"Cultural conservatism"

[Ferguson97]

I don't think that there is something inherently valuable about these communities beyond the utility that they provide for the rest of the country.

What a horrifying statement.

I don't really see why it is. The argument that the OP is making seems to be coming from a place of romanization rather than wanting to help the actual people in the communities, which is what I'm talking about.

It's like all of the coal towns in Appalachia. We know that coal is on its last legs. So instead of subsidizing a dying industry, we should give those miners great jobs in renewable energy. We don't need to preserve mining for cultural "that's what my daddy did and his daddy before him" reasons. That's now how public policy should operate.

And not sure why you ignored the rest of my comment, where I specifically said we shouldn't leave these communities in the dust.

The problem with America's land usage (especially as pertains to environmental issues, but also financial solvency and quality-of-life issues) is suburban sprawl, not rural communities. Especially since a lot of what's commonly described as "rural America" is actually made up of medium-large towns and small cities, which might often have higher densities than the suburban expanses that surround every major cities. From all the sources I've seen, the infrastructural cost and environmental impact per inhabitants is much higher in the latter than in the former. A policy of actively seeking to develop small regional centers that are currently left out of the current model of development in America could have extremely beneficial impacts, both economically as well as in terms of mending the country's divide. The "just moooove" model is clearly not working, and while I agree coal jobs have to go (I don't think Nathan ever said otherwise) there's no reason why those same places couldn't become home to new, sustainable industries, if the state is willing to put in the investment to make that happen.

For the record I am also anti-suburb.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I don't think that there is something inherently valuable about these communities beyond the utility that they provide for the rest of the country.

What a horrifying statement.

I don't really see why it is. The argument that the OP is making seems to be coming from a place of romanization rather than wanting to help the actual people in the communities, which is what I'm talking about.

It's like all of the coal towns in Appalachia. We know that coal is on its last legs. So instead of subsidizing a dying industry, we should give those miners great jobs in renewable energy. We don't need to preserve mining for cultural "that's what my daddy did and his daddy before him" reasons. That's now how public policy should operate.

And not sure why you ignored the rest of my comment, where I specifically said we shouldn't leave these communities in the dust.

The problem with America's land usage (especially as pertains to environmental issues, but also financial solvency and quality-of-life issues) is suburban sprawl, not rural communities. Especially since a lot of what's commonly described as "rural America" is actually made up of medium-large towns and small cities, which might often have higher densities than the suburban expanses that surround every major cities. From all the sources I've seen, the infrastructural cost and environmental impact per inhabitants is much higher in the latter than in the former. A policy of actively seeking to develop small regional centers that are currently left out of the current model of development in America could have extremely beneficial impacts, both economically as well as in terms of mending the country's divide. The "just moooove" model is clearly not working, and while I agree coal jobs have to go (I don't think Nathan ever said otherwise) there's no reason why those same places couldn't become home to new, sustainable industries, if the state is willing to put in the investment to make that happen.

For the record I am also anti-suburb.

Then your best bet is precisely to support economic programs that spread economic opportunities more evenly across the country, so that people aren't forced to move to the vicinity of a couple megacities in order to find jobs. Of course, zoning laws and the like matter a great deal, but ultimately if everyone wants to be in the same places, it's going to cause problems for urbanism no matter what.

[Antonio the Sixth]

As to the OP, I don't consider myself culturally conservative exactly (I do think I am somewhat conservative in my outlook to life, but that's a slightly different matter). I think we should be cautious and discerning in which elements of traditional culture we preserve and which we abandon as we seek to build a better society, which I would say is the (normal, sane) "culturally progressive" stance. The "abolish all tradition" attitude that you see in some circles can't really be called progressive, since indiscriminate destruction can't bring about progress.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

As to the OP, I don't consider myself culturally conservative exactly (I do think I am somewhat conservative in my outlook to life, but that's a slightly different matter). I think we should be cautious and discerning in which elements of traditional culture we preserve and which we abandon as we seek to build a better society, which I would say is the (normal, sane) "culturally progressive" stance. The "abolish all tradition" attitude that you see in some circles can't really be called progressive, since indiscriminate destruction can't bring about progress.

You really are an incrementalist at heart, aren't you, Antonio?

I think this is the sort of issue that's abstract enough for a conservative/progressive distinction to be something of a false dichotomy. Pretty much everyone worth listening to agrees that there are some aspects of the received way of doing things (whatever that is in a particular time, place, or walk of life) that are meaningful and beautiful enough to be worth preserving even if they're "inefficient", and others that are past their sell-by date and should probably be revamped or scrapped. Most people would probably instinctively recognize that denial of either half of that sentence is an extreme and irrational view, even if they're nominally committed to a political ideology that is in turn nominally committed to such a denial.

[Vosem]

I identified as "culturally conservative" for a long time but no longer do, because the term seems to have come to mean "socially conservative but on issues not related to sex, and also, kinda racist". When I say or think "culturally conservative", this is, off the top of my head, the sort of thing I mean:

• I consider myself proudly "from" New England as opposed to anywhere else, and actively monitor regionalisms in my speech and writing for the purpose of deliberately reinforcing them, rather than for the purpose of sanding them down.
• I think that America is losing something essential as its countrysides empty out and support massive explicitly-redistributive state-directed investment in rural communities to delay this loss for as long as possible, for its own sake.
• HOWEVER, I hate the "Southernization" of rural American culture outside the South, as evidenced by things like the spread of rebel-rag bro-country chic, the generic twang disseminated by AM radio the way mainstream movies and TV disseminate Californian uptalk and vocal fry, the fact that there are people north of the fortieth parallel who can drink sweet tea without gagging, and so forth.
• I think that idiosyncratic measurement systems like feet and inches, Fahrenheit, and so forth, encode important information about the history of our culture, and fully support their continued vernacular use even though I think for precise and formal applications the US should probably switch to SI.
• I think it's very unfortunate that a generalized disinterest in actual history in favor of advancing various kinds of ideologized narratives about the past, most of which are nakedly and needlessly hostile to people who lived in the past for purely political reasons, has become the norm among Americans younger than me.
• One of my least favorite things about climate change is that it no longer snows reliably on Christmas.
• I do occasionally wonder what the "point" of completely nonrepresentational and even nongeometrical art is, and I think Damien Hirst seems--and looks--like a complete douchebag. However, I still support the production of such art, because just because I don't get it doesn't mean nobody does.

This is what I think "cultural conservatism" should mean--a preservation-focused attitude towards culture, both "fine" and demotic. Unfortunately, it's become breathtakingly clear that very few other people see the expression this way, and indeed, on things like the third point I list here, many self-described "culturally conservative" politicians, pundits, and writers are actually turboliberal wreckers by the definitions that matter to me.

jao

Turboliberals are builders, not wreckers! (Indeed, much of America's present housing crisis seems more-or-less directly caused by laws which are nowhere near sufficiently economically liberal). Although that's not the point I'm trying to make here.

I think it has long been true that 'conservative' and 'progressive' within the US are strange and oxymoronic expressions -- it is almost always the 'conservatives' who are more enthusiastic about changing the culture, or even changing the direction in which the culture is moving, and it is almost always the 'conservatives' who are more enthusiastic about technological change. (It is virtually always the 'conservatives' who are enthusiastic about the decline of trust in things like government and media!) By contrast 'progressives' are often likelier to defend mainstream cultural products (like films or whatever) and oppose technological progress uniformly. I don't know what the right words for these schools of thought would be in a perfect world -- and I'm probably not the right person to decide that, since I hold contemporary American progressivism in such contempt -- but they're certainly not the ones that we use now.

(I am not enthusiastic about "abolishing all tradition" or whatever, but I have a strong dislike for formulations like Chesterton's Fence, and while there are more than a few places where I dissent from America's cultural conservatives, one of the more idiosyncratic ones would probably be my support for the metric system, which just obviously makes so much more sense.)

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

the term seems to have come to mean "socially conservative but on issues not related to sex, and also, kinda racist"

When I say things like "I'm a cultural leftist/liberal", I'm specifically talking about things like cultural pluralism, multilingualism, indigenous/minority rights, environmentalism, openness to experience, gender roles/egalitarianism, etc. Things that seem diametrically opposed to "white identitarian" and "alt-right adjacent" ideas popularly associated with the Trumpian right.

And I don't necessarily see these as being philosophically opposed to preserving/maintaining customs and traditions from your extended family, or more generally staying in touch with your roots.

[Antonio the Sixth]

As to the OP, I don't consider myself culturally conservative exactly (I do think I am somewhat conservative in my outlook to life, but that's a slightly different matter). I think we should be cautious and discerning in which elements of traditional culture we preserve and which we abandon as we seek to build a better society, which I would say is the (normal, sane) "culturally progressive" stance. The "abolish all tradition" attitude that you see in some circles can't really be called progressive, since indiscriminate destruction can't bring about progress.

You really are an incrementalist at heart, aren't you, Antonio?

I think this is the sort of issue that's abstract enough for a conservative/progressive distinction to be something of a false dichotomy. Pretty much everyone worth listening to agrees that there are some aspects of the received way of doing things (whatever that is in a particular time, place, or walk of life) that are meaningful and beautiful enough to be worth preserving even if they're "inefficient", and others that are past their sell-by date and should probably be revamped or scrapped. Most people would probably instinctively recognize that denial of either half of that sentence is an extreme and irrational view, even if they're nominally committed to a political ideology that is in turn nominally committed to such a denial.

You're absolutely right, yeah. This is the sort of issue on which many ideological formulations and slogans are at odds with human beings' most basic intuitions, and I'm happy to take the side of the conventional wisdom over ideology on it. I do think that there's a broad spectrum in terms of how much benefit of the doubt people are willing to extend to an established custom by virtue of of it being established custom. I used to be very much on the lower end of that spectrum, and I'd say I still am overall, though I've definitely come to appreciate the importance of giving people a sense of stability in their lives.

But yeah, the incrementalist mindset is one I find myself increasingly comfortable embracing and embodying. Honestly, being confronted with the hard edge of the American left in the past 5 years or so has seriously disillusioned me from even abstract commitments to the necessity of revolution (as we can see on this very forum, it doesn't take much for the people who wax lyrical about revolution to show their utter callousness to the mass death and suffering they invariably entail). And since we all well know that injustice is rampant across the world and cannot be righted until and unless the world is changed radically, that only leaves us with the grueling task for pushing for whatever small piece of that radical change we can hope to achieve in our lifetimes. This is a prospect that feels depressing to many, but I think I've made my peace with it.

[afleitch]

I'm Scottish, so I get the need for protecting 'regionalism', especially when I'm elsewhere in the UK. It's self re-inforcing here which helps. Regardless of where you sit on the independence question, most people (certain flag shaggers aside) consider themselves Scottish above anything else and that Scottishness, welcomingly, is found in minority groups here.

I complete agree with your comments in 'southernisation' and I've posted about this before, from Michael's perspective of going home to rural eastern PA after 10 years away and seeing trucks, and garb, and language and symbols that are completely alien.

Rural Scotland, corresponding to the old Gàidhealtachd is still one of the least densely populated parts of Europe comparable to northern Scandinavia and the Spanish desert. Whatever it was a century ago, a generation ago isn't that now and to promote re-establishing what was 'lost' would be distinctly nativist (as the Highlands now have a disproportionately English born population) and not something I could support. At the same time more rural areas in the central belt are geographically and culturally close to the big cities it has allowed them to retain proud local identities but not be lost in a US 'red state' cultural fog associated with declining industry.

I hate old units of measurement Only because I learned metric at school, entered an adult world where imperial was used, politicised as British (and not 'European') and some people hadn't, in all seriousness gotten over having to use metric currency. So I had to learn it. And I hate that.

I have to disagree on your points on US history. I think US history because it's so interwoven with it's own creation narrative and it's constitutional notions of liberty, freedom etc is no more or less political today than it ever was. And the US has not been hostile enough to people, particularly people of note, in it's history. But a nation that seemingly lets it's celebrities and sports stars get away with what would otherwise be reputational damage for the ordinary joe (and has the 'cancelled' cash cow to keep these people in the public eye even if they are asked to be accountable) is certainly not going to take kindly to any other interpretation of it's past or heroes. As we've seen with the CRT panic.

All countries can be bad at it.

On art, it is one of the very few things we can all accept is subjective. My visceral hatred of the Mona Lisa was re-affirmed when I took Michael to see it for the first time before Christmas. Waste of a canvas.

 

[Хahar 🤔]

But a nation that seemingly lets it's celebrities and sports stars get away with what would otherwise be reputational damage for the ordinary joe (and has the 'cancelled' cash cow to keep these people in the public eye even if they are asked to be accountable) is certainly not going to take kindly to any other interpretation of it's past or heroes. As we've seen with the CRT panic.

All countries can be bad at it.

I am, perhaps, too instinctively defensive of my own country and culture, but I'm not really sure what you mean by this. As far as I can tell (and as you seem to point out), every country is like this, or at least I cannot think of a country where celebrities and sports stars are not so privileged. I'm not sure what is particular or noteworthy about America here.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

But a nation that seemingly lets it's celebrities and sports stars get away with what would otherwise be reputational damage for the ordinary joe (and has the 'cancelled' cash cow to keep these people in the public eye even if they are asked to be accountable) is certainly not going to take kindly to any other interpretation of it's past or heroes. As we've seen with the CRT panic.

All countries can be bad at it.

I am, perhaps, too instinctively defensive of my own country and culture, but I'm not really sure what you mean by this. As far as I can tell (and as you seem to point out), every country is like this, or at least I cannot think of a country where celebrities and sports stars are not so privileged. I'm not sure what is particular or noteworthy about America here.

I don't think I framed what I was saying about history very well to begin with if it's coming across to people as similar to Youngkinian "CRT" whining. I might elaborate on or reformulate it tomorrow if I have some time.

[Antonio the Sixth]

But a nation that seemingly lets it's celebrities and sports stars get away with what would otherwise be reputational damage for the ordinary joe (and has the 'cancelled' cash cow to keep these people in the public eye even if they are asked to be accountable) is certainly not going to take kindly to any other interpretation of it's past or heroes. As we've seen with the CRT panic.

All countries can be bad at it.

I am, perhaps, too instinctively defensive of my own country and culture, but I'm not really sure what you mean by this. As far as I can tell (and as you seem to point out), every country is like this, or at least I cannot think of a country where celebrities and sports stars are not so privileged. I'm not sure what is particular or noteworthy about America here.

I don't think I framed what I was saying about history very well to begin with if it's coming across to people as similar to Youngkinian "CRT" whining. I might elaborate on or reformulate it tomorrow if I have some time.

As someone who's on the same wavelength as you on these issues, I hope you don't mind if I give it a try.

Basically, I get the sense that there's an undercurrent in the modern left that is not merely interested in critically reexamining existing historical narratives (which is an eminently valid and crucial part of historical inquiry) but rather seems to have an ingrained hostility to history itself. Again, I'm not talking about historical analysis that takes a critical perspective on US history - stuff like the 1619 project, while flawed in some aspects, is part of a healthy and productive debate. I'm talking about the "ironic" or semi-ironic or post-ironic dismissiveness with which some people treat any reference to past figures or past events, ending conversations about them with stuff like "well, it was a bunch of racist old white guys anyway". I'm talking about the bafflingly widespread metaphor of the "original sin" of racism (interestingly used by people who normally abhor the use of religious rhetoric in politics) to essentially argue that all of US history could be reduced down to that simple fact. And I'm talking about people who, yes, unironically think that Washington, Jefferson or even Lincoln shouldn't be celebrated at all because of their failings with regards to race. What all these behaviors have in common is basically denying that there is fundamentally anything worth learning, or appreciating, or respecting about the past, that it can all be waved away as fatally morally compromised, and, as the ultimate implication, that their political project can be started entirely from scratch without any connection to a broader narrative.

I think this is the core issue that Nathan was pointing out: the idea that any effort to meaningfully connect the present to the past is a sign of moral impurity, and that the only way to overcome the (very real) sins of our past is to make a clean break from all of it. And I think this is a deeply perverse and ultimately politically suicidal attitude to take. We human beings live in the past: almost all of our deeper thinking relates to it in some way. We move forward by learning from how we got where we got there, examining both our successes and our failures. That's true for the individual and it's true for societies. And that means that when we look at history, we have to look at the horrors of the past and examine their causes with lucidity, yes - but we also need that same lucidity in recognizing our accomplishments and what made them possible. And ultimately, for that purpose, we do need heroes, people who can make these accomplishments tangible and give us a sense of what contributing positively to the advancement of a society actually looks like. The point of celebrating Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln etc. (or, say, Danton, De Gaulle or Cavour, to take examples from other contexts I'm familiar with) isn't to extol their personal virtues, or even to argue they'd agree with us if they were alive today. It is to show that they have contributed something valuable to where we are today, left us with a legacy we can build and improve upon. And the values that guided them in building it, even if they embodied them imperfectly, are still values that can guide us today. I think this is a crucial role that history has to play in politics, and I am afraid that a lot of leftists are disregarding it entirely.

[afleitch]

I quite like that explanation. I do think there's a tendency to over exaggerate how many people, either in passing or professionally take that view of history. I don't think it has much purchase. Passively, I can understand why that nihilistic approach is taken when faced with an unchanging edifice of; 'This alone is history and these are it's key players', which does trend towards the status quo, the conservative and still weighted towards a nations 'myth' rather than it's history.

If we end up with moral panics over teaching and presenting history over the merest pause for reflection, then history is worthless.  So why engage with it? Which is horrible.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I quite like that explanation. I do think there's a tendency to over exaggerate how many people, either in passing or professionally take that view of history. I don't think it has much purchase. Passively, I can understand why that nihilistic approach is taken when faced with an unchanging edifice of; 'This alone is history and these are it's key players', which does trend towards the status quo, the conservative and still weighted towards a nations 'myth' rather than it's history.

If we end up with moral panics over teaching and presenting history over the merest pause for reflection, then history is worthless.  So why engage with it? Which is horrible.

That's absolutely true, of course. The flattening of US history into a pat, sanitized narrative where all the good guys are flawless heroes and all the bad stuff is either waved away as a minor deviation or ignored entirely that you see on the right is just as dangerous and politically crippling as the anti-historicism I described on the left. The goal shouldn't be to ignore the evil in history, but rather to understand it as well as why and how it can be defeated.

[All Along The Watchtower]

As to the OP, I don't consider myself culturally conservative exactly

Well, you're French and on the Left. Of course you're not. 

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

As to the OP, I don't consider myself culturally conservative exactly

Well, you're French and on the Left. Of course you're not. 

I'm sure Antonio is culturally conservative when compared to Karl Marx or Mao Zedong.

[All Along The Watchtower]

As to the OP, I don't consider myself culturally conservative exactly

Well, you're French and on the Left. Of course you're not. 

I'm sure Antonio is culturally conservative when compared to Karl Marx or Mao Zedong.

We're talking about mere Atlas posters here, not world-historic revolutionaries.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

As to the OP, I don't consider myself culturally conservative exactly

Well, you're French and on the Left. Of course you're not. 

I'm sure Antonio is culturally conservative when compared to Karl Marx or Mao Zedong.

We're talking about mere Atlas posters here, not world-historic revolutionaries.

I was agreeing with you, and trying to humorously make that clear by using fitting examples.

[Antonio the Sixth]

At least, to the extent that my French leftyness makes me culturally progressive, it's more in the vein of Emile Combes and Aristide Briand than in the vein of Foucault or Derrida.

[PSOL]

Apologizing for taking sexual advantage of children is not a progressive position. I don’t know how we got to the point of endorsing selfish hedonism as progressive social values, but it really isn’t. What was ,and in many cases still is, is the protection of children from abuse and the freedom of choice for fun as one blooms.

The holders of promoting of child molestation and thinking the Consent age is 25 are not socially open or progressive.


When you hold your own accountable for murdering Rosa Luxembourg and strengthening capital against workers in the colonized world, we can talk about morality and the re-examination of history, but until then you are wrong and closed and no amount of mutual-circlejerking from the dominant (social) capital-holders for your subservience changes that.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Apologizing for taking sexual advantage of children is not a progressive position.

Foucault is a right-wing figure, yes, since his hatred of any kind of political or economic structure extended to openly advising the left to give up on winning and wielding political or economic authority in favor of just letting existing power structures rip, partly (not entirely, but partly) because he personally got off on it.

I don't think a game of who murdered whom in historical leftist infighting is one that the "harder" edge of the Continental European left is very likely to win, PSOL, but if you want to derail this thread on a second nonconsecutive occasion in order to play it anyway, I suppose I don't have any real reason to stop you.

[PSOL]

Apologizing for taking sexual advantage of children is not a progressive position.

Foucault is a right-wing figure, yes, since his hatred of any kind of political or economic structure extended to openly advising the left to give up on winning and wielding political or economic authority in favor of just letting existing power structures rip, partly (not entirely, but partly) because he personally got off on it.

I don't think a game of who murdered whom in historical leftist infighting is one that the "harder" edge of the Continental European left is very likely to win, PSOL, but if you want to derail this thread on a second nonconsecutive occasion in order to play it anyway, I suppose I don't have any real reason to stop you.

Antonio brought the “murder blame game” up first and in no place have I derailed this thread. You just wrongly attribute your views as “conservative” without critically analyzing where you are getting at with each. I’ve done my best to use your provided context and what I know about you to get to the bottom of the manner, but you are persistent in labeling these views as leaning towards a concept which does not exist.

Over 50% of that post in particular is disproving the wrong assumption that somehow abuse and lack of sexual etiquette is somehow “progressive” or socially “open”. I can’t believe I have to say this again, but it should be evident why opposing abusive power dynamics is not a “culturally conservative” position.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Apologizing for taking sexual advantage of children is not a progressive position.

Foucault is a right-wing figure, yes, since his hatred of any kind of political or economic structure extended to openly advising the left to give up on winning and wielding political or economic authority in favor of just letting existing power structures rip, partly (not entirely, but partly) because he personally got off on it.

I don't think a game of who murdered whom in historical leftist infighting is one that the "harder" edge of the Continental European left is very likely to win, PSOL, but if you want to derail this thread on a second nonconsecutive occasion in order to play it anyway, I suppose I don't have any real reason to stop you.

Antonio brought the “murder blame game” up first and in no place have I derailed this thread. You just wrongly attribute your views as “conservative” without critically analyzing where you are getting at with each. I’ve done my best to use your provided context and what I know about you to get to the bottom of the manner, but you are persistent in labeling these views as leaning towards a concept which does not exist.

Over 50% of that post in particular is disproving the wrong assumption that somehow abuse and lack of sexual etiquette is somehow “progressive” or socially “open”. I can’t believe I have to say this again, but it should be evident why opposing abusive power dynamics is not a “culturally conservative” position.

Okay. I'm going to go read a Naomi Novik novel now.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Do we have many old-school German Nationalists here? Because otherwise that one comment is a bit odd.

[Brother Jonathan]

It is probably much less interesting coming from a self-identified conservative, but I agree with pretty much every aspect of your definition here. The regionalism put really resonates with me, as it is a frustration of mine going back several years. There was once a distinct culture in rural New England—I think of the backdrop to Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here—which is now rapidly being replaced by the sort of loud, brash, and resentful raised pick-up truck with a Confederate flag sort of provincialism that saturates the media. It drives me up a wall to hear people born and raised in New England call themselves "rednecks" and use southern phrases. It is just generally getting hard to find anyone who self-identifies as a Yankee anymore (or even fits the mold), especially anyone under 30 or so. It seems to me like New England is being squeezed between a sort of commuter corridor professional class sensibility and pseudo-southern rural frustration.