Conservatism

About

Conservatism is a political identity whose adherents claim loyalty to a loose collection of beliefs, but which ultimately amounts to authoritarianism.

It should be understood that conservatism, despite the name, does not conserve anything except the power of an established hierarchy; see nymography. It is more or less a policy of lying (to the public and to each other) in support of the agendas of the powerful.

Mindset

Conservatism seems to arise from these basic values, which are rarely stated or acknowledged:

1. It's more important to feel secure than to have an accurate understanding of reality. "What you don't know can't hurt you." "If it ain't broke (for me), don't fix it."

2. It's basically impossible to evaluate policy on its own merit, so it's best to vote for the candidate you can relate to best.

3. Winning is more important than truth. (That's kind of a corollary of 2 and, to some degree, 1.)

From these basics emerge patterns such as the willingness to support someone who's obviously lying or being hypocritical -- conservative voters don't care about details like accuracy; they just care that he's their liar/hypocrite, someone they find relatable.

People who position themselves as conservatist leaders may not actually believe the positions they espouse. The point of advocating a position, in the conservatist social realm, is to unify and engage people to support the leader's quest for power and victory.

Pages

positions taken by conservatism
nymography: the terminological landscape
US: conservatist identity in the United States
asymmetry: the rules do not apply equally

Social Conservatism

Social conservatives believe that there is "wisdom embedded in [existing] social structures/norms", and that we tamper with those structures at our peril. In other words, the current social norms are the way they are because they have been proven to work over a long period of time, and there is considerable danger if they cease to work properly.

The implication of this is that we don't know how those norms got the way they are, nor why they work. This is at odds with the idea that we as a civilization have been documenting our own history in considerable detail for many centuries now, and are indeed quite capable of noting which experiments have succeeded, which failed, and which were made popular or unpopular without correlation to (and for reasons other than) their success or failure at their intended purpose. The social conservative attitude essentially favors custom over understanding, shuns experimentation, and fears the possible consequences.

Social conservatives are at odds with social liberals on certain issues:

marriage (liberals want to broaden it, conservatives don't)
death penalty (conservatives for, liberals against)
gun control (conservatives against, liberals for)

Fiscal Conservatism

Fiscal conservatives are more concerned about unnecessary government expenditure, and tend to prefer solutions where private industry or "faith-based" groups provide the bulk of the funding. For this reason, they tend to seek solutions based in free market incentives. They also tend to be against government regulation, however, which they unfortunately often seem to forget is a requirement for a free marketplace.

Quotes

[ Rudyard Kipling ] was a conservative in the sense that he believed civilization to be something laboriously achieved which was only precariously defended. He wanted to see the defences fully manned and he hated the liberals because he thought them gullible and feeble, believing in the easy perfectibility of man and ready to abandon the work of centuries for sentimental qualms.

— Evelyn Waugh [?]

Links

Reference

Wikipedia
Conservapedia
~~dKosopedia~~ no equivalent article (as of 2008-03-27); see search
SourceWatch
RationalWiki (redirects to Conservative)

Orgs (non-US)

Christian Voice (UK)