Is Conservatism just NeoTraditionalism these days?

[FlashDangerpants]

I raised this thread for the purpose of discussing conservativism vs radicalism not to have yet another left v right opinion-fest. There are conservative traditionalist pigeons and radical reformist hawks perched on every branch of the political tree.

I don't really see that. When I ask people to identify these "traditionalist pidgeon" types, they can never really find them. I don't think "traditionalism" is very high on anybody's agenda today. But I do think that the term "conservative" has some currency. There are people who want to conserve things.

Moreover, I don't find that the radicals want "reform." They seem to be mostly campaigning for destruction and some kind of unspecified reconstruction. "Reform" seems far too gentle and conservative a process for what they want, as it implies a more gradual conversion of the present into the future, and they seem to want to burn things down and break them, instead.

I can't help also to note which you designated the carnivore, and which you designated the prey animal. Was that deliberate?

Mike Pence is quite a traditionalist is he not? The people who wanted him to abandon his constitutional duty so that they could overthrow a democracy were fairly radical in my view.

[Immanuel Can]

Mike Pence is quite a traditionalist is he not?

I don't know. Would you say he is? He's certainly never been an important public figure, and he's not now, in spite of having been VP. That's a role for somebody not very serious, traditionally...which is why it was Biden's role under Obama, and why it's Harris's now. VP is a kind of dumping-ground for second-rate options. Usually, the VP never becomes anything much. And nobody really looks up to them, do they?

The people who wanted him to abandon his constitutional duty so that they could overthrow a democracy were fairly radical in my view.

Who was that?

[FlashDangerpants]

Mike Pence is quite a traditionalist is he not?

I don't know. Would you say he is? He's certainly never been an important public figure, and he's not now, in spite of having been VP. That's a role for somebody not very serious, traditionally...which is why it was Biden's role under Obama, and why it's Harris's now. VP is a kind of dumping-ground for second-rate options. Usually, the VP never becomes anything much. And nobody really looks up to them, do they?

What an odd ramble you went on there. Mike Pence seems like an absurdly conservative man from most people's perspective, whether he was all that powerful doesn't make much difference. He was a deeply conservative Governor of Indiana prior to becoming VP, and he was chosen as VP to placate the religious right because the candiate for the top job was known to have strayed beyond the boundaries of all three of his marriages. So... conservative to the bone.

The people who wanted him to abandon his constitutional duty so that they could overthrow a democracy were fairly radical in my view.

Who was that?

These guys? They were chanting "hang Mike Pence" becasue they wanted him to usurp a power he didn't really have any right to (as per your own comment about him being powerless.

[Immanuel Can]

Mike Pence is quite a traditionalist is he not?

I don't know. Would you say he is? He's certainly never been an important public figure, and he's not now, in spite of having been VP. That's a role for somebody not very serious, traditionally...which is why it was Biden's role under Obama, and why it's Harris's now. VP is a kind of dumping-ground for second-rate options. Usually, the VP never becomes anything much. And nobody really looks up to them, do they?

...whether he was all that powerful doesn't make much difference.

It actually does. If nobody's following him, then we really don't need to worry about whatever he thinks.

The people who wanted him to abandon his constitutional duty so that they could overthrow a democracy were fairly radical in my view.

Who was that?

These guys?

You think that was an influential group of people? I'd be surprised.

What we're looking for is something remotely on par with the radical Left. And I just don't see conservatives burning neighbourhoods and beating up Korean shopkeepers, or campaigning to defund the police, or any of that stuff. It seems to me they're just nowhere near that influential.

I don't doubt that there are a few radical loonies around the fringes of the conservative movement. I just don't see that they matter very much. Nobody takes them seriously. But the Left is absolutely awash with radical loonies, and they seem to get all the press, all the political clout and all the public respect.

But maybe that's just because the media itself is so far Left. Is that possible?

[FlashDangerpants]

I don't know. Would you say he is? He's certainly never been an important public figure, and he's not now, in spite of having been VP. That's a role for somebody not very serious, traditionally...which is why it was Biden's role under Obama, and why it's Harris's now. VP is a kind of dumping-ground for second-rate options. Usually, the VP never becomes anything much. And nobody really looks up to them, do they?

...whether he was all that powerful doesn't make much difference.

It actually does. If nobody's following him, then we really don't need to worry about whatever he thinks.

So there's only 3 or 4 people in the world whos views matter enough to bother knowing whether they are conservatives, moderates, radicals, leftist, right-wing or any of that stuff? This is a strange new direction we are going in.

Who was that?

These guys?

You think that was an influential group of people? I'd be surprised.

What we're looking for is something remotely on par with the radical Left. And I just don't see conservatives burning neighbourhoods and beating up Korean shopkeepers, or campaigning to defund the police, or any of that stuff. It seems to me they're just nowhere near that influential.

I don't doubt that there are a few radical loonies around the fringes of the conservative movement. I just don't see that they matter very much. Nobody takes them seriously. But the Left is absolutely awash with radical loonies, and they seem to get all the press, all the political clout and all the public respect.

But maybe that's just because the media itself is so far Left. Is that possible?

I find it hard to believe that so many anonymous hooded rascals are all more important in your world view that former VP Mike Pence to such an extent that what they stand for is knowable to you, but what he stands for is entirely mysterious.

[Immanuel Can]

...whether he was all that powerful doesn't make much difference.

It actually does. If nobody's following him, then we really don't need to worry about whatever he thinks.

So there's only 3 or 4 people in the world whos views matter enough to bother knowing whether they are conservatives, moderates, radicals, leftist, right-wing or any of that stuff? This is a strange new direction we are going in.

That's not anything I said. I'm just asking if you have anybody who's a "traditional conservative" who's more prominent than Mike Pence, who, it seems to me, nobody much cares about.

I find it hard to believe that so many anonymous hooded rascals are all more important in your world view that former VP Mike Pence to such an extent that what they stand for is knowable to you, but what he stands for is entirely mysterious.

"Anonymous hooded rascals" who shoot policemen, burn neighbourhoods to the ground, bludgeon shopkeepers, dominate the media, silence their critics, and occupy whole city blocks for weeks? That's pretty extraordinary "rascaling," if you ask me. I was a young rascal in my day, but I never did anything like that. Maybe the "rascaling" standards have become higher since then.

As for Pence, I don't question that he is, in some sense "traditional." I find it surprising, though, that he's the best example you can find of somebody we should worry about. He doesn't seem a very important person, really. And I don't think anybody who behaves like him is going to cause anybody very much trouble.

[Consul]

Yes, but these similarities don't justify the assertion that political extremism is always a left thing. It obviously isn't!

Quite true. But the extreme Right looks rather different from the version the Left would like us to adopt. They're not Fascists; they're anarchists, nihilists, Randians, open-marketers, Libertarians, individualists and other anti-establishment types. And they're really only ever a liminal force in any Western democracy, just a small percentage of real extremists who have gone too far with liberties and lost touch with social responsibility completely. They're a fractious little bunch that come to nothing.
But note how different all this is from Collectivist Tyrannies. They have BIG plans, for big governments, for socialized everything, for global management, with utopian dreams...none of this do you find on the real "Right," even at the extremes.

I can't help repeating my objection that it's blatantly inaccurate to assert that the fascists & nazis do not belong to the extreme Right. I know it's an appeal to authority, but here it's legitimate, because there is in fact a consensus in political science that fascists & nazis are right-extremists.

There are both left-anarchists (anarcho-communists) and right-anarchists (anarcho-capitalists). I'm not sure where to put anarcho-individualism, especially as there are both left-libertarians and right-libertarians (including conservative libertarians/libertarian conservatives). However, anarcho-capitalists are more individualistic than anarcho-communists.

As opposed to fascists & nazis, libertarians, including the right-wing ones, are anti-statists, anti-state anarchists (or "minarchists" at least); so there is an essential difference between libertarianism (qua radical child of classical liberalism) and fascism/nazism: anti-statism vs. hyper-statism & ultra-individualism vs. ultra-collectivism.

"It is popular to label libertarianism as a “right-wing” doctrine. But this is mistaken. For one, on social—rather than economic—issues, libertarianism tends to be “left-wing” in advocating for radical social liberty in the form of freedom of association, of cultural and religious expression, and sexual liberation. On foreign policy it is also aligned more with the left in opposing border restrictions and war. Its historical entanglement with both radicalism and reaction, as well as its approach to rights being used to endorse distributive egalitarianism, means that it cannot be easily placed on a contemporary left-right partisan spectrum. In a sense, the left-right spectrum is itself reiterated within libertarianism, given its internal diversity."

Libertarianism: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/libertarianism/

Do you know any philosopher who endorses and defends atheistic theological voluntarism? – I don't.

I do. William Lane Craig comes to mind immediately. John Lennox, too. C.S. Lewis is a famous one. And in ethics, there would be Plantinga. There are actually a lot of Christian philosophers around today, and good ones, too.

Yes (if "good" just means "good at philosophizing"), but I was asking for examples of defenders of atheistic theological voluntarism, or atheists who are theological voluntarists.

What's the answer?

You haven't heard? Okay. It's very simple.
…
But Christians are monotheists. For them, "good" and "God" are coextensive. What God loves is always good, and what is good is always what God loves. And there are no "other gods" to contradict that expectation. So the Euthyprho dilemma becomes simple nonsense, no more cogent than asking, "Is this man a son or a father?" The answer is, "It depends on which way you're looking at the equation."

Taking both horns of the dilemma doesn't really solve the problem owing to the circularity of doing so: X is good because God loves (commands) it AND God loves (commands) X because it is good. This doesn't provide any intelligible conception of the Good. Saying that God = the Good & the Good = God makes no sense to me.

[Immanuel Can]

Yes, but these similarities don't justify the assertion that political extremism is always a left thing. It obviously isn't!

Quite true. But the extreme Right looks rather different from the version the Left would like us to adopt. They're not Fascists; they're anarchists, nihilists, Randians, open-marketers, Libertarians, individualists and other anti-establishment types. And they're really only ever a liminal force in any Western democracy, just a small percentage of real extremists who have gone too far with liberties and lost touch with social responsibility completely. They're a fractious little bunch that come to nothing.
But note how different all this is from Collectivist Tyrannies. They have BIG plans, for big governments, for socialized everything, for global management, with utopian dreams...none of this do you find on the real "Right," even at the extremes.

I can't help repeating my objection that it's blatantly inaccurate to assert that the fascists & nazis do not belong to the extreme Right.

Sorry...I think Lindsay's dead right: that's exactly what they are. And it explains the family resemblance they have: collectivism, nationalization of industries, Socialism, militarism, xenophobia, global aspirations, totalitarianism, one-party governance,...and murder, and poverty and economic disaster...

Nope. Those are twins. They are thesis and antithesis-born-from-the-thesis. I know that's a shock, and that we're taught not to think of things that way: but look closer, and you cannot miss the sympathy that exists between the two. And "by their fruits, ye shall know them," as the good book says.

Do you know any philosopher who endorses and defends atheistic theological voluntarism? – I don't.

I do. William Lane Craig comes to mind immediately. John Lennox, too. C.S. Lewis is a famous one. And in ethics, there would be Plantinga. There are actually a lot of Christian philosophers around today, and good ones, too.

Yes (if "good" just means "good at philosophizing"), but I was asking for examples of defenders of atheistic theological voluntarism, or atheists who are theological voluntarists.

Atheistic theological voluntarism? It's almost a contradiction in terms. Why would an Atheist be theological? And how can an Atheist be a voluntarist? Atheism seems to require Materialism or Physicalism of some kind, and those have to almost certainly end up being some kind of Determinist -- but I suppose it's possible that some who are "taxicabbing" their Atheism might think they can stop at some form of voluntarism. Maybe Voltaire was like that...Nietzsche, maybe; though he's equivocal about that.

What's the answer?

You haven't heard? Okay. It's very simple.
…
But Christians are monotheists. For them, "good" and "God" are coextensive. What God loves is always good, and what is good is always what God loves. And there are no "other gods" to contradict that expectation. So the Euthyprho dilemma becomes simple nonsense, no more cogent than asking, "Is this man a son or a father?" The answer is, "It depends on which way you're looking at the equation."

Taking both horns of the dilemma doesn't really solve the problem owing to the circularity of doing so: X is good because God loves (commands) it AND God loves (commands) X because it is good. This doesn't provide any intelligible conception of the Good. Saying that God = the Good & the Good = God makes no sense to me.

It's actually the right answer. That it doesn't make sense to you is possibly because you're accustomed to imagining that "good" is some sort of quality that can exist without any referent...almost like a Platonic ideal form, perhaps. But it cannot. "Good" is an adjectival thing: it has to attach to a noun. And to most nouns, it can only be relatively attached: a "good" meal, a "good" dog, a "good" story, a "good" deed...and only to one Object can it be attached absolutely, to God Himself. And it is from its reference to God that any concept of the "good" in other things can be derived at all; for it is only in their relation to Him that they have any "good" about them.

[FlashDangerpants]

It actually does. If nobody's following him, then we really don't need to worry about whatever he thinks.

So there's only 3 or 4 people in the world whos views matter enough to bother knowing whether they are conservatives, moderates, radicals, leftist, right-wing or any of that stuff? This is a strange new direction we are going in.

That's not anything I said. I'm just asking if you have anybody who's a "traditional conservative" who's more prominent than Mike Pence, who, it seems to me, nobody much cares about.

I don't care about this prominence thing, it's a canard. I am on the side of the little guy here. Pemce is an evangelical Christian who despises the left as much as you do. He took a hard lineon abortion from day one, he preaches abstinence education and voted against stem cell research. He did the "all lives matter" thing at a time you would approve of. He opposes all sorts of LGBT everything and wants them out of the military and removed from employment protection. Of course he opposes not just gay marriage but even civil unions. The list goes on, he's right wing religious nut who wants a boat load of stuff put back the way it was when he was young and virile.

I find it hard to believe that so many anonymous hooded rascals are all more important in your world view that former VP Mike Pence to such an extent that what they stand for is knowable to you, but what he stands for is entirely mysterious.

"Anonymous hooded rascals" who shoot policemen, burn neighbourhoods to the ground, bludgeon shopkeepers, dominate the media, silence their critics, and occupy whole city blocks for weeks? That's pretty extraordinary "rascaling," if you ask me. I was a young rascal in my day, but I never did anything like that. Maybe the "rascaling" standards have become higher since then.

As for Pence, I don't question that he is, in some sense "traditional." I find it surprising, though, that he's the best example you can find of somebody we should worry about. He doesn't seem a very important person, really. And I don't think anybody who behaves like him is going to cause anybody very much trouble.

Pence is only getting a mention because of what's happened to him as a result of his one moment of diligence. He applied the appropriate check and balance in spite of a crowd outside the parliament with a noose calling for his death. You earlier claimed checks and balances for your team, I wonder what makes you eschew this one instance of that?

[Immanuel Can]

So there's only 3 or 4 people in the world whos views matter enough to bother knowing whether they are conservatives, moderates, radicals, leftist, right-wing or any of that stuff? This is a strange new direction we are going in.

That's not anything I said. I'm just asking if you have anybody who's a "traditional conservative" who's more prominent than Mike Pence, who, it seems to me, nobody much cares about.

I don't care about this prominence thing, it's a canard.

Not really. If you find one radical rightist somewhere, that's not even remarkable...just as if there were only one Socialist, it wouldn't be a problem for the other side. If you find a thousand, that's a problem. If you find a million, that's a very serious problem.

If Mike Pence makes no difference, he makes no difference. And I don't think he qualifies as a radical, either. He seems a rather midline conservative, at most.

I suppose, therefore, you must mean the opponents of Mike Pence, particularly the joker with the noose, were radical. That's possible. But how many people do we know shared the noose-guy's extreme view?

[FlashDangerpants]

That's not anything I said. I'm just asking if you have anybody who's a "traditional conservative" who's more prominent than Mike Pence, who, it seems to me, nobody much cares about.

I don't care about this prominence thing, it's a canard.

Not really. If you find one radical rightist somewhere, that's not even remarkable...just as if there were only one Socialist, it wouldn't be a problem for the other side. If you find a thousand, that's a problem. If you find a million, that's a very serious problem.

If Mike Pence makes no difference, he makes no difference. And I don't think he qualifies as a radical, either. He seems a rather midline conservative, at most.

I suppose, therefore, you must mean the opponents of Mike Pence, particularly the joker with the noose, were radical. That's possible. But how many people do we know shared the noose-guy's extreme view?

Like I already said, I don't care about this prominence thing, it's a canard. I am on the side of the little guy here. Pemce is an evangelical Christian who despises the left as much as you do. He took a hard lineon abortion from day one, he preaches abstinence education and voted against stem cell research. He did the "all lives matter" thing at a time you would approve of. He opposes all sorts of LGBT everything and wants them out of the military and removed from employment protection. Of course he opposes not just gay marriage but even civil unions. The list goes on, he's right wing religious nut who wants a boat load of stuff put back the way it was when he was young and virile.

Pence is only getting a mention because of what's happened to him as a result of his one moment of diligence. He applied the appropriate check and balance in spite of a crowd outside the parliament with a noose calling for his death. You earlier claimed checks and balances for your team, I wonder what makes you eschew this one instance of that?

[FlashDangerpants]

Another little guy Conservative getting screwed by right wing radicals right now is Wisconsin Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, facing a second recall for the sin of refusing to impeach the state’s top elections official or proceed with attempting to decertify President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in Wisconsin, just because there was no evidence of any vote tampering.

The radicals on the right are slowly evicting all the honest conservatives in both Europe and North America.

[Consul]

Yes (if "good" just means "good at philosophizing"), but I was asking for examples of defenders of atheistic theological voluntarism, or atheists who are theological voluntarists.

Atheistic theological voluntarism? It's almost a contradiction in terms.

It's not, according to the SEP entry:

"One does not have to be a theist in order to be a theological voluntarist.…"

Source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/volu ... eoVoluThei

Why would an Atheist be theological? And how can an Atheist be a voluntarist? Atheism seems to require Materialism or Physicalism of some kind, and those have to almost certainly end up being some kind of Determinist -- but I suppose it's possible that some who are "taxicabbing" their Atheism might think they can stop at some form of voluntarism. Maybe Voltaire was like that...Nietzsche, maybe; though he's equivocal about that.

I see no good reason why an atheist should become a metaethical theological vountarist, but an atheist can certainly be a metaethical voluntarist.
Atheism/Antitheism as such does not entail materialism/physicalism. It doesn't even entail naturalism, being compatible both with substance dualism and with spiritualist substance monism, as long as no immaterial soul/spirit is postulated as a deity (divine being).

"Good" is an adjectival thing: it has to attach to a noun. And to most nouns, it can only be relatively attached: a "good" meal, a "good" dog, a "good" story, a "good" deed...and only to one Object can it be attached absolutely, to God Himself. And it is from its reference to God that any concept of the "good" in other things can be derived at all; for it is only in their relation to Him that they have any "good" about them.

There are both moral and non-moral uses of "good". To call a meal, a car, or a tool good is not to call it morally good.
However, there is something all uses of "good" have in common:

"good = the most general adj. of commendation, implying the existence in a high, or at least satisfactory, degree of characteristic qualities which are either admirable in themselves or useful for some purpose"
—Oxford Dictionary of English

Correspondingly, "bad" is the most general adjective of condemnation, such that "good" = "commendable" ("proper to be commended, deserving of commendation or approval, praiseworthy, laudable" – OED) & "bad" = "condemnable" ("worthy of condemnation or censure, culpable, blameable" – OED). For example, to call a tool (non-morally) good is to commend it for having certain material and functional qualities that make it useful for the purpose at hand. And to call a person (morally) good is to commend her/him for her/his character or actions. Likewise, to call God good is to commend him for his character or his actions.

[Immanuel Can]

I don't care about this prominence thing, it's a canard.

Not really. If you find one radical rightist somewhere, that's not even remarkable...just as if there were only one Socialist, it wouldn't be a problem for the other side. If you find a thousand, that's a problem. If you find a million, that's a very serious problem.

If Mike Pence makes no difference, he makes no difference. And I don't think he qualifies as a radical, either. He seems a rather midline conservative, at most.

I suppose, therefore, you must mean the opponents of Mike Pence, particularly the joker with the noose, were radical. That's possible. But how many people do we know shared the noose-guy's extreme view?

Like I already said, I don't care about this prominence thing, it's a canard.

Well, I have to hold to my exception to that claim. I don't believe it's true.

It does make all the difference in the world whether the person we're talking about is being followed by anybody, or is simply a lone loony. If Mike Pence is a symbol of anything, or even an example of anything, it's got to be more significant than, well, he's an example of Mike Pence.

[Immanuel Can]

Yes (if "good" just means "good at philosophizing"), but I was asking for examples of defenders of atheistic theological voluntarism, or atheists who are theological voluntarists.

Atheistic theological voluntarism? It's almost a contradiction in terms.

It's not, according to the SEP entry:

"One does not have to be a theist in order to be a theological voluntarist.…"

Yeah, but you can only be that at the cost of being irrational.

If you want to talk about Atheism as an irrational view, I suppose we can. But if you want to suppose it's rational, then it cannot be theologically-premised. Once you reject the first premise of a syllogism, you can't any longer rationally accept the conclusion implicated.

Let's finish that quotation, and you'll see.

With respect to normative theological voluntarism: one might claim that while it is true that any being that merits the title of ‘God’ merits obedience, we should not believe that there is such a being. This reduces normative theological voluntarism to a belief in something one insists isn't according to the requisite facts to affirm the conclusion.

Likewise,

With respect to metaethical theological voluntarism: one might claim that, for example, the concept of obligation is ineliminably theistic, though there is no God; that God does not exist counts not against metaethical theological voluntarism but rather against the claim that the concept of obligation has application. This reduces metaethical theological voluntarism being something deficient of the genuinely moral; because it implies that the axioms generated by it would be without obligation: you can, and should, ignore anything generated by any such means.

So while it's possible to take these two positions irrationally, it's not possible to take them and get a truthful or obligatory morality out of them; and a morality with neither truth or obligation, I suggest is a great deal less than what any thoughtful person should understand by the word "morality."

So what question or statement did you wish to make about these two irrational kinds of Atheistic moralizing?

"Good" is an adjectival thing: it has to attach to a noun. And to most nouns, it can only be relatively attached: a "good" meal, a "good" dog, a "good" story, a "good" deed...and only to one Object can it be attached absolutely, to God Himself. And it is from its reference to God that any concept of the "good" in other things can be derived at all; for it is only in their relation to Him that they have any "good" about them.

There are both moral and non-moral uses of "good". To call a meal, a car, or a tool good is not to call it morally good.

Yes, that is true: but they are all adjectival. That's the point. We can dismiss all the example that aren't strictly moral, and it doesn't change that.

And to call a person (morally) good is to commend her/him for her/his character or actions. Likewise, to call God good is to commend him for his character or his actions.

But to construe it this way is to construe it backwards.

You and I both know, I'm sure, that human beings are not eternal. The world existed before they arrived, and uniformitarian reckoning would suggest it will exist long after they're gone. We're contingent beings, all of us. So to start from us, as if we were the prototype of goodness, and then to try to extend exactly the same reasoning to a statement about God would be to mistake antitypes for the prototype. Only God is the completeness of goodness. Man is manifestly not.

We call people "good" (in a moral sense) in a legitimate way only when we mark their relationship to the prototype, God. Inasmuch as they behave in a godly way, they are "good." Inasmuch as they behave in an ungodly way, they are "evil." When man turns his assessment around, and makes a statement such as "I believe in a good God," he is not predicating nothing, nor exactly predicating in a circular way. Rather, he is reflecting (a thing human beings were made to do) the image of God back into the universe. He is saying, "I affirm my recognition of the association between what I have come to see is goodness and what God essentially is: and I am recognizing the truth of what is revealed in Scripture about God, that
"there is none [ultimately] good, save God alone," and that "all good gifts come down from the Father or Lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow."

So God is the prototype of all goodness. Man is a palid copy, and is only partially and occasionally possesed of borrowed, reflective goodness. And when he recognizes goodness, and gets it right, what he really recognizes is the nature of God.