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Conservatism or fear-mongering (lemmy.world)
submitted 7 months ago by Solumbran@lemmy.world to c/conservative@lemm.ee
35 comments fedilink hide all child comments

To my knowledge, the concept of "conservatism" is the will to conserve, preserve past values that are seen as superior. While I don't agree with this either, this community has almost exclusively posts about fearing new things and trying to show them as evil. Evil migrants, evil new generations, evil new sexualities, whatever.

I do not see any "values" in it, only fear. Rejecting migrants is not based on morals or values that are rational, but on fear. Same for the rest. Which leads to the question, what is the point of this community? It does not lead to debate, people calling it out as fascism on one side (which is quite justified as the root ideas are seemingly identical) and the other side just saying that it's wrong and that's it. There's no debate of values, as there are no values to debate about.

I do not agree with the concept of conservatism, and I couldn't care less if this place is forever doomed to be downvoted in oblivion. But if you actually want to do something else than fear-mongering, even if you insist on talking about conservatism, then maybe it would be a good idea to refocus the community on actual ideas, and not the typical far-right speeches of hatred and fear that already flood a lot of media.

Of course I believe that it would be better to reconsider opinions that basically encourage the worst of humanity; but even aside from that, there is more to do than to replace every possibility of a conversation with the (stereo)typical "immigrants bad, jesus good, gays evil" speech.

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[-] yesman@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Capital c Conservatism is about hierarchy. Hierarchies of race, gender, sexuality, or whatever. Any category imaginable must fit into an order with some on the top who rule over the masses at the bottom. Egalitarian ideals like democracy are disgusting to the Conservative, unless the franchise is exclusive to the "right" people.

God, guns, country, freedom, and capitalism are trends that come and go, but from Edmond Berk to Jordan Peterson, hierarchy is the throughline.

[-] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee -1 points 7 months ago

Not sure I agree with this. I could care less about your sexuality, gender or race. It’s the least interesting thing about you. To liberals it’s the only way they define themselves. It’s the only thing they are. It’s weird to me.

[-] Izzgo@kbin.social 1 points 7 months ago

It's weird to me to be in a conservative thought space like this and see someone say they don't care about my sexuality among other things. Because when I am in a real life conservative space, and I (69f) walk around town with my spouse (67f) literally minding our own business and not so much as holding hands, we regularly get stared at, laughed at, and occasionally spit at. We get denied restaurant service. Sales clerks may permit us to make a purchase, but they take a step backwards while taking our payment. Or instead they might disappear into the back room and not reappear until after we leave the store.

Trust me, it's not ME focusing on my sexuality. It's the conservatives around me. I'm just window shopping and stopping for lunch in a town I haven't visited before.

[-] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee -2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I don’t know any conservative who cares about your sexuality.

I’ve never seen that happen and my best friend is a trans woman who looks like a dude in a dress. She is not the least bit passing to anyone other than herself. She’s liberal. I’m conservative and nobody ever says a word to us when we are out and about. So maybe you need to stop and think about what you’re doing to repel people. My brother best friend was openly homosexual in the 80’s and no one ever denied us service when we all went out. I mean he was openly flaming gay. Never an issue.

So I am not saying your experience is false, but doesn’t match the experience I’ve had being around people of different sexualities than my own. Most people just don’t care unless you make a weird scene.

[-] Izzgo@kbin.social 2 points 7 months ago

I would dearly love to live in the world you believe you inhabit. I won't bother continuing this discussion with you though, as I KNOW I'm doing nothing socially inappropriate or offensive beyond walking or eating next to my wife.

[-] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee -2 points 7 months ago

I just have a hard time believing people are spitting about you in the modern age.

When Growing up in the Bible Belt with an openly gay person in my social circle didn’t ever cause an issue. This is back when homosexuality was still a crime in many places.

I would say your experience is very unique in 2023 and it’s nothing I’ve ever seen or experienced. It’s nothing any of my friends have mentioned in their personal lives which normally would come if they were routinely being persecuted or assaulted with a deadly weapon.

So it just leaves me puzzled.

[-] ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago

You don't have to keep lying. No one here believes you, but it doesn't fucking matter anyway. You don't get to use your ignorance and naive conservative experience to claim that bigotry doesn't exist.

[-] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee -1 points 7 months ago
[-] Reddfugee42@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

Bahaha who flies the rebel flag and cries about their heritage when Confederate monuments are taken down?

Oops, sorry, I made you think

[-] PizzaMane@lemm.ee 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The disagreement button shows people are not believing you. You haven't walked a single day in a queer person's shoes, let alone a set of conservative shoes in a conservative area.

[-] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee -2 points 7 months ago

Ah like a child you seek approval by anonymous people.

I have walked with queer people in conservative areas. Hate to break it to you sunshine. Being queer isn’t something new. We had queer people when I was growing up in the Bible Belt.

People just like to claim to be victims when often it’s their own actions that draw the ire.

[-] PizzaMane@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

Ah like a child you seek approval by anonymous people.

No, I'm stating that your claim of "everyone believes me" is obviously false.

The rest of what you said is just bullshit.

[-] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee -2 points 7 months ago

Let me rephrase that. Any conservative would believe me.

The rest of what I’ve said is true.

[-] PizzaMane@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

You got ~11 downvotes. And only your original upvote is the one on it. I highly doubt that every single person who downvoted your comment was a leftist.

[-] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee -2 points 7 months ago

Thanks. Do you have something of value to add to the conversation or are you just here to troll ?

[-] PizzaMane@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago

You made an obviously false claim. I'm gonna call you out on that.

[-] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee -2 points 7 months ago

I cited evidence. You cited nothing. Have a good day.

[-] PizzaMane@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago

Your anecdote is not evidence. And I cited the vote tally, which is verifiable unlike your anecdote.

[-] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee -2 points 7 months ago

Oh yes the vote count. lol yes that bearer of truth.

A bunch of liberals downvote. Heavens what am I to do!

You really think the person is constantly being assaulted and law enforcement isn’t involved? I find that hard to believe.

[-] PizzaMane@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Oh yes the vote count. lol yes that bearer of truth.

I didn't say it was the bearer of truth. It's basically an agree/disagree button. You said everyone agrees with you, but that's obviously not true. You then moved to saying that all the conservatives agree with you. But the only upvote on your comment was your own. So that almost certainly isn't true either.

You really think the person is constantly being assaulted and law enforcement isn’t involved? I find that hard to believe.

I'd say it's more likely true than false. This country has a long history of hating and mistreating minorities and such. And calling the cops isn't going to help with people spitting at you, gawking, staring, or laughing.

[-] TJD@sh.itjust.works -1 points 7 months ago

This is just overwhelmingly false on just about every manner. Try getting your information from somewhere other than r/politics

[-] PizzaMane@lemm.ee 0 points 7 months ago

with the (stereo)typical “immigrants bad, jesus good, gays evil” speech.

That middle part has all but vanished here. We can't have compassion for migrants because we have "limited resources" and clearly they're all just bad people (totally unrelated to their skin color they'll tell you). They gladly elect politicians that destroy the social safety net for the poor.

The only thing even remotely related to Jesus being here is supply side Jesus.

[-] Blamemeta@lemm.ee -1 points 7 months ago

You have a weird view if you still think all conservatives are christians. Hell, have I posted a single christian thing here?

I think your problem is you have this inaccurate preconceived notion, and its just not jiving with what you see.

[-] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee -1 points 7 months ago

I’m an atheist/agnostic. Most conservatives I know are hardcore atheist.

Now none of are anti-religion. I do attend mass from time to time as I like the tradition but I have never had faith.

[-] David_Eight@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months ago

Ideally Conservatism should be about being reserved/realistic and Liberalism should be about being optimistic/hopeful. Kind of like finding balance between art and science if that matters any sense.

Let's take imagination for example. A liberal view would be too help everyone that comes to America looking for help. A conservative view would be America can't just have an open border and let in everyone from every country. These are both rational views. Ideally both sides would compromise and find balance somewhere in the middle to help as many imagrants as is reasonably possible. Sadly that's not the case.

[-] MomoTimeToDie@sh.itjust.works 0 points 7 months ago

Yeah, it's hard to compromise with people who's only response to anything is to try and yell "racism" as loud as possible

[-] Eldritch@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months ago

When someone largely supports programs that primarily exacerbate ethnic, minority, or racial disparity. What's the correct terms?

[-] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee -1 points 7 months ago

We call those democrats.

[-] Blamemeta@lemm.ee 0 points 7 months ago

Note: I'm the main poster, and head mod. I'm trying my best, but I'm kind of a fuck up, and have a hard time explaining myself well.

When you're posting news articles, it's usually about the stuff that happened recently. Combined with "Not all progress is good progress", it's basically indistinguishable from "fearing new things". But fair point, and I've been trying to find good stuff happening, like the rates of gun ownership going up, and high school skeet shooting clubs. I'll give it more thought on what quality content actually looks like. In the meantime, I'll keep going.

[-] shalafi@lemmy.world -1 points 7 months ago

Please keep going! I don't identify as conservative, but I do have a view or two, and it's important to speak out.

[-] PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com -1 points 7 months ago

...this community has almost exclusively posts about fearing new things and trying to show them as evil. Evil migrants, evil new generations, evil new sexualities, whatever.

I do not see any “values” in it, only fear. Rejecting migrants is not based on morals or values that are rational, but on fear. Same for the rest. Which leads to the question, what is the point of this community? It does not lead to debate, people calling it out as fascism on one side (which is quite justified as the root ideas are seemingly identical) and the other side just saying that it’s wrong and that’s it. There’s no debate of values, as there are no values to debate about.

Fear is a valid emotion when it comes to politics. Underlying articles based on fear, if that's what you see, are the values to be protected, sustained, or advocated. I don't really see fear itself as a problem.

That you see only fear is reductive. Isn't "conservatives are afraid of everything" too easy? For me, it has no explanatory power. Why are they afraid?

it would be a good idea to refocus the community on actual ideas, and not the typical far-right speeches of hatred and fear that already flood a lot of media.

Yeah, but also meet them halfway.

Go beyond the hatred and the fear to what values they're really trying to communicate. If all you see in a Trump speech, for example, is his fascist tendencies (of which there are many, don't get me wrong), then you'll miss the appeal to regular people on the losing side of Democratic policies. The pathetic, in both the colloquial and rhetorical sense, appeal to leftists as invasive vermin is itself an expression of values defined in opposition.

As far as I'm concerned, the job of leftists in this community is to tease out the values that conservatives routinely fail to identify clearly and discuss that. That should be what makes this place different.

[-] Eldritch@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

Fear is the mind killer. It's rarely valid, despite being an emotion. Often highly irrational. Leading to bad decisions. Policy and legislation should never be based on fear. Fear should be the last thing anyone accommodates politically.

[-] TJD@sh.itjust.works -1 points 7 months ago

Just declaring that everyone you disagree with has no values doesn't make it so.

[-] Rolder@reddthat.com 0 points 7 months ago

Then what ARE the values of conservatism?

[-] TJD@sh.itjust.works -1 points 7 months ago

That highly depends on the individual.

this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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