Further thoughts on previous post

[avevale_intelligencer]

Thank you to everyone who commented thoughtfully on my wibblings and didn't scare me off. :)

melodyclark pointed out that "conservative" as a word has changed its meaning quite radically in recent decades, so I should explain that when I froth and rant about "conservatism" I'm not talking about being a bit prudent, a bit frugal, maybe a little neophobic, or having a pension plan and wearing a tie to work. I am talking about Conservatism as she is practiced in your country and mine today, the vicious, gleeful, selfish, hypocritical monstrosity that stops at nothing as it lies and steals and cheats its way towards its goal of the Greatest Good For The Smallest Number. Unfortunately, using the capital C doesn't help to differentiate between the two meanings.

jslove offered an encapsulation which I fear is both too kind and too simplistic. To say "conservatism is the politics of fear" leaves several questions unanswered, and also invites the rest of the syllogism: fear is sometimes a useful thing, therefore conservatism can sometimes be...well, you know. I'm not even going to complete that sentence. The thing is, conservatism is the politics of a particular kind of fear, the fear of being forced to give up what one has come by unfairly. Conservatism is the politics of privilege. It uses other kinds of fear as weapons and tools of manipulation, but this particular fear is the fear that drives it, yoked together with greed. There are those who would say that greed is also sometimes useful, but I think they're just playing with words.

He's right about the voters being kept in a state of confusion and fear so they can't think, and I can do you a fine paranoid rant about how every single advert you see on the telly is designed to contribute to this climate without even using fnords, but that's just the outer tentacles thrashing. The one fear that rules them all is the fear that someone will come along and say "it's wrong for you to have all that when so many others have nothing. I'm going to take away everything you don't really need and share it out among people who do need it." (Actually, I could maybe argue a case for the One Ring being conservatism, but perhaps not here.) To that single central fear can be traced all the core beliefs that make up conservatism, the polystyrene rocks to which they desperately cling: the belief that it's possible to be exceptional enough to deserve to have more than anyone else, the belief that anyone who doesn't have enough, or looks different, or doesn't wear a tie, is after yours and must be kept down, the belief that, while it may look unfair to other people, it's actually God's will that things are this way. (Conservatism is not to blame for Christianity, nor vice versa. Let's get that out of the way before we get derailed.)

It isn't about being a control freak, or about thinking things would be better if you were in charge; those are just side issues, common to every stripe of politics. It's about collaring everything you can and sitting on it, passing it on to your heirs, and preventing anyone from even thinking about taking it away from you. The key word is privilege, and that is what true, ideal, never-been-tried socialism is out to destroy, and that is why socialism will never catch on as long as we all cherish the hope of being able to hang on to just a teeny tiny bit of our privilege, really, just an eentsy weentsy smidge, you wouldn't even notice it--because if that is seriously threatened, we will be tempted to choose the conservative side of the Force just to protect it. Trust me, if some bod from the Ministry of Culture comes along and proposes to distribute ninety per cent of our books among the poor, I will be resisting that suggestion by whatever means I can.

And rest.

Comments

[frostfox.livejournal.com]

I'm left wing to the core, part of that is because everytime I speak to a Conservative (UK Tory type) they start their argument with "I'm better off with the Conservatives".
Well, "I" don't want just me to be better off, I want us all to be better off. Me, my family, my friends, the couple up the road, the big family at number 22, the old couple who run the corner shop. All of us.
Plus I'm old enough to remember Thatcher and still hate the bitch for what she did to us with the heat of 1000 firey suns. The nail in the coffin of the last Tory debacle being the privitisation of public utilities, how the hell can you sell British Gas (for example) back to me WHEN I ALREADY OWN IT. Bastards (pardon me French)

FF (bit of a hot topic with me, can you tell?)

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

No, really?

I resisted being left wing for a long time, partly because of a fear I had (there's that word again) that if everything were shared out equally nobody would have enough. As I've grown older and seen more of the world I've realised that that fear was deliberately created and fostered in me and others like me by the other side, to keep us in line.

As old John said, gods bless him, this is a rich planet, as long as we don't go and wreck the biosphere beyond repair. We all deserve exactly equal shares in it, according to our specific needs, no more, no less. If that doesn't feel like enough, then that really is our problem. But I don't think it would for most of us.

Having said that, I'm not going to be doing a personal Saint Francis any time soon. But if a potential government comes along that will work honestly towards greater fairness and less privilege, I'll gladly vote for it.

[wolfette]

we've got elections for the Scottish Parliament at Hollyrood coming up on 5th May. The current (just ended) Scottish government was a "balanced parliament" - ie, SNP minority. They never had enough of a majority to push though their policies, every bill had to be passed by the whole house. Government by concensus.

Consequently in the Party Political Election broadcasts several parties are claiming to have been 'responsible' for the same (popular) results.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

All claiming the same thing simply makes them all look fools, which IMO is no bad thing.

How did the "balanced parliament" thing work in practice? Did it, as the fear-mongers (of /all/ parties) try to push, mean that nothing got done at all, or did they actually cooperate?

We're having the AV referendum next month, and one thing the power-hungry (again, in all parties) are saying that it will result in more 'hung' parliaments (a good thing IMO, hang the lot of them). I on the other hand would like to see all parliaments having no one (or group) who can force their policies through. Although when all of them are leaning the same way it doesn't really matter much...

[wolfette]

for the most part they co-operated, deals were made between parties for various things and quite a bit of legislation got passed.

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

Not neophobic, Zander. Just the daughter of a woman who believed in living for the day and to hell with the rest of the year. lol It does tend to make you frugal as a squirrel.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to imply that *you* were neophobic. :) It is one of the traits that customarily goes with the milder, innocuous form of conservativeness (ah, that distinguishes nicely). In acute cases of conservatism, of course, it's a lot more serious.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Because the topic is interesting and I have a little time post-Passover to catch up and read back and digest:

Trust me, if some bod from the Ministry of Culture comes along and proposes to distribute ninety per cent of our books among the poor, I will be resisting that suggestion by whatever means I can.

There is, of course, a difference in that money (or gold bullion or barrels of oil or bushels of wheat) are fungible, whereas books are (generally) not.

However, I think you're on to something here that I'm going to think further on.