moral paradox destroys attempts at utopian ideals- there is no perfect society, because there are moral questions that have more than one right answer, or zero right answers, and yet they actually occur in real life- they aren’t merely theoretical. So knowing that every society and every life is going to have some shit in it kind of takes away the impetus to fix every little imperfect thing you see around you (since the fixes will all necessarily be imperfect) and opens the way to seeing the value in what you have. I think.
I understand that thoughts one keep to them self cannot affect how others treat them, unless they let those thoughts be known. If by socialist society your referring to a place/time such as the cold war Soviet Union then those who spoke in favor of capitalism certainly did get problems. But, that example actually helps me make my point: We could ask why anyone in the Soviet Union would have done that to themselves. Perhaps they were disgusted with socialism and decided they would just quietly believe in capitalism instead. Maybe that belief helped sustain them through much of their harsh life. But, people have a tendency to say what’s on their mind…
As an adolescent I had nihilistic thoughts about most everything, but I kept them to myself and didn’t associate with anyone who shared them - or hardly anyone at all really. I didn’t believe in tradition at all, but neither did I care about liberal values such as equality, I really didn’t care much about anything other than my survival. Then as I got a little older and my life got a little better I became very liberal minded; I wanted to help everyone I could - those around me and the world in general. Unlike my perception of most liberals, I took the ideas very seriously; so it should be of no surprise that I became disillusioned with them. And around that time my immediate survival became very pressing. And now I caught you up to where I was when I made my ilp account. Late last year I didn’t care for either side, but slowly I begin to wonder about conservatism.
For the sake of argument maybe conservatism policies affect the world worse than anything, but I now am very much leaning towards the idea that believing in them is best for me, personally.
I’ve never heard it put that way. Maybe for one reading that - who still believes morality may not be entirely paradoxical - that description may actually help them value what they have. But, I’m coming from the other direction. You may recall, I believe the whole subject of morality should just “knock it off”.
Maybe this is outside the scope of the thread, but I wonder what you think of this: nihilism is often associated with liberalism, I suppose because liberals are accused of lacking values. I don’t know if the people making that association understand that nihilism includes moral nihilism. I believe hyper morality can come from both sides; liberals with their equality and some conservatives with claims of their non-paradoxical moral absolutes. I don’t wish to be a complete nihilist anymore, but moral nihilism I may keep. It seems to me that if one must place a moral nihilist anywhere on the spectrum it would be conservatism; conservatism such as yours, but taking the idea that morality is paradoxical even farther. I mean I still have conservative values left, but if a liberal becomes a moral nihilist, what could they possibly have left?
There is no difference between affecting an individual or complete society, because, at the end of the day, a society is nothing but a set of some individuals.
That is the basic mistake in liberal perception.
We all know that smoking is injurious to health and no one in the world disagree with this. Right. But, liberalism has found an escape from it by saying that one cannot smoke in public places, but, in his private place only.
But, a smoker is still affecting the society, though passively only. Because, in real terms, his private place is also a public place. So, he would harm the environment to the same degree whether he smokes in his home or outside.
As far as the comparison between liberalism and conservatism is concerned, the extremes of both ideologies is wrong, and not even applicable either. So, the more important question is where to draw the line between?
As i see it, a conservative society with an appropriate mix of liberalism would be far more peaceful, successful and harmonized than a liberal society with a little bit of conservatism.
I have views and like everyone I like to express them. But, unlike many, when I express them my desire is not that people will catch on to my views for the betterment of society, but for the betterment of themselves. Still I would be partially wasting my time telling those views to someone for whom I’ll never speak to again, I would also be partially wasting my time telling someone something to their benefit if there was no chance they’d listen or if the positive effects would happen far too long in the future.
I speak mostly to help myself resolve my ideas and to be heard, but as far as influence goes, I only wish to influence those who may one day thank me, it’s pure vanity and, honestly, it couldn’t be otherwise.
I wouldn’t sign a petition, cast a vote or do anything else that involves lifting a finger to help stop smoking in a general way. But, if I could say or do something to help someone I’m acquainted with to stop smoking, then I would consider it.
Ilp is a community, so we’re all acquainted with each other in some way because of that. I’m not going to ask someone here to share a belief because it’s best for society, with no regard to how they will personally handle having that belief.
Are you saying that people in Soviet Russia shouldn’t have harbored capitalist thoughts specifically because they risked punishment if they did? That sounds pretty bizzare to me if so.
I don’t think much about myself when I thnk about philosophy, so I don’t really have much to say to this.
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I think embracing paradox can give a person moral convictions while having room for many of the things in life that push one towards nihilism or liberalism. Moral paradox is quite a bit different from relativism or nihilism, though. So for example, you can probably imagine a situation in which there is a courageous thing you can do, or an honest thing you can do, but the honest thing is not courageous, and the courageous thing is not honest. The paradox is that both courage and honesty are absolute values- they really are good, it’s not subjective, you can’t argue that they aren’t. So there’s no perfect answer to the situation, because whatever you do, you sacrifice one value for the other. That’s how having firm moral beliefs doesn’t necessarily mean having a firm answer for every moral situation. There’s also all-evil situations, particularly that other people can put us into. “If you don’t shoot this innocent person, I’ll shoot three”. There is no non-evil result; even if you think utilitarianism dictates that you shoot one person, you can’t do it cheerfully or declare that it was a good act. But just because we can be forced into situations where we have to do something evil, doesn’t mean we now question the moral nature of murder.
So, conservatism (properly understood) claims moral absolutes, but it doesn’t claim freedom from paradox. What it can, do, however, is prescribe a solution to a given paradox through custom and tradition. So for example “The U.S. doesn’t negotiate with terrorists” is a traditional prescription on how to deal with certain moral paradoxes that evil people can force us into. Some other culture might have some other prescription. I think some conservatives make the mistake of assuming their prescriptions actually solve the paradox. I think some liberals make the mistake of assuming that since the prescription doesn’t solve the paradox, it has no value.
I do Think that the kinds of experiences/framings of experience/thoughts that you are giving examples of do affect how people vote and identify politically. However I Think these thoughts and framings and feelings are after the reception of models of reality. IOW people are not coming out of a vaccuum and translating their feelings and experiences into political positions, but rather their political opinions form after framing by powerful actors, be they liberal or conservative. Someone has convinced them what the problems are, what the causal chains are, what is ‘theirs’ but should be shared, what is ‘not theirs’, and that these are cultural and powerbased conceptions that skew the way people translate their feelings and experiences into political positions. For, neither liberal nor conservative, I see the choice as fundamentally skewed. IOW in the US these two Groups actually allow basically the same kinds of distribution of Power and Money. They have very similar norms and assumptions, but are played up as these two very different economic viewpoints, when they are not. There are very strong cultural differences between many liberals and conservatives, and they do Think differently, but the basic Power structure they support and the distribution of Money and who decides over their lives are actually very similar.
That it is judged to be guilt rather than something else is post framing.
That when it comes to economic issues conservatives see separate monads, but when it comes to war they seem Community and generally a Community weighted toward the poor who bear the main responsibility for risk is post framing.
That being underpaid and overworked is the effect of redistribution of wealth from those who are overworked to those who work less or not at all is a post reframing idea.
