What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?

[Starfury]

I found this article on the nature of social conservatism to be very interesting with many worthwhile points. It was written last year by Phil Agre, an associate professor at UCLA. It's moderately long, but I highly recommend reading its entirety. As far as I know, this hasn't been posted on DU yet, so here goes....




"What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?

Liberals in the United States have been losing political debates to conservatives for a quarter century. In order to start winning again, liberals must answer two simple questions: what is conservatism, and what is wrong with it? As it happens, the answers to these questions are also simple:

Q: What is conservatism?
A: Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.

Q: What is wrong with conservatism?
A: Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world.

These ideas are not new. Indeed they were common sense until recently. Nowadays, though, most of the people who call themselves "conservatives" have little notion of what conservatism even is. They have been deceived by one of the great public relations campaigns of human history. Only by analyzing this deception will it become possible to revive democracy in the United States.

<snip>

The tactics of conservatism vary widely by place and time. But the most central feature of conservatism is deference: a psychologically internalized attitude on the part of the common people that the aristocracy are better people than they are. Modern-day liberals often theorize that conservatives use "social issues" as a way to mask economic objectives, but this is almost backward: the true goal of conservatism is to establish an aristocracy, which is a social and psychological condition of inequality. Economic inequality and regressive taxation, while certainly welcomed by the aristocracy, are best understood as a means to their actual goal, which is simply to be aristocrats. More generally, it is crucial to conservatism that the people must literally love the order that dominates them. Of course this notion sounds bizarre to modern ears, but it is perfectly overt in the writings of leading conservative theorists such as Burke. Democracy, for them, is not about the mechanisms of voting and office-holding. In fact conservatives hold a wide variety of opinions about such secondary formal matters. For conservatives, rather, democracy is a psychological condition. People who believe that the aristocracy rightfully dominates society because of its intrinsic superiority are conservatives; democrats, by contrast, believe that they are of equal social worth. Conservatism is the antithesis of democracy. This has been true for thousands of years.

<snip>

Conservatism in every place and time is founded on deception. The deceptions of conservatism today are especially sophisticated, simply because culture today is sufficiently democratic that the myths of earlier times will no longer suffice. "

<big snip>

Much more at http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/conservatism.html

[Skittles]

1. sorry

interrupted and responded to wrong post! :o

[wtmusic]

2. Conservatism is never having to say you're sorry n/t

[cornermouse]

3. Conservatism, as practiced by the Bush administration

is a philosophy in which devotion to self reigns supreme.

[tkmorris]

4. Superb article

Thank you for posting this, it's a good read. I have never understood why Democrats have such difficulty articulating what is wrong with Conservatism and how we are different. This article says what the Dem leadership should have been saying all along.

Nominated.

[TXlib]

5. I think we need to distinguish

between the career politicians and the voters.

I have a great many conservative friends who would think this article is bunk. It is not how they define conservatism.

I think the points the article makes to a large degree are true of both major political parties, at the topmost level. For both parties, the top politicians' goals are really to maintain the status quo, to do the bidding of the big corporate money that got them their power, and to perform enough lip service to the desires of the voters to hoodwink them into voting for one over the other.

I think much more meaningful political dialogue would come about if "average guy" liberals and conservatives would drop the stereotypes about the other, and get into what they really want out of their country. Honestly, I think the battle that needs to be fought is not to pit me against my conservative neighbors, but for us to band together to try to get the big money out of politics, and get elected representatives who will do the will of the voters, not the will of the money that bought them.

[BeFree]

6. Big Money equates with aristocracy

This op article is dead on. "They" believe the elite should rule, we believe the people should rule. It's all so very clear, I don't know why no one can see the huge gap between Democrats and Republicans. The names clearly define the political guidance.

[Starfury]

7. I think that IS the point

"I have a great many conservative friends who would think this article is bunk. It is not how they define conservatism."

Exactly. If they did, I imagine they might vote differently. I totally agree that we need to separate the conservative politicians (and policy makers) from conservative voters. Conservative politicians have done an excellent job of hoodwinking many Americans by throwing out various superficial (and often non-existant) wedge issues - take the 3 G's, for example. Now, maybe your conservative friends are different from most Americans and carefully follow politics and make well-informed decisions. Obviously, I don't know them so there's no way I can know their motivations.

But there's a reason why one side of the political debate wants to shift societal burdens from the upper to the lower classes by reducing taxes for the rich, cutting benefits and programs for the least well-off, eliminating SS, etc. and the other side doesn't. That's not stereotyping. They aren't doing that simply because their corporate donors tell them to. In fact, those big donors selected conservatives over liberals precisely because their interests are more closely aligned.

This isn't simply a democrat vs. republican issue. Certainly, both parties have flaws. But at the root, these are philosophical points more than anything else. What kind of society to do we want to live in? What's the role of government? Etc. Conservative policies are designed to increase the distance between the "haves" and the "have nots," regardless of what the "haves" are called, and this essay is trying to show why (among other things). I think if more people understood that, we'd all be better off.

In my opinion, we really are in the midst of class warfare, but apparently only one class seems to realize that.