isms and ians
Aziz P
Dean's link to Zakaria's piece about the death of conservatism inspired me to blog about how I make a distinction between ultra-left "progressivism" (eg. Counterpunch) and mainstream liberalism (eg. DailyKos). The same essay was well-received at Daily Kos, I might add - look a the poll results.
Somewhat along the same theme, willem left a rather interesting comment on Dean's post which I reprint in full:
I think Zakarias is describing "provincialism" when he attempts to describe conservatism. The proto-marxist meme of conservative vs liberal is assinine to begin with. Provincialism is the dominant remnant of the preceeding Victorian Era. We have remnants of the Victorian era all around us. What passes for "conservative" usually falls into one of these three camps; 1) a genuinely Jeffersonian originalism; 2) Father Knows Best/Leave it to Beaver fabulists; and, 3) neo-Victorian provincialists reacting badly to a changing age.
As a nation we need to get back to our Jeffersonian roots. Neither Stalin, FDR or Nixon will take us there. As long as we're rhetorically and conceptually trapped by false prophets preaching the false meme of "liberal/conservative" the orthodoxy that controls things will continue to put government and government employees first, and the rest of us, an increasingly distant second.
Food for thought, grist for debate...
Related Posts (on one page):
- isms and ians
- The Death Of Conservatism?
"A liberal society allows an individual to do whatever he or she wants, provided it doesn't harm other people. You can choose to wear PVC hotpants or a veil. You can choose to spend all day praying, or all day mocking people who pray.
Where a multiculturalist prizes the rights of religious groups, a liberal favours the rights of the individual. So if you want to preach that the Archangel Gabriel revealed the word of God to an illiterate nomad two millennia ago, you can do it as much as you like. You can write books and hold rallies and make your case. What you cannot do is argue that since this angel supposedly said women are worth half of a man when it comes to inheritance, and that gay people should be killed, you can ditch the rules of liberalism and act on it.
The job of a liberal state is not to stamp The True National Essence on its citizens, nor to promote "difference" for its own sake. It is to uphold the equal rights of every individual – whether they are white men or Muslim women. It has one liberal culture, with freedoms used differently by different people."
maybe, only offering this, its because the conservatism i embrace is akin to classical liberalism, not that birchian shit.
Caught between the traumas of the French Revolution and the American Revolution, the elite and the royals of Europe became obsessed with notions of "the master race" and the utopian ideal of a two-class paternalistic society of elites and common volk with a noble savage or two thrown in for good measure. Comparatively, the Americans were lower than commoners; savage prattle and underbred. Upstarts who knew not their proper place. Horrifying, these Americans. Lower than even the Serbs and the White Russians, how could they possibly be equals.
Out of this storm of injured identity, the great masters of identity politics, Stalin and Beria, effectively seized the term "progressive" and romanticized it as both the meme and buzzword for the new 'master race' of morally and intellectually superior communalists arising in liberation from the elites and oppressors to form a modern utopian new society to lead the modern age (circa 1923) into the grand future. In this context the international socialist term "progressives" is synonymous with "aryans" used by national socialists of the same era. How ironic this has been forgotten. Combined, these "progressive" governments murdered their own citizens in numbers 6 times greater than were killed in all wars of the 20th Century.
So there is a grand difference between confiscational, collectivist dogma and Jeffersonianism. The magic of the American accident is the placement of the individual (not the group or institution) as the central organizing principle of society; an individual with private property and certain inalienable rights; an individual imbued with equal liberty and equal protection under the law, where my rights end where yours begin and vice versa. This, in the known history of the world, remains a most radical concept for distributing power and opportunity throughout a society.
The human issue from the beginning of known history has always been individual Liberty and equal protection under the law. The problem has always been totalitarianism and authoritarianism. If we do not use these terms properly, we will get lost. There are no other terms that take their place.
Whether a Liberal or a Conservative, a Totalitarian is still a Totalitarian. An authoritarian is still exactly that. Who cares what religion or political titles are in play?
The essence of our American society and its sustainability ultimately depends upon the preserving of the sanctity of the individual and the unalienable rights arising therefrom; preserving the inviolate right to private property, and equal boundaries and protection under the law. This is so precious, both in the history of the world and in the lives of each of us today.
So I say to hell with the authoritarians. To hell with the precautionists and prohibitionists. To hell with the utopians and the "experts" and 'institutionalists" confiscating our Liberty and meddling without reasonable basis in our pursuit of happiness. I don't just say this for me. I say it for you.
Radical? Hell yes it's radical. Over 200 years old and it still sounds radical as hell. What Jefferson and the founders set in motion over 200 years ago was the real revolution.
There hasn't been another one since. The other "revolutions" so claimed have merely been an exercise to establish totalitarian order by means of an authoritarian elite.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.