When Conservatism is Right
Ron Paul is a tool. This is one politician that I really don't agree with on anything. To start things off, he is socially conservative. I'm pretty socially liberal. I want women to control whether or not they have to go through bringing a child into this world, and I would love it if more people would help gays adopt children. etc. etc. This isn't really the point of what I am writing, however. What really bugs me about Ron Paul is that it seems to me that he believes that this country was perfect about 100 years ago, and all we need to do is roll back everything and we will be good to go.
I don't think this is real conservatism. This kind of thinking is about idealizing the past, and being comfortable with going back to how things used to be. True conservatism is about keeping the status quo. As opposed to liberalism which is about change, and doing things that probably have never been done before.
We can think of these three paradigms as past, present, and future: radical conservatism, conservatism, and liberalism. I think Ron Paul's kind of conservatism is easy to dismiss. The fact is that we have tried it before, and what we are doing now is probably better. Almost every generation of Americans has had a better standard of living than the generation before them. It didn't get like that from us moving radically backwards every time we have a problem. Radically is an important modifier there, because people like Ron Paul are quite radical. Instead of adjusting and fixing what we have, they want us to throw it all out.
Conservatism, on the other hand, is probably the most natural of viewpoints for most people. We can handle the status quo pretty easily, even if we know it isn't ideal. The unknown is scary to most people. Change is feared. It makes us uncomfortable. It gives us anxiety. Our conservatism has probably worked very well for us in many situations throughout human history. The problem comes when people irrationally hold onto the status quo. When people irrationally fear change. Subsequently, those who hold onto the title of conservative are more likely to be intellectually lazy and reason from a more emotional perspective. Conservatives do not need to be rigorous and objective, they have powerful emotional tools at their disposal, which many of them use indiscriminantly and sometimes despicably.
Liberalism, has its own set of problems. Because we are exploring the unexplored, there is of course the possibility of going astray, of making things worse. Even if you don't make things worse, you have people like Ron Paul who idealize the past and then it looks to them like you have made things worse. Liberalism requires the most intelligence, the most imagination, and the most diligence. Liberals must find real, robust solutions to problems that are more than a conservative adjustment. They must share their imagination, their vision of their solution with others and they must be eloquent enough for others to see their vision and see it working. It is a difficult job to have vision. It requires bravery to lead a country through intense changes. The problems that we have now are problems that civilization has had for millenia; there aren't anymore low-hanging fruit in a world of six billion people.
And we do have problems. Many people are content with their lives because the world they live in--their job, their house, their family--is pretty damn good as is (this is probably the main reason why rich people are more often conservative than liberal). What about health care? What about the increasing division between rich and poor? What about the burdensome spending of our military-industrial complex?
The point is, there is a time to be conservative, and it is when we have checked off all of our big problems. After that we can elect people like George Bush and let them play golf and mend fences for their entire term. Then there is a time to be liberal, and that is when the status quo is not acceptable, not sustainable, or simply not the best we can do. Most people would agree that our current status quo fits all three. This is not the time to elect intellectually lazy geriatrics with ignorant apocalypticist running mates. This is the time to elect a smart president who actually has a chance at solving or at least improving many of our collective problems. The country has been mismanaged by silly old men for eight years now. The status quo is the last thing that we need.
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You are far too intelligent to write superficial analysis like this. You are trying to find some analogy between innovative and liberal, but the facts show that such does not exist. You are also trying to generalize groups of people who are far too diverse to fit in just two categories -- the lazy minded conservatives and the innovative liberals. The fact is that the "liberal" in power, right now, are basing their fiscal policy on a 80 years old economic theory. There is nothing truly innovative in what they are doing and this is why it is not going to solve the underlying problems of greed and moral decay. Also, as far as economic theory is concerned, what is conservative in the States today, was the most innovative economic theory of 200 years ago. History does repeat itself and the existence of economic cycles is undeniable. No, liberalism is far from exploring the unexplored. The social problems that you discuss (health care, social injustice, etc.) are problems that have been pondered over since the end of feudalism if not longer. Some solutions presented themselves in the form of monarchy, national socialism, communism, fascism, anarchism, and democracy. The bottom line is that we have not found a system that works all the time for everyone while preserving some commonly accepted human values, and true advances have not been made in a long time. I disagree that the liberals have made new discoveries and unfortunately for the most part both sides are looking for a solution in the recycle bin of economic and political thought. I don't think that conservatives are afraid of new solutions, but they are concerned with repeating old mistakes.
Also, there are common human values that are shared amongst people even if we have different definitions. Take for example freedom. There are some decent economical arguments in defense of slavery, yet most people on both sides of the political and social spectrum tend to agree that venturing into such thinking is unacceptable. By your definition that makes us all conservative.
So then where are the true, liberal ideas presenting new solutions to our social problems? And by your definition are you not a lazy minded conservative too?
I think you missed the point.
I'm not talking about individuals, or political parties, necessarily (maybe I shouldn't link to Obama). I'm talking about ideology.
Having a conservative ideology means you don't really want things to change, or you think they can just be tweaked a little bit. When you need big change, to fix broken systems, you need to think more liberally, and because you're aiming for some bigger change, it's easier to misguide things. If you only tweak, you can only be a little wrong.
So, yes, liberalism is daring to be innovative, daring to fail.
I think if you re-read what I said without labeling 'liberals' democrats, and 'conservatives' republicans, it will make more sense.
Beyond that, we are not just recycling old ideas. There has never existed a country like us, with the problems that we face. What works well on a small scale, may not work anymore in a country of 50 states and 300 million people. Ignoring these variables is just intellectually lazy and idealistic. Also, to say we are just recycling old solutions is serious over-simplification.
Look at the field of Behavioral Economics. It is extremely young, but it offers incredible understanding of the realities of our economy and potential for better policy-making and economic systems.
To think that we can't understand or do things better, or that we've already tried everything is something a conservative would say. :) To say we can't do things better than we did 100 years ago is something Ron Paul would say. Which is why he's a douche.
Beyond that. This would probably be more fitting on my blog, as I don't think there is any research here...