Food for Thought

Stillwater says:

Conservatism is a reaction to liberalism.

Conservatism at its core is a reaction to change which manifests at the political level as advocacy for policies and positions that prevent or slow down or oppose change, where “change” is (loosely) any deviation from the status quo which might result in unfavorable or undesirable outcomes. Liberalism, insofar as we’re viewing these things as binary (which isn’t correct but let’s roll with it for convenience), is the acceptance of change when those changes are regarded as leading to favorable or desirable outcomes. This dynamic could play out exactly as described above without the primary focus of the distinction resting on the role of government and gummental policy. That is, conservatism’s fundamental opposition to liberalism could result from the dynamic nature of economic, social, interpersonal, educational, etc – that is, non-governmental – processes over time.

The problem we’re in right now, especially with Trumpism, it seems to me, is that conservatism has increasingly viewed change as resulting from gummental sources (or more generally, liberals holding power in important social institutions) to the exclusion of any recognition that normal social life, in all it’s vast complexity, WILL entail change irrespective of gumment’s role in either fostering or inhibiting it from arising. So on this view, which is to me the fundamental danger in conservative thought, it’s only because of a vast “conspiracy” (perpetrated by The Scientists, academics, the media, the government – ie., liberals!) that anti-conservative thought has gained traction in social life and which manifest as policy or norm.

Trumpistas fit into this paradigm by thinking (as do other types of conservatives) that government can “fix” the problem of undesirable changes in American social and political life by implementing a set of policies, policies which from the outside appear to be (often enough) either unconstitutional, or practically impossible, or wildeyed fanstasies which no one with actual power would advocate for pragmatic reasons, etc. For conservatives, enacting them is a matter of “will”. (Carly promised to “will” her 3 page tax code into existence…)

This is all of a piece with Cleek’s Law, of course, in that conservatism’s positive picture of American political life is defined exclusively by opposing what Democrats or liberals want, updated daily or hourly as needed to fit the new narrative. So the problem with conservatism, seems to me, to exist at the meta-level, precisely because conservatism defines itself, in practice, by meta-terms (ie., not-liberal). And the roots of this “change” in conservatism can be found in conservatism itself: Rush and Rove and Fox News, as well as the tacit acceptance of crazy conspiracy theories because those views fit so nicely into the Law as defined by Cleek.

Which brings me to this: you wonder about what Democrats and liberals can do for working class whites and Trumpistas in general to appease some of their anger, and I’d say, pretty simply, “nothing”. There’s nothing that can be done for them since their grievances are constructed on a confusion, one created and fostered by conservatism itself. And gummint can’t solve their substantive problems, it can only inflict some pain on the groups and institutions those people think caused their discontent. The myth has over-run reality at this point.Report