I’ll expand this answer tomorrow, to give you a proper response. Especially on the topic you picked, despite it being a rather poor example for me personally because it is one of the few parts where I have little objection to modern liberal views.
I’m much more socially conservative on things like my opinion on say gender roles, and in my criticism of various 20th century social and cultural movements. Also I toy with more radical reactionary thought such as my current estimate that Monarchy is a jolly good idea when you have a good ruling family, that democracy is incompatible with liberty and that “liberalism” is non-theistic Christianity. Also I think that Peter Thiel is right about the causes of technological stagnation. I’m not yet sure we actually are stagnating in the “world of stuff” as he calls it, but I am sure we are paying a large opportunity cost in terms of what we could do if it wasn’t for those problems.
Even before I started thinking about such issues I thought the American revolution a mistake, the French a disaster and the Russian one both.
Fun Fact: Once you dump the odd notion of moral progress occurring in our recorded history rather than merely moral change it becomes much easier to coherently preserve and argue for your values (whatever they may be).
I’m surprised by your self-identification as a socially conservative, at least as the term is understood in the US, unless it is tongue in cheek. My guess is that if you sat down to discuss politics with an average US social conservative, there would be precious little you would agree on.
I’m surprised by your self-identification as a socially conservative, at least as the term is understood in the US, unless it is tongue in cheek.
It was made in a humorous tone, I don’t self identify as socially conservative, but I do have traditionalist views on many subjects and have more in common with “paleoconservatives” than “liberals”. I do realize that I have little in interest in with what mainstream US social conservatives find worth spending their time on. But that’s just because US social conservatives are very religion centred and have pretty liberal assumptions, about things like the nature vs. nurture or the goodness of democracy.
My guess is that if you sat down to discuss politics with an average US social conservative, there would be precious little you would agree on.
Recall that to have a conservative world view, is to want to protect a particular set of values and institutions of a people at a particular time. I don’t claim I value the same institutions or the same people as US conservatives do. Surprisingly I have little in common with Muslim social conservatives in the Middle East or ancient Roman social conservatives as well. A thinking person with conservative opinions has a hard time not being a de facto cultural relativist. His is a local resistance in mindspace, requiring no more universal principles than self-defence (another case where people consistently use similar mental tools to defend something of ultimately arbitrary and relative value).
I do think I could find some common ground with a US conservative, we would agree Communism is bad, we would agree on the unacceptability of the well documented leftist bias in academia, we would agree family should be the basic unit of society and if the person was an older gentleman or a smarter conservative we could probably agree that the cultural changes in the 1960s where mostly for the worse.
and that “liberalism” in non-theistic Christianity.
Couldn’t parse that one. Did you mean “Is a non-theistic Christianity”? I’d say more of a collectivist theocracy whose political advantage is not using the word God, and thereby evading Western preferences for freedom of religion.
Technological stagnation? Only by the standards of people who thought the future meant flying cars. Moore’s law marches on in silicon, and it’s moving even faster in wetware. Ventner is busy programming new life forms from scratch. Got my 23andme SNP sequencing for $99 bucks a few years ago, and will likely get my whole genome for under $1000 in the next couple of years. Probably just in time for some serious microfluidic home blood testing (though I’ll likely have to order that from abroad, since the FDA sure as hell won’t approve.)
If I’m getting your positions right, I think I’d disagree with most of your self stylized reactionary opinions, though I’d see the point to them. From what you say I think we’re quite close on the political map—far off on the looney fringe.
Fun note: Once you dump the odd notion of moral progress occurring in our recorded history rather than merely moral change it becomes much easier to coherently preserve and argue for your values (whatever they may be).
Upvoted just for that line, because this is something I have to work on reminding myself of.
I’ll expand this answer tomorrow, to give you a proper response. Especially on the topic you picked, despite it being a rather poor example for me personally because it is one of the few parts where I have little objection to modern liberal views.
I’m much more socially conservative on things like my opinion on say gender roles, and in my criticism of various 20th century social and cultural movements. Also I toy with more radical reactionary thought such as my current estimate that Monarchy is a jolly good idea when you have a good ruling family, that democracy is incompatible with liberty and that “liberalism” is non-theistic Christianity. Also I think that Peter Thiel is right about the causes of technological stagnation. I’m not yet sure we actually are stagnating in the “world of stuff” as he calls it, but I am sure we are paying a large opportunity cost in terms of what we could do if it wasn’t for those problems.
Even before I started thinking about such issues I thought the American revolution a mistake, the French a disaster and the Russian one both.
Fun Fact: Once you dump the odd notion of moral progress occurring in our recorded history rather than merely moral change it becomes much easier to coherently preserve and argue for your values (whatever they may be).
I’m surprised by your self-identification as a socially conservative, at least as the term is understood in the US, unless it is tongue in cheek. My guess is that if you sat down to discuss politics with an average US social conservative, there would be precious little you would agree on.
It was made in a humorous tone, I don’t self identify as socially conservative, but I do have traditionalist views on many subjects and have more in common with “paleoconservatives” than “liberals”. I do realize that I have little in interest in with what mainstream US social conservatives find worth spending their time on. But that’s just because US social conservatives are very religion centred and have pretty liberal assumptions, about things like the nature vs. nurture or the goodness of democracy.
Recall that to have a conservative world view, is to want to protect a particular set of values and institutions of a people at a particular time. I don’t claim I value the same institutions or the same people as US conservatives do. Surprisingly I have little in common with Muslim social conservatives in the Middle East or ancient Roman social conservatives as well. A thinking person with conservative opinions has a hard time not being a de facto cultural relativist. His is a local resistance in mindspace, requiring no more universal principles than self-defence (another case where people consistently use similar mental tools to defend something of ultimately arbitrary and relative value).
I do think I could find some common ground with a US conservative, we would agree Communism is bad, we would agree on the unacceptability of the well documented leftist bias in academia, we would agree family should be the basic unit of society and if the person was an older gentleman or a smarter conservative we could probably agree that the cultural changes in the 1960s where mostly for the worse.
Couldn’t parse that one. Did you mean “Is a non-theistic Christianity”? I’d say more of a collectivist theocracy whose political advantage is not using the word God, and thereby evading Western preferences for freedom of religion.
Technological stagnation? Only by the standards of people who thought the future meant flying cars. Moore’s law marches on in silicon, and it’s moving even faster in wetware. Ventner is busy programming new life forms from scratch. Got my 23andme SNP sequencing for $99 bucks a few years ago, and will likely get my whole genome for under $1000 in the next couple of years. Probably just in time for some serious microfluidic home blood testing (though I’ll likely have to order that from abroad, since the FDA sure as hell won’t approve.)
If I’m getting your positions right, I think I’d disagree with most of your self stylized reactionary opinions, though I’d see the point to them. From what you say I think we’re quite close on the political map—far off on the looney fringe.
Upvoted just for that line, because this is something I have to work on reminding myself of.