> The bottom line is a cautious attitude towards imposing changes that do not arise spontaneously from a society’s complex cultural ecosystem. Kirk’s perspective emphasizes how complexly interrelated society is, contrasted with “constructivists” arguing we can deliberately construct a world free from the problems of the past. Deliberate changes should be made with great care, to avoid unexpected problems. This is the core insight regarding Edmund Burke’s criticism of the French Revolution, and if modern conservatism has a single intellectual founder, it would be Burke.
Seems like the real heart of conservatism is the preservation of traditional social hierarchies. When conservatives need to make rapid change in order to protect those social hierarchies, they repeatedly choose to do so. I think that shows where their real priorities lie.
I think Paxton’s decision to define fascism by what it *does* rather than what its intellectuals *say it is* is influential to how I see conservatism at this point. I don’t really care about what conservatives say. I care about what they do. Movement intellectualism has always been a retroactive justification of our value system anyways imo.
Does anyone think “progressives” have an innate principled interest in society making changes? No, their core principle is equity, forcing people into being equal. Sometimes that impulse leads to terrible policies – sometimes brilliant policies. But the the “speed of change” isn’t actually what’s driving them. The same is true of conservatives in reverse. They’re fighting against a more equitable society. That’s what animates them.
After all these “intellectual conservatives” have shown they’ll materially and rhetorically support a fascist movement over liberal democracy, I don’t think there’s a lot of honesty and self-awareness in the movement (here, and perhap I’m overindexing on this, but I can’t help but think of Patrick Deneen very clearly refusing to reveal his real thoughts in his interview with Ezra Klein, hiding behind academic language and rhetoric). Better to adopt Paxton’s approach and simply study what they actually do instead of what they say they’ll do.
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> The bottom line is a cautious attitude towards imposing changes that do not arise spontaneously from a society’s complex cultural ecosystem. Kirk’s perspective emphasizes how complexly interrelated society is, contrasted with “constructivists” arguing we can deliberately construct a world free from the problems of the past. Deliberate changes should be made with great care, to avoid unexpected problems. This is the core insight regarding Edmund Burke’s criticism of the French Revolution, and if modern conservatism has a single intellectual founder, it would be Burke.
Seems like the real heart of conservatism is the preservation of traditional social hierarchies. When conservatives need to make rapid change in order to protect those social hierarchies, they repeatedly choose to do so. I think that shows where their real priorities lie.
I think Paxton’s decision to define fascism by what it *does* rather than what its intellectuals *say it is* is influential to how I see conservatism at this point. I don’t really care about what conservatives say. I care about what they do. Movement intellectualism has always been a retroactive justification of our value system anyways imo.
Does anyone think “progressives” have an innate principled interest in society making changes? No, their core principle is equity, forcing people into being equal. Sometimes that impulse leads to terrible policies – sometimes brilliant policies. But the the “speed of change” isn’t actually what’s driving them. The same is true of conservatives in reverse. They’re fighting against a more equitable society. That’s what animates them.
After all these “intellectual conservatives” have shown they’ll materially and rhetorically support a fascist movement over liberal democracy, I don’t think there’s a lot of honesty and self-awareness in the movement (here, and perhap I’m overindexing on this, but I can’t help but think of Patrick Deneen very clearly refusing to reveal his real thoughts in his interview with Ezra Klein, hiding behind academic language and rhetoric). Better to adopt Paxton’s approach and simply study what they actually do instead of what they say they’ll do.