Whatever “conservatism” is, it does not involve the conservation of a stable climate, or the polar ice caps, or the coral reefs, or the global food supply.

  • raccoona_nongrata
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    10 months ago

    I’ve always concieved of the “conserve” part of conservativism to be that it cleaves to solutions that no longer work. It’s arguable that it’s a conservation of aristocracy/monarchy as well.

    I know we live in a political environment where a lot of people expect you to automatically give conservative ideology some default level of legitimacy as if it’s just a natural reality of human endeavours, but it really is a fundementally irrational political philosophy except in the case that someone’s goal is to preserve the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of the few.

    Humanity, despite all our recent progress, is still fighting the war started by the French revolution, albeit in a less clear and obvious way. The mistake comes at thinking tyranny wouldn’t try to adapt to democracy.

    So I’d argue against even the premise underlying this article that there’s a “good” conservativism. Rather than trying to reconcile with it, we should push to put it on the trash bin of philosophically bankrupt ideas (like monarchism itself).