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Conservatism vs Liberalism

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I just read a very interesting post about the innate differences between Liberalism and Conservatism:

Conservatism delivers this message: “You are special.”

And liberalism delivers this message: “You are not special.”

From that you can see why liberalism has an innate messaging problem built into the very fibers of its being, even if it is more correct.

I never thought about it this way but I think this blogger has arrived at something very useful. All of the privilege check-lists and victimization Olympics are probably so popular among Liberals because they allow to overcome this “innate messaging problem.”

The “You are not special” message is so contrary to what a person with any degree of mental health feels that it will only lead to a movement’s failure. This is why it is a message that Liberalism needs to  ditch as soon as possible.

21 responses to “Conservatism vs Liberalism”

  1. djiril Avatar
    djiril

    And yet a while back it was conservatives who were criticizing children’s television host Mr. Rogers for telling children that they WERE special. http://youtu.be/29lmR_357rA

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Remember, children are not people in this culture. 🙂

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  2. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    It kills me that that blogger doesn’t have comments. He has more good ideas per square inch than a whole bunch of people with a lot more rep (present company excepted of course).

    That said, I’m not sure I agree that much with this particular point. there is something self-defeating and loathesome about a lot of liberal thought, the whole “how can you be happy when somebody, somewhere is suffering?” that is carried to such toxic degrees that many people feel liberated just to get away from it.

    I’d say there’s a lot of difference lies in loyalties. For conservatives loyalties are predetermined by a person’s situation. People closer to you deserve more loyalty than those further away. Prestige and status come from maintaining loyalty at a price.

    For liberals, loyalties are a matter of choice (and fatally, of status). Status for liberals means rejecting those closer to them who are undeserving for whatever reason in favor of those further away and deemed more deserving.

    (there’s a metaphor out there as a response to Lakoff about ‘given’ and ‘chosen’ families in politics that’s very similar)

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Mike is phenomenal. Such a talented guy.

      I don’t get the point about loyalty, though. I remember my union organizer almost having a fit when I suggested that some of our colleagues might not be victims of the heartless system but simply lazy. It was unconscionable to him that one is “us” could be subjected to any scrutiny or criticism. But I was also one of “us”, so the poor guy was trapped.

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      1. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        I’m having some trouble verbalizing it myself (am in early stages of Reisefieber).

        Will have to think more and get back to you.

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    2. musteryou Avatar
      musteryou

      “For liberals, loyalties are a matter of choice (and fatally, of status). Status for liberals means rejecting those closer to them who are undeserving for whatever reason in favor of those further away and deemed more deserving.”

      Liberals reject complex and difficult to handl realities (close up relationships) for mental fabrications in their heads about children suffering far away.

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      1. David Bellamy Avatar
        David Bellamy

        It seems to be true that conservatives’ most profound wish is for millions of homeless elderly people to starve to death in the streets each month. One must consider the actual effects of the policies that they advocate.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          The problem is that this is exactly what conservatives say about liberals. The fiction about the death panels is all about this, for example.

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  3. Z Avatar
    Z

    “Status for liberals means rejecting those closer to them who are undeserving for whatever reason in favor of those further away and deemed more deserving.”

    …This gives status? And, what is with the assumption about judgement as key … sitting in judgement over others? And, I thought it was conservatives who were doing this like using women’s rights as an excuse for military adventures while working to circumscribe the same at home?

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  4. Shakti Avatar
    Shakti

    It’s an interesting point if you amend it to focus on white middle class and above people (and those who identify as such.)
    If you identify as poor and are poor (versus “I am a future rich person”) then neither conservatism nor liberalism has any affirmation for you.

    If you are poor, you’re either only good insofar as your efforts not to be poor are gaining traction, or you’re some poor benighted soul in somebody’s noblesse oblige, where instead of help they give you platitudes. Either way people use their social position relative to yours to feel good about themselves. You can substitute other groups in the above two sentences with varying degrees of accuracy.

    It is acutely depressing to believe you have no to little control over your destiny so in that sense liberalism fails regardless of how accurate it might be.

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  5. NancyP Avatar
    NancyP

    Yep. That’s why direct mail advertising envelopes are often labeled “YOU may have WON THIS SWEEPSTAKES”. Flattery works. Self-interest (extending to blood kin) also works.

    Related verbiage: “Conservative” = exclusive vs. “Liberalism” = inclusive
    The “Us vs. Them” mindset is likely to be more hard-wired than the mindset that sees possible mutual benefit from teaming up with “strangers” to acheive a goal. You need both mindsets to be present in a population in order to have workable government or workable anything else. To be successful in the long run, highly organised capitalism must partake of both mindsets. Doubt it? vide 2008 disaster, created largely by the failure of huge numbers of people to ‘follow the rules”.

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  6. NancyP Avatar
    NancyP

    Liberalism “You are not special” could be rephrased as “we share some traits, goals, and emotions with strangers”, with the correllary that alliances can achieve goals not achievable by limited efforts of people directly affected by the goal in question.

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  7. Benoni Avatar
    Benoni

    Conservatism takes a very specific type of person and makes them special. In the west, that type of person is a white, straight man with a family and a good job. This of course means trampling on the worth of other people, so liberalism elevates those others back to the same level as the “desirables”. Maybe that takes away a conservative’s excuse for feeling special, but that doesn’t mean they’re not special anyway just from the basic condition of being a human being. Although we’re all equally worth something, what that “something” is varies HUGELY. We’re all special in different ways, and that has nothing to do with our skin colour or gender identity or who we want to fuck. It sounds like cheesy “special snowflake” bullshit but I when I think about the people I know and why I love them, they honestly don’t have a single reason in common. People are so different from each other that it’s impossible to for one person to be significant in exactly the same way.

    I don’t believe this because I’m a liberal, I’m a liberal because I believe this. I wouldn’t what being special is if I thought I was worthy not for who being I am but for possessing some stupid descriptor, like the correct race or gender. Sure, it would give me an excuse to feel like I’m better than a lot of people, but it would also blind me to how human beings really are special. I’d have to cling to my “correct” identity while being bitterly insecure about who I actually am, instead of a soulless collection of identities I just happened to be given by chance. I’m much happier this way. Human beings are more than a pile of adjectives. So maybe liberalism isn’t all doom and gloom. You just have to shed some cultural assumptions before you can find a truth that’s much more uplifting than conservatism’s unhealthy attachment to certain ways of being.

    When I was an atheist I had to reiterate this about a million times when theists asked me what the point of living was without God, and even though I’m not an atheist anymore, I still think it’s pretty easy to prove we’re all special with completely secular logic.

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  8. Hattie Avatar
    Hattie

    The conservative message is “I’m special and you’re not.

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  9. musteryou Avatar
    musteryou

    also, what the hell is it with feeling “special”? A high quality person is very complex, often, with strong tastes and a strong capacity to stand up for what they believe in. It would not bother me if they felt they were special or not as this is rather irrelevent to their quality and is an aspect of one’s judgement that can be false.

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  10. el Avatar
    el

    A good article connected to the topic:

    Triumph of the Will

    Triumph of the Will

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    1. cliff arroyo Avatar
      cliff arroyo

      I could get past the author’s freakout over the use of the word ‘will’.

      I was reminded of this classic of paranoia and projection:
      http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-07-30/could-bowling-leagues-and-the-pta-breed-nazis-

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      1. el Avatar
        el

        // I could NOT get past the author’s freakout over the use of the word ‘will’

        The important thing is the ideas behind the rhetoric, not the word itself.

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      2. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        The author of the Bloomberg piece is probably autistic, that’s all. 🙂

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    2. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      The article is a perfect example of yet another difference between Liberalism and Conservatism. Conservatives push the message of “You are all-powerful” and the Liberals push the message “You are powerless.” Both messages are obviously problematic.

      I hated this article because of the statement “humans helping humans is the most important part of any recovery.” I have written enough about help, so I don’t think I need to repeat myself. But what a childish, uninsightful approach.

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    3. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      “And most of us who have recovered from horrifying circumstances did not do so via “will”. We did so because we had people in our lives who cared, who helped us when we needed help, who nudged us in the right direction when we needed a nudge, and sometimes through sheer blind luck of being in the right place at the right time”

      – This part for instance. I’m very grateful to everybody who supported me in my recovery from horrifying circumstances, but ultimately the source of the recovery lies inside me. And it’s solely my responsibility and nobody else’s to pursue that recovery. This is precisely the approach that allowed me not to become a burden on everybody else in the process. I always remembered that this is my tragedy and nobody else’s and nobody is supposed to suspend their lives to do the recovery for me.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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