Question on Conservative Mindset
- Thread starter Magrat
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I've seen otherwise bigoted people get it when it impacts one of their own. But you are right. The ones on the reactionary end will disown members of their families. For them the bubble contracts.
F., the right wing friend I've spoken of takes empathy as just being an emotional snowflake singing kumbaya. He doesn't do much empathy except for those very close to him. He's stated that Conservatives are smarter than Liberals, because they don't get carried away by their emotions. A conservative, according to him, can see the "rational" utility of separating migrant children from their parents as a deterrent.
Yes, your right. More often they double down the hostility. And that grieves me for the penumbra of their hate falls on me as well. It sends the message that I don't have the right to be an individual person. And that's very important to me since I've always felt a mismatched puzzle piece in the wrong box.
Yes that's always an important point when we are talking Liberals/Conservatives.
This has turned more into an attempt to build a stereotype than an effort at understanding.
First of, you just don't know if a reaction to political disagreement is part of a conservative mindset or just how political disagreement is normally handled in your culture, unless you troll people you agree with. (Admittedly, beating children is a conservative thing.)
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Just because someone is instinctively neophobe does not mean that they become politically or religiously conservative. It just means that they avoid new experiences. Actively being a dick to LGBT people is likely to expose you to new situations. It's not an obvious consequence of being a neophobe.
Some people worry about what cellphones or facebook will do to a generation growing up with it. That's conservative on some level but not associated with political or religious conservartism.
As we age we find it harder to learn new things. We may not have any other choice but to avoid the new but that does not mean that we become hostile to it. But maybe if the environment encourages hostility then we may find that we save face by adopting that attitude rather than admitting our deficiencies.
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If you want to understand why religion is associated with the right you must look at history. Europe's monarchs were defenders of that faith. Governments prosecuted atheists and apostates. In return the churches gave spritual support to the monarchs who supposedly ruled by the will of god. It was a symbiotic relationship.
As a result european revolutionaries are by default opposed to religion. When the French Revolution killed the king the other european monarchs formed the Holy Alliance and started a religious war against France. Diderot is quoted: "Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."
If you have religious groups that consider child beating to be mandatory then that will be associated with the right.
First of, you just don't know if a reaction to political disagreement is part of a conservative mindset or just how political disagreement is normally handled in your culture, unless you troll people you agree with. (Admittedly, beating children is a conservative thing.)
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Just because someone is instinctively neophobe does not mean that they become politically or religiously conservative. It just means that they avoid new experiences. Actively being a dick to LGBT people is likely to expose you to new situations. It's not an obvious consequence of being a neophobe.
Some people worry about what cellphones or facebook will do to a generation growing up with it. That's conservative on some level but not associated with political or religious conservartism.
As we age we find it harder to learn new things. We may not have any other choice but to avoid the new but that does not mean that we become hostile to it. But maybe if the environment encourages hostility then we may find that we save face by adopting that attitude rather than admitting our deficiencies.
---
If you want to understand why religion is associated with the right you must look at history. Europe's monarchs were defenders of that faith. Governments prosecuted atheists and apostates. In return the churches gave spritual support to the monarchs who supposedly ruled by the will of god. It was a symbiotic relationship.
As a result european revolutionaries are by default opposed to religion. When the French Revolution killed the king the other european monarchs formed the Holy Alliance and started a religious war against France. Diderot is quoted: "Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."
If you have religious groups that consider child beating to be mandatory then that will be associated with the right.
It's really important that you guys understand this is NOT the perspective over here, where being conservative is not the opposite of being liberal, nor says anything at all about religiosity. Conservatism over here really boils down to your view of government debt and the size of the public sector, and really not much more than that. Here atheism, which exceeds 50% of the population, is weakly associated with education rather than any neophobia or any political affiliation. And of course, it was a Conservative government in the UK which brought in gay marriage. The stuff about nobles versus the church would evoke rolling eyes and mutterings of "a plague on all their houses" if we were ever to hear such stuff (most unlikely).
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ponderingturtle
Orthogonal Vector
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Just like when Cracker barrel is forced to serve blacks.
ponderingturtle
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I've seen otherwise bigoted people get it when it impacts one of their own. But you are right. The ones on the reactionary end will disown members of their families. For them the bubble contracts.
F., the right wing friend I've spoken of takes empathy as just being an emotional snowflake singing kumbaya. He doesn't do much empathy except for those very close to him. He's stated that Conservatives are smarter than Liberals, because they don't get carried away by their emotions. A conservative, according to him, can see the "rational" utility of separating migrant children from their parents as a deterrent.
Yep, and how else was germany supposed to solve their jewish problem? I mean they tried to export them but no one would take them, and then they get all upset over people they clearly didn't care about. Simple dispassionate solution that.
ponderingturtle
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Yes and no. It seems to be a rejection that their birth gave them a leg up in the world. Kavanaugh really hits that well when he claims unlike minorities he got into Yale on just hard work. Of course he was also a legacy. And largely they don't see the hypocrisy there.
ponderingturtle
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Do they actually do anything about debt other than drive it up there like they do here? Or do they actually try to behave in anything like a fiscally responsible manner?
I'm really anxious about Rule 11 having whinged about it so much here in the past, so this is perhaps a discussion for elsewhere. The answer is that they try to, but don't always succeed......and if there is a party which will attempt to keep taxes low and debt low, it is the conservatives, but at a social cost which isn't always palatable.
luchog
Neo-Post-Retro-Revivalist
Oh please. Everything I have said about conservatives in this country come from my own direct experiences. I was raised in a staunchly conservative, religious-right family, attending hardline-religious-right churches up until I was in my early '30s. These are not stereotypes, these are actual personal observations of people I grew up with and around, viewed through the lens of someone who bought into it up until I started attending college and was more widely exposed to other worldviews.
It is very, very difficult to exaggerate the reactionary-conservative mindset. As individuals they can certainly vary, but as a group (bringing in-group/out-group into play) they are very consistent, and tend strongly toward extremism.
All you have to do is go listen to their pundits like Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Fallwell, Franklin Graham, and so on. These are not the nutcase fringe, these are mainstream figures with literally millions of followers. Followers who fully believe that natural disasters are sent by G-D to punish the US for legalizing gay marriage, and punish other nations for following "false idols". People who believe that Hillary Clinton was involved in a child sex ring run out of a DC pizza shop. People who literally see Americans, particularly white Americans as "G-D's Chosen People". People who go into outrage about the "War on Christmas". People who fear that there are hordes of atheists and Muslims and hippie new agers who are literally trying to destroy them, and they only survive and hold on to power because it is "G-D's will". And with Trump, they've effectively resurrected the "divine right of kings" for the modern age.
The ability to snub people who need a good snubbing. It’s their role as a good member of society to snub people who are screwing up society (by being gay, doing the miscegenation, indulging in divorce, check boxes as appropriate for what is Ruining Our Country this time) to show that kind of thing doesn’t get a pass around here. Usually because they decided God Really Cares About That so to do any less makes them feel like their doing-right-by-God-o-meter is flagging. That much of the rest of society decided That isn’t so bad makes them feel like society is getting ruined. Who is going to do all the snubbing?? Who is going to gatekeep our society?? It’s down to me. *rolls up sleeves*
ETA: most likely underlying that is the basic human ‘change bad’ butting up against ‘change ok’ as y’all have been discussing. They think society really needs that gatekeeping or it’ll all just go to hell. It’s one thing to ignore what Those Guys Are Doing Over There, the problem is too big for you to tackle alone, but actually raising your hand to participate with them like normal welcome members of society? Well that would make you complicit in the ruining of society. Or just the offending of God or what have you.
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Bollocks. Of course anglicans prefer the conservative party.
It's true that there is no republican atheistic tradition in british politics. That's because these things were illegal. Historically anglicanism and conservatism are still aligned for the reasons given.
Liberal means different things in the US and in the UK (and in other countries) for historical reasons. Do not confuse the different meanings.
Ok. So you have uncovered the conservative mindset. Now what? What solutions can you develop using your insight?
I grew up with a couple of thuggish black guys and all you have to do is listen to rap to.............
Taking away the perks and advantages of "the landed gentry" in the lest seems to them a persecution. A Class War!
I suppose the same is the mindset of most Evangelical Christians find their religion isn't allowed to dominate in a secular society.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
At the very least if we came up with a method of making Thanksgiving dinner with older relatives less agonizing that would be awesome.
On second thought, can you see anything wrong with that comment?
Hellbound
Merchant of Doom
That's why you should be a conservative.
You de-fund Medicare and Social Security, and stand against any sort of universal health care. Then the older relatives die off quicker because of the lack of adequate health care and you get a peaceful Thanksgiving!
It's the Circle of Life.