Is Conservatism just NeoTraditionalism these days?

[FlashDangerpants]

Who at this site are we supposed to consider a Conservative these days? I don't really see any.

The central thesis of Conservatism - as I always understood it anyway - has been that our traditions and customs are not to be discarded without a care as though they never brought any value. Rather customs and traditions represent the distilled wisdom of the ages and ought to be treated with a modicum of respect and subjected only to well thought out reasonably paced reform. I believe i culled that from some unholy combo of Edmund Burke and Maggie Thatcher, but it seems to me roughly accurate of traditional Conservatism - Conservatism being the sort of thing that probably should be retained in its traditional variety.

What Conservatism doesn't traditionally boast of is some plan or engineering that put it together, the whole value comes from a process of very slow evolution over long periods of time during which the collection of beneficial traditions happened by accident as people, now long dead, discovered without the need for any big plan to do so (big plans to do such things being the work of Radicals not Conservatives). It is supposed to age like a fine wine.

The Conservatives on this site don't match that description at all. They mostly want to roll back the clock a really long way, like they don't seem to have noticed how long ago the 1950s actually were. I hate to break the news to everyone, but there's old people here who hadn't even been born then. That's a really long timeframe to be trying to revert to.

But another misgiving I have is that our Conservatives all seem to have these singular central notions that justify everything. The placing of value upon leisurely progress that is the point of Trad Conservatism is discarded by a Neo-Traditional demand to ennoble some specific set of old traditions (possibly misrememberred) into what looks to be intended as a coherent set of correct approved traditions.

So is that it? Did Conservatism get eaten by its own young in the end?

[promethean75]

Yeah man anyone can see that it's obvious american conservativism became an ideology once the wealthiest property owners after the revolutionary war wanted to create a political means for limiting the amount of interference the government could have with their acquisition of wealth.

The break with monarchic conservative rule, the establishment of wealthy elite in the young country america, and a creation of a new conservative party that protects the freemarket system and allows the biggies to make vast profits and property gains without a federal government meddling in their affairs. The emergence of a new ruling class. The royalty of the monarchy is replaced with the bourgeoisie, and the conflict between classes continues. First as surf to feudal lord, then as wage worker to capitalist.

Not incidentally is the conservative narrative full of religious propaganda. Protestantism was a corner stone of the middle class's success... that's why the right wants to preserve Christianity and vilify everything else. To the right, 'conserve culture' means to keep the monogamous working class Christian family system together. That's the one that became the prototype of the type needed for capitalist growth to be sustained at the time of conservativism's inception. Project 'make more god fearing workers' or MMGFW.

[FlashDangerpants]

Yeah man anyone can see that it's obvious american conservativism became an ideology once the wealthiest property owners after the revolutionary war wanted to create a political means for limiting the amount of interference the government could have with their acquisition of wealth.

I'm sure the founding fathers had many frothy debates about exactly how egalitarian their fledgling nation ought to become before allowing only men at a certain income level to vote. Although they weren't especially conservative by the standards of their day, those guys all fought on the other side I would think.

The break with monarchic conservative rule, the establishment of wealthy elite in the young country america, and a creation of a new conservative party that protects the freemarket system and allows the biggies to make vast profits and property gains without a federal government meddling in their affairs. The emergence of a new ruling class. The royalty of the monarchy is replaced with the bourgeoisie, and the conflict between classes continues. First as surf to feudal lord, then as wage worker to capitalist.

Free trade was always a Liberal objective/ Conservatives are by long standing tradition motivated to protect rental incomes of hte landed gentry and for that purpose they tend towards trade restrictions and protectionism.

In the modern world, that got all mixed up and now it's the left who want protectionist trade restrictions (see Biden's quite heinous trade tariffs against China) to protect jobs, while the far from conservative new-right such as Maga, AFD, PVV and so on and wants the same protectionist trade restrictions to protect jobs (see Trump's quite heinous trade tariffs against China).

Free trade was adopted only very slowly by Conservatives in Europe and America, mainly because the then new-left (UK Labour party for instance) became a genuione political force between the world wars, and in most countries Conservatives only really became free market true believers when Bretton Woods fell in the early 70s and when price shocks in the oil market made everyone more aware of the value of multiple sources for highly mobile fungible goods.

Not incidentally is the conservative narrative full of religious propaganda. Protestantism was a corner stone of the middle class's success... that's why the right wants to preserve Christianity and vilify everything else. To the right, 'conserve culture' means to keep the monogamous working class Christian family system together. That's the one that became the prototype of the type needed for capitalist growth to be sustained at the time of conservativism's inception. Project 'make more god fearing workers' or MMGFW.

That protestant work ethic explanation for the rise of certain industrial economies did stick around a long time after it's usefulness evaporated. In fact Immanuel Can still tells a version of it today. But it fell out of favour on this side of the Atlantic quite some time ago, and of course was never popular in Italy or France for obvious reasons.

I do find it confusing that America still allows all politics to be swamped by religion. From over here, there's no same explanation for how that happened. Can it all be explained by reference to to televised megachurches in the 70s fighting back agianst Brown v Board by borrowing the previously Catholic only issue of abortion? The whole thing is just too weird.

[promethean75]

"... for that purpose they tend towards trade restrictions and protectionism.

In the modern world, that got all mixed up and now it's the left who want protectionist trade restrictions..."

I'd wager the half-baked theory that during the formative years of ermerica, the greatest concentration of capital was in the hands of very few industrialists and land owners, so they wanted to maintain their monopolies on the domestic labor force and the market, the economy of free wage workers and slaves. Protectionism was in those early years like the capitalist class unionizing against the importation of competing foreign commodities I think. Analogous to, at least.

But today, that minor concentration of capitalist tycoonism that started ermerica has dispersed, and now there is an open digital global market with capitalists everywhere... but more so, the working class's mobility is what powers everything. Back in the constitution days before a big globalist economy was really possible (or necessary to make yuge profits), all that mattered was keeping your consumers from buying competitor's stuff, ergo the tariffing to make importing more difficult for foreign competitors. Makes sense then that the conservative party of the most wealthy would seem to be defending the working class but only becuz they are the consumers of the commodities produced, sold and traded by the wealthy. The wealthy needs the working class to produce and buy the stuff that's produced. So keep imports out.

Now since the capitalist economy is global, the source of labor is not restricted to local, national supplies, but is world wide. I could start a business in Laos, never even step foot in it or meet any of my employees, and import and/or sell my products to get rich. So, protectionism (it's really like an economic isolationism) is no longer needed and no longer useful.

Now as u say it's reversed. The worker's interests are now in the democrat's efforts... in the form of unionization and social security programs... while the capitalist right wants completely free open international markets and couldn't care less about available local labor forces.

The only exception might be the populist right propaganda where conservatives pretend to be working in the interests of broke local farmers and truck drivers and shit.

The constitutionalists were fighting against an imaginary monster planted in their heads after a yuge war with the monarchic leviathan her majesty and the king. Doncha think?

They couldn't have thought of the federalists that they were some kind of communists becuz this was eighteenth century. It had to be thought that a federal government was synonymous to a monarchic totalitarianism.

[promethean75]

"The original Thirteen Colonies that would later found the United States were administered by Great Britain, and had local governments with elections open to most white male property owners"

So his majesty originally supported the colonies and everything was cool until his majesty started demanding taxes and 'asserting greater control over' the colonies.

But by then, those wealthy white male property owners had a good footing in politics and the new ermerican bourgeoisie class emerged as the conservative right, the Republicans and constitutionalists embattled with what they thought would be the federalist's replacement of the monarchy with a president. Meet the new boss... same as the old boss type stuff.

Plus it was the logical next step of emancipation of the subject from the king. Meritocratic industrialism was the engine of progress and the wealthiest deserved all of what they earned without a third party like the crown tryna get a cut.

"The political values of the American Revolution included liberty, inalienable individual rights; and the sovereignty of the people; supporting republicanism and rejecting monarchy, aristocracy, and hereditary political powe"

But by now, see, the aristocracy of inheritance has been replaced with the aristocracy of the wealthiest class... which was english land owners who made the biggest investments in economy and therefore employed the most wage workers and slaves.

They prolly didn't want a larger federal government ruling over the local state governments that could be more easily persuaded, lobbied, manipulated and moved than could a federal government, in favor of the wealthiest land and industry owners, see.

The constitution was a covert attempt to preserve the freedoms of the working citizens against a large government's capacity to manipulate and organize the working classes against the wealthiest of each state who employ, or are going to employ, all of them. That's what i think. When the parties changed meaning and liberal came to mean in favor of governments wherein earlier it meant free from governments, the federal government became the enemy of the private investors and robbed them of capital and market opportunity.

I totally get it, but u got the hard working lower and middle class caught up in the middle of this beef between wealthy white property owners and and those who want to expand government beyond a colony/state level. A federation of states under one set of rules would make the system more rigid, would make it harder for the elites to effect government decision, policy and law making.

[promethean75]

When u refuse the crown its british imports, it must mean that somewhere in the colonies there's the opportunity to produce and provide that same surplus of content by private means. It must mean that not only is british support and trade not necessary anymore, but it's also now a competitor in a market that could be dominated locally by the emancipated merchant and newly rising capitalist classes of the independent states.

[Skepdick]

Who at this site are we supposed to consider a Conservative these days? I don't really see any.

The central thesis of Conservatism - as I always understood it anyway - has been that our traditions and customs are not to be discarded without a care as though they never brought any value.

<blah blah blah>

What? You can't see yourself ?!?

What is it that you think you are doing by practicing philosophy if not preserving an ancient tradition? You clearly refuse to discard it.

[promethean75]

But dudes u can't look at human evolution and society as inert, unchangeable things that are governed by some eternal rules that conservatism claims to exist in culture and tradition and at all times.

I ain't no hegelian but social change through a dialectical struggle between old and tried customs and newly arsing political theory following newly arising novel conflicts never suffered before, does happen.

Compare women's rights to their rights twenty thousand years ago. One would have thought our modern liberal democracy was batshit crazy back then it would have seemed so abnormal and bizarre. Point being, human sociology experiences slow revolutionary changes with how culture is structured and what can work or not.

The consciousness of the idea is not primary to the process of evolution in the way hegel thought. The primary experience is in and with the material world of production and consumption and the cultural patterns that form around these. The problem for conservatives is, they've taken a slice of time from a long continuum of evolutionary/social change and declared that human behavior and society ought to be forever modeled like that.

It fundamentally opposes change. It's apollo on steroids. Where was it that N said man's greatness was in his fight with chaos and the impermanence of being by taking control of it and directing it toward a goal. Giving form and direction to man as a kind of purposeful experiment to create a higher ideal type precisely becuz chaotic and indifferent nature cares about none of it.

Essentially N's tryna say with the abandonment of religion comes a floundering phase where man has no meaning and doesn't know what to do. So what better to replace god with than some godlike man from one of Wagner's joints, right?

Anyway my point was that conservatism can only ever be the voice of the dominant class attempting to preserve and keep precisely in place the particular superstructures of society at that point of consideration.

But since man has only existed as an intelligent political animal for maybe fifteen thousand years, the species is relatively inexperienced at trying out a modern technologically advanced superstructures.

The single mating pair human family unit has been the model for so long we can't imagine any other kind of system.

What then happens is very gradually change occurs which challenges the norms of culture and a totally new arrangement is made. Think of gender reassignment. It was naturally unheard of before the tech was available to do it... not becuz people thought it was morally perverse. Now that it's a simple medical procedure, it starts happening and becomes normalized.

Now none of this may actually cause any kind of deficit in the general level of health, happiness, satisfaction and productivity world wide... and the conservatives will still consider it a radical departure from the way society should be.

[FlashDangerpants]

Damn, you have a lot to say about this stuff. I'll have to take breaks and everything while I work out what my responses are to that many words.

"... for that purpose they tend towards trade restrictions and protectionism.

In the modern world, that got all mixed up and now it's the left who want protectionist trade restrictions..."

I'd wager the half-baked theory that during the formative years of ermerica, the greatest concentration of capital was in the hands of very few industrialists and land owners, so they wanted to maintain their monopolies on the domestic labor force and the market, the economy of free wage workers and slaves. Protectionism was in those early years like the capitalist class unionizing against the importation of competing foreign commodities I think. Analogous to, at least.

In the early days, before the coal, steam and railways part of the industrial revolution allowed for bulk shipping, that sort of protectionism was more about restricting which merchants could unload their product at which ports and the Spanish empire was probably the main concern because they had lots of desirable gold, lots of desirable ports and lots of permits to issue.

But tariffs on imports were important sources of revenue (thus the whole tea party affair), and protecting that income stream to keep other taxes low was a bit of a priority. I don't think protectionism as a trade policy kicked in very early, the American market was distant and expensive to ship to at that point so the relative advantages to local manufacturers were huge anyway.

I think the first trade war between two developed countries over dumping of product (selling off excess inventory abroad at a loss to gain market share) was between Germany and the USA when Germany overproduced steel in the 1870s or 80s. Steam shipping was what made it possible to have such a dispute at all though. But that's information from my own unreliable memory so avoid quoting it.

The trade wars around that period were mostly about allowing America to crack foreign markets. The same expansion of shipping and reduction of cost made it possible to transport the huge surplus of wheat that the praries produced, and at much lower prices than the small farmsteads in England could sell. This was a problem for both the aristocratic landlords of Britain and Ireland, but also for the peasants who lived on the small farmsteads who were of course fucked. Weighted against that was the new economic idea that mercantillist zero-sum gold hoarding trade policies prevent the growth of wealth, and that Britain's growing cities would be more sustainable if cheap American corn brought down the price of bread.

So in the 1840s the tariffs were dropped, which was good for some poor people, and bad for some others. The English peasants fucked off to the nearest city and got one of the new jobs making stuff, they were fine. The Irish peasants had nowhere really to go, they grew increasingly reliant ont he potatoes that made their small farms dietarily sufficient, and when that failed the English government said it was no longer permissible to interfere with free markets by sending grain to places that cannot afford it, so millions of them died.

Also the English landlords lost ground to the nouveau-riche factory owning manufacturer class which gave Marx and Engels some talking points.

[promethean75]

I'll take your word for it becuz that post read like an encyclopedia entry. Sometimes, F.D., u can do too much research and reading in general and end up being one of those guys who knows all the subtle little details and dates in subjects that nobody else knows. Germany's overproduction of steel in the 1870's is an example. U make yourself look bad when u know shit like that.

I have only to add that Engels has called the Irish a peaceful, potato loving people.

[godelian]

The central thesis of Conservatism - as I always understood it anyway - has been that our traditions and customs are not to be discarded without a care as though they never brought any value. Rather customs and traditions represent the distilled wisdom of the ages and ought to be treated with a modicum of respect and subjected only to well thought out reasonably paced reform.

What Conservatism doesn't traditionally boast of is some plan or engineering that put it together, the whole value comes from a process of very slow evolution over long periods of time during which the collection of beneficial traditions happened by accident as people, now long dead, discovered without the need for any big plan to do so (big plans to do such things being the work of Radicals not Conservatives). It is supposed to age like a fine wine.

The fundamentals of the blueprint of humanity will never change. There is no so-called "evolution over long periods" for humanity. There is only replacement by another species while we ourselves simply die out.

The Conservatives on this site don't match that description at all. They mostly want to roll back the clock a really long way, like they don't seem to have noticed how long ago the 1950s actually were. I hate to break the news to everyone, but there's old people here who hadn't even been born then. That's a really long timeframe to be trying to revert to.

It is very easy to revert to original humanity. Just move outside the West. I have done it already. I live in SE Asia now. I cannot stand the fake so-called "evolution" in the West. What they are doing over there in the West, is in gross violation of the fundamental blueprint of humanity.

So is that it? Did Conservatism get eaten by its own young in the end?

No, we are just leaving for now. Nowadays, a true conservative is a digital nomad, a nomad capitalist, as well as a passport bro.

The final solution for the problem of the depravity of the West, is war. Let the men who believe in its feminist agenda, risk their lives and die for what they believe in.

I think that the arsenal of weapons and military personnel of the Russian Federation will sooner or later come in very handy. NATO already got deported unceremoniously from Kabul Airport. Now it is undoubtedly the time for the Russian Federation to finish the job where the Taliban left off.

I do not care what voting paperwork you fill out, because it is just too easy to do that. No, if you want to be credible, you must put skin in the game. If you want to force other people with your feminist -and other laws, then prove that you are willing to risk your life and die for what you believe in.

[FlashDangerpants]

The central thesis of Conservatism - as I always understood it anyway - has been that our traditions and customs are not to be discarded without a care as though they never brought any value. Rather customs and traditions represent the distilled wisdom of the ages and ought to be treated with a modicum of respect and subjected only to well thought out reasonably paced reform.

What Conservatism doesn't traditionally boast of is some plan or engineering that put it together, the whole value comes from a process of very slow evolution over long periods of time during which the collection of beneficial traditions happened by accident as people, now long dead, discovered without the need for any big plan to do so (big plans to do such things being the work of Radicals not Conservatives). It is supposed to age like a fine wine.

The fundamentals of the blueprint of humanity will never change. There is no so-called "evolution over long periods" for humanity. There is only replacement by another species while we ourselves simply die out.

I wasn't talking about evolution of the human species, I was discussing the evolution of customs, traditions and so on. They start as one thing and evolve very gradually into other things.

The Conservatives on this site don't match that description at all. They mostly want to roll back the clock a really long way, like they don't seem to have noticed how long ago the 1950s actually were. I hate to break the news to everyone, but there's old people here who hadn't even been born then. That's a really long timeframe to be trying to revert to.

It is very easy to revert to original humanity. Just move outside the West. I have done it already. I live in SE Asia now. I cannot stand the fake so-called "evolution" in the West. What they are doing over there in the West, is in gross violation of the fundamental blueprint of humanity.

So you are into the customs and practices of the Far East huh? How cosmopolitan. Did your table manners change, do you slurp bowls of noodles now? In what other ways did you evolve a new outlook on traditioal values you left behind?

So is that it? Did Conservatism get eaten by its own young in the end?

No, we are just leaving for now. Nowadays, a true conservative is a digital nomad, a nomad capitalist, as well as a passport bro.

The final solution for the problem of the depravity of the West, is war. Let the men who believe in its feminist agenda, risk their lives and die for what they believe in.

So we can safely say that you are a radical with no interest in preserving any modern customs whatsoever and a desire to return to .... I am not even sure what model from history you actually advocate for? Is this some Meiji revivalism you are doing, or do you yearn for the times when temples were covered in scenes from the kama sutra?

I think that the arsenal of weapons and military personnel of the Russian Federation will sooner or later come in very handy. NATO already got deported unceremoniously from Kabul Airport. Now it is undoubtedly the time for the Russian Federation to finish the job where the Taliban left off.

I do not care what voting paperwork you fill out, because it is just too easy to do that. No, if you want to be credible, you must put skin in the game. If you want to force other people with your feminist -and other laws, then prove that you are willing to risk your life and die for what you believe in.

Ok, so conservatives would mostly oppose that view. It seems to me that you are an object example of what I was describing in the OP.

[Skepdick]

Ok, so conservatives would mostly oppose that view. It seems to me that you are an object example of what I was describing in the OP.

Isn't that how it always works? Dangle a hook - let some fish bite. Use them to make your case.

You had no argument before somebody engaged you.

P.S No, conservatives wouldn't oppose such views. Skin in the game is a central theme in conservative world-view. It's a tried&tested way to mitigate principal-agent problems and proxy-outrage.

[godelian]

I wasn't talking about evolution of the human species, I was discussing the evolution of customs, traditions and so on. They start as one thing and evolve very gradually into other things.

The core of tradition is its morality. That doesn't change.

So you are into the customs and practices of the Far East huh? How cosmopolitan. Did your table manners change, do you slurp bowls of noodles now?

Well, I actually did indeed have a beef noodle soup this morning.

In what other ways did you evolve a new outlook on traditioal values you left behind?

I like the mentality of the women here a lot. Of course, I also like their incredible looks.

So we can safely say that you are a radical with no interest in preserving any modern customs whatsoever and a desire to return to ....

Unlike in the West, there is no feminist State here trying to stick its nose into my private bedroom affairs. There is no risk of divorce rape or similar shitty laws. So, I did return to a past where the government stayed out of people's private lives.

Look, there was only one way to stamp out the arrogance of the German Reich, that is, the hard way.

Similarly, there is only one solution for the problem of the arrogance of the West.

The war in Ukraine gave me hope that Vladimir Putin would soon drive his tanks all the way to the North Sea.

In the meantime, Putin has had two years to do that, but unfortunately, he keeps dragging his feet.

Seriously, NATO and all its feminist States need to be eradicated. Putin needs to finish where the Taliban left off.

[FlashDangerpants]

Ok, so conservatives would mostly oppose that view. It seems to me that you are an object example of what I was describing in the OP.

Isn't that how it always works? Dangle a hook - let some fish bite. Use them to make your case.

Why not? It seems like a pretty good way to make the case and to tailor it for local specifics as we go.

You had no argument before somebody engaged you.

Obviously I did have a case. There's a nostalgic nutcase called Wizzard22 who is trying to revive the 1950s with all the racial segregation and religious bullying that could possibly imply. Wizzy is so nostalgia-mad he even has written that food tasted better in the 90s. Immanuel Can wants to roll back every change since the 50s and reimpose reds-under-the-bed collective paranoia from a bygone time. Jacobi is straight up trying to revive the Third Reich.

I had no idea this Godelian guy was on the loose, wasn't targetting him at all.

P.S No, conservatives wouldn't oppose such views. Skin in the game is a central theme in conservative world-view. It's a tried&tested way to mitigate principal-agent problems and proxy-outrage.

I think most Conservatives would be against Russian invasion. MAGA ... less so.