this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
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I hope you're enjoying the discussion, and I hope you are understanding a lot of the excellent points made here, because I have not seen you engaging with anyone so far, at least not in the Hot replies. I was hoping to see that engagement. I don't have much to add that has not already been added. It's hard to unwrap the hate and bigotry from conservative ideology nowadays. Even so-called mainstream conservative ideas like "tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy will create more money and prosperity for everyone" rings pretty hollow after over 40 years of that sort of ideology having been very thoroughly put into practice with very little benefit one could name. It's hard to engage when you can just sort of gesture to the current state of things and the lives of people who have grown up in the last 4 decades as being self-evident of the failure of that idea.
Basically, I ask, what does conservatism have to offer, really? I am completely open-minded and would listen, but you would have to do better than just repeating the same tired things I have heard my whole life, having grown up in a conservative catholic household and over 43 years slowly but surely drifting to the socialist atheist person I am now. Better believe I've heard a lot and am well-read. And there are a lot of people out there just like me.
This is the trouble I have with conservative thinking now. Even here in the UK, where our Conservatives aren't as bad as the Republicans in the US (yet), I'm at a place where I can no longer offer the benefit of the doubt to rightwing policies, because now they only seem to exist to make life hard for marginalised people. I can't point at a single member of our government who supports what they're doing because it's what they genuinely believe to be the right thing to do. They're all interested in how it can enrich them, and they'll worry about the morality later.
I mean, say what you like about Margaret Thatcher (and believe me, I do), at least she seemed to actually believe in the policies she pushed through. She had an ideology, and was given room to try it out. And it worked. For her and her rich buddies.
But these days it just seems to be hatred and fear for the sake of riling up the proles because it keeps them in power. The power is the goal, not the governance.
People forget that Thatcher was a greengrocer’s daughter too rather than a product of the Eton to Oxbridge to Parliament pipeline of privilege. In my opinion Thatcherism was like a doctor giving a near-lethal dose of chemotherapy to a patient with a broken leg but at least it was done with the intention of helping the patient, I feel the present incarnation of Tories have known since Brexit that they’re bound for a decade out of power and just want to behave as much like Russian kleptocrats as they can get away with before the election next year.
I don’t mean the Russian kleptocrat line ironically either, Boris Johnson literally put the son of one into the House of Lords as the Baron of fucking Siberia. You can’t make this up.
While I may just not be well enough informed, I'm pretty sure Ben Wallace sincerely believes that providing support for Ukraine to repel the Russian invasion is in the best long-term interests of the UK (whether you personally agree with him that it does or not.)
I do agree that most of the members of recent UK government's have been largely preoccupied with projects that directly benefit them (or people funding them) at the cost of the nation and the world and anything other than their own personal self-interests.
It's worth trying to be aware of the areas where that isn't the case as best as possible. If nothing else as important practise for trying to pick out the few buried nuggets of good from the next government...
Very well said. It's also always helpful to focus on specific examples or - if you want to generalize - on particular studies or election results or whatever. Broad assertions are often too broad to be useful (he said, asserting broadly lol).
I often struggle with ideology itself. I consider myself apolitical, so when I refer to "conservative" communities, I'm not referring to extreme individuals on either the left or right side. Essentially, I am seeking people who are pragmatic and realistic. These are individuals who prioritize double-blind peer-reviewed scientific studies over personal emotions or desires regarding how they wish the world would be. Ideologists tend to surround themselves with like-minded people, creating an echo chamber, and disregard reality in order to support their preferred narrative. They are unwavering in their beliefs, treating them almost like religious dogma. Consequently, policies based on these false narratives can have detrimental effects on those who don't subscribe to those beliefs.
I think you really hit the nail on the head. People are so sensitive to conservative viewpoints because palatable conservative arguments are so often, if not always, a trojan horse to get their foot in the door and then spout bigotry and hate.