Feedback Part Deux "Daily Blog - Hard Wired non-Conservatives"

Daily Blog - Hard Wired Non-Conservatives - 19 June 2023
As a generalization, I have found that most educated non-conservatives' political positions are hard wired. Non-conservatives have been so engrained in the establishment big government narrative as it slow walks US citizenry to tyranny that it hasn't occurred to them to think through what is really going on. Notwithstanding many non-conservatives having been well educated they haven't tested their political beliefs against happenings in the world around them via critical thinking and debate. Accordingly, when challenged, they usually default to ridicule or dismissal, not idea exchange and dialogue.

SDT
stephendewitttaylor.com

Conservatives and Liberals:

  1. We go back to Edmund Burke and Adam Smith, who incidentally were friendly with each other. Liberals go back to Rousseau.
  2. We believe that the human condition is an inherently tragic one, but it has elements of grandeur and ecstasy. Liberals believe that we can create utopias.
  3. We believe in the sacred. We do not believe that the material world answers everything. Liberals believe in a material cause and effect chain that completely explains the world.
  4. We tend to have strong personal views about the sacred. But we understand that other views are possible and are comfortable as long as the existence of sacredness/transcendence is not denied. Liberals believe that sacredness/transcendence is a “plot” on the part of the powerful to retain power.
  5. We believe that civilization is fragile and in it’s absence, we can easily descend into barbarism. Liberals believe that civilization is the problem and that the original human condition before civilization intervened, was “noble”.
  6. We believe in individual agency even if there are limits and limitations. Liberals believe that individuals are not free and are in fact conditioned and trapped by powerful forces.
  7. We believe human beings on this planet should attempt freely to enter into communion with the divine. Our powers are limited by randomness, unintended consequences and what we sometimes refer to as divine agency. Liberals believe that human beings are engaged in the exercise of power and the only social/political issue is about who exercises power. References to the divine are at best useful in order to exercise power.
  8. We believe that music, dance, sculpture, painting, architecture, textiles, landscape gardening, religious rituals, prayers, poetry, drama, chanting, festivals and so many other products of civilization are testament to our engagement with the divine. Liberals believe that all these are instruments of power and hence inherently purely political.
  9. We believe that small groups---families, clubs, music societies, amateur theatrical societies, church and temple groups----are the way we should socially organize. Liberals believe that it is the state that represents our collective will and the state should organize us.
  10. We believe that the moral contract is between individuals and their consciences which hopefully are touched by the sacred. Liberals believe that morality is a collective enterprise.
  11. We believe that progress is possible that things can slowly get better, but that even “getting better” will not resolve the fundamental issues associated with the human predicament which only an encounter with the sacred can help us deal with. Liberals believe that we can get better collectively and that human problems can be resolved and the only thing holding us back is the conservative tryst with the so-called sacred which is purely a ploy for preservation of power.
  12. We believe that despite human agency at the end of the day, we are a tad powerless in the face of the universe. Liberals believe that there are no limits to the power we have to re-order the world.
  13. We believe that we owe a debt to our ancestors and that we owe a tentative legacy to our descendants. Liberals believe that our ancestors were devious power-brokers and that it is our obligation to take us and our descendants to utopia.
  14. We believe that the sovereign needs to be virtuous and non-intrusive and needs to ensure that citizens can live without fear. Liberals believe that the sovereign should ensure that citizens conform to collective morality. Hence the drive for political correctness.
  15. We believe that power is only one of the factors affecting our lives. Liberals believe that power or its absence is the overwhelming central factor.

While paying homage to Burke and Smith as our intellectual forebears, I have argued in my book "Indian Conservatism," that while strictly speaking not an ideology, the conservative instinct is universal, and I have traced its intellectual lineage several thousand years back in Indic traditions.

Liberals may argue that I have caricatured their positions. I am open to discussions about the nature of liberalism that I might have misinterpreted. But I rarely hear such arguments. I am simply dismissed as a rich, upper caste defender of power structures by means of ad hominem attacks. This is especially the case with comments that follow my published articles and even in the case of full-fledged ripostes.

It appears that WE just cannot engage with THEM. Burke anticipated this. We find it difficult to talk to folks who so hate our “ancien” inheritance that they even change the calendar (e.g. Brumaire, Thermidor etc.).

Jerry Rao,
Bangalore, Karnataka
20 June 2023

Highlighted by Mwah (sic) and not the author.

Jerry. Thanks for this! PRINT! SDT