• Caveman@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    Conservative / Liberal divide was aimed at the fiscal side of things. Fiscally Conservative being less about spending and focus more on the national debt and liberal being more take a loan and invest the money.

    Wikipedia told me how wrong I was just now and it’s more aimed towards maintaining the status quo in relation to a certain period in time. In Western democracies often means protecting organised religion, nuclear family, property rights, rule of law etc.

    So it’s more of an umbrella term for people who don’t want to change anything or even bring back some previous state.

    Andrew Heywood’s book “The Conservative Mind” from 1953 denotes it as

    • A belief in a transcendent order, which Kirk described variously as based in tradition, divine revelation, or natural law;

    • An affection for the “variety and mystery” of human existence;

    • A conviction that society requires orders and classes that emphasize natural distinctions;

    • A belief that property and freedom are closely linked;

    • A faith in custom, convention, and prescription, and a recognition that innovation must be tied to existing traditions and customs, which entails a respect for the political value of prudence

    With all that said it’s a pretty garbage political philosophy and pretty regressive.

    • NeilBrü@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      it’s a pretty garbage political philosophy and pretty regressive.

      In my opinion, Wilhoit boiled away the justification of authoritarians of any ilk and refined their ethos in the following 3 sentences:

      For millenia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been.

      “I’m/We’re in charge. Forever. I/We don’t need a reason. You also have to like it too, or else I’ll/We’ll kill you.”

      From Stalin, to Mao, to Hitler, to Putin, to Xi Jingping, to Trump, to <insertDouchebagBulliesHere>, it’s the same rule. “We run shit because fuck you.”

      I won’t pretend to know the proper response to that, but the most satisfying one to me is, “Go fuck yourself forever!”.