Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 3:35 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jan 10, 2021 10:57 pm
The problem is that conservatives believe in freedom of conscience, and Leftists just don't. For Leftists, only thinking the politically-correct thoughts is permissible.
That means that Leftist educational procedures can be single-mindedly propagandizing, whereas classical liberal/conservative ones have to be focused on empowering independent inquirers, critical minds and participatory citizens to think
for themselves. That means that the latter have to be cautious and restrained, skills-focused to allow a range of free and independent opinion; whereas the former can simply choose to suppress, manipulate, indoctrinate and deceive without any hesitation or pangs of conscience.
I'm an older guy, but this is not my experience at all. I find both the right and the left have political correctnesses and use authority and social pressures to enforce, and then also the law.
I don't disagree. Human nature is corrupt on both political sides. But there is a difference. When a conservative uses such things as political correctness and authority to advance his agenda, he is
violating his own creed. When a Leftist does, he is
affirming his own creed.
And that's the point: the conservative who does such thing is
inhibited by his bad conscience. He knows he will undermine his own beliefs so long as he continues to act in that way. If he uses means which deprive people of their freedom, their volition, and their classical liberal virtues, then he's destroying the very platform on which he eventually hopes to stand. If he propagandizes them, how can he then say that citizens can be free and make rational choices for themselves? If he steals their property, then how can he affirm their right to property any longer? If he bullies or manipulates people into following him, rather than appealing to their standing as free and rational beings, how can he then say the vote that got him into office is an expression of the public will? His own legitimacy is undermined by such tactics: and while some conservatives may be willing to pay that price, they are "setting fire to their own corn" by doing it.
In contrast, the Leftist is not beset with any such qualms. He believes his creed is the only truth, and free choice by rational citizens does not matter. He sees himself as possessed of a higher understanding of how things really are, and the ordinary folks as very much in need of his "education." Nothing in his view of humanity suggests to him he owes them to make them free, rational and independent, or to guarantee them rights of property -- or even of life -- if such things do not serve the great Collective. The Leftist is thus able to act
without conscience. Nothing in his own creed inhibits his range of actions and options. Any strategy that serves his ideological cause is automatically fair. That gives the Leftist a significant practical and strategic edge.
There has been a shift to more dominance of the Left, perhaps, in political correctness, but when I was growing up it was the right (US that is). I could not in school have questioned us policies, patriotism, saluting the flag or I would have face very unpleasant censure, and I watched this happen.
Yes, this is the point. Did any of that make you a free, rational voter? Or did that merely destroy the whole idea of your freedom of conscience?
And that's the problem. An conservative who believes in free conscience, or free speech, or freedom of property, is in no position to violate those things without destroying his own ideology. You are right to see all that as counterproductive: it was.
But how is Leftism any curative to that? What misbehaving conservatives imposed on you
in bad conscience and
counterproductively to their own creed, the Leftists impose
without hesitation, and
in complete sympathy with their creed.
They will not just make you salute their flag, they will make you kneel in the streets and beg their forgiveness...which they will not give, of course.
So again, it's not that we should encourage political correctness of either type. We need to be encouraging the classical liberal values of freedom, toleration, free speech, free conscience, property ownership, opportunity, neutral justice, and so on, and those are all against political correctness either side. But while the good conservatives can agree to that and settle back in peace, no Leftist of any kind can
ever allow that. It would spell the end of Leftism.
I'd respect the right much more if they said, yeah, we used to have the political correctness dominance and we shut people up and worse. Now that we're on the wrong end of that stick we realize we don't think this is the right thing to do.
I totally agree. I wish that some of them didn't even have to wait until they were "on the wrong end of the stick" to get to this point. It was always irrational for them to be advocating any kind of political correctness in the first place. The sooner they figure that out, the better.
But Leftism will never discover that. It has no affinity with ideas like free speech or free conscience. It has only the blinkered ideological drive toward collectivism. The individual has a kind of standing in its thinking, but it's always a standing merely derivative from the collective. The individual is only "good" or " a citizen" or "entitled" to the extend that he/she serves the demands and expectations of the collective. When he/she does not, he/she is entirely dispensable. There are no rights grounded in the individual, according to Leftism. That is, there are no
human rights.
And I think the lack of human rights, of your individual freedom of conscience and speech, are what you are objecting to in your own experience, are they not? In the education of your youth, you found there was hypocrisy in the way they forced you to perform gestures or say things you did not want to say or do, no? In that case, what you were objecting too was the violation of classical liberal (i.e. conservative) values
by conservatives. But I'm certain you would not become happier if such violations were perpetrated upon you without conscience or apology by Leftists. And that's all you can ever expect from the Left, of course.
So your appeal for fairness there depends on conservative values like freedom of conscience and speech being the
right values for a person to have.