I Doubt I Will Stop Being Conservative
Arguably the wisest forty words ever uttered, form part of a speech delivered by comedian Tim Minchin at The University of Western Australia:
A famous bon mot asserts that opinions are like assholes in that everyone has one. There is great wisdom in this. But I would add that opinions differ significantly from assholes in that yours should be constantly and thoroughly examined.
In my article, The Corrosive Cost Of Cancel Culture, I wrote about the importance of open discourse, not just because it exposes us to good ideas, but because it provides an opportunity to free ourselves from bad ones.
For all the pessimism I see about people’s capacity to change their minds, there are countless examples, some of which I list in the article, of people doing just that.
Maria isn’t quite ready to follow their example.
Maria:
Cancel culture doesn't aim to change people for the better and frankly, I don't see why a conservative should stop being a conservative if that person doesn't want to change. If we are talking about diversity, they should encourage diversity of thoughts, political ideologies, religions and diversity of perspectives and within that diversity, conservative ideas should also be accepted. Period.
Even if a progressive isn't a cancel culture fan and actually engages with conservatives in a good–hearted conversation, I doubt I will stop being conservative. Some people just don't change and it's about time we stop using either punishment/intimidation tactics or "compassion" tactics to try to change people who don't want to change, no matter how "compassionate" someone is.
Steve QJ:
I don't see why a conservative should stop being a conservative if that person doesn't want to change.
I guess that depends on what you mean by “stop being a conservative.” Being a conservative isn't an identity or a religious belief, right? It's not something you're born as. Conservatism and liberalism and socialism and all the other "-isms" are just sets of ideas. And like all ideas, they can be good or bad. Or at least, better or worse.
Take another “-ism.” Racism. Now, obviously I'm biased, but I think racism is always bad. So I'd like to change the minds of everybody, black and white and all shades in-between, who is racist. But many of those people don't want to change their minds either. Some of them are so convinced they're right that they take guns and shoot innocent people in shopping malls and subways.
Diversity of opinion is important. I completely agree. But that doesn't mean that some people's opinions aren't flat-out wrong and even dangerous. Punishment and intimidation aren't likely to change these people's minds. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't be changed.
Maria:
I have never agreed with excusing mass shootings under the excuse of "mental illness" because it stigamtizes mental health and it prevents the shooters from taking responsibility of what they do.
However, the reason why I'm a conservative is because Wokeism is a threat to Western values, family structure, free speech and Wokeism is pretty useful for US enemies to keep Americans divided in order to weaken our societies and make us vulnerable to Russia and China.
Besides, Liberalism isn't supportive of "wellfare" states intervening in the economy of a country, in our healthcare system or education system under the excuse that "education and healthcare should be universal and free", because classical liberals see basic services as an economic benefit and we ask for limited governments.
The woke crowd is asking for more government intervention under the excuse that "we need to protect the vulnerable minorities by passing and approving special bills that shield them from any and all danger", Critical Theory is the ideological base for Wokeism and it's anti-liberal.
Steve QJ:
I have never agreed with excusing mass shootings under the excuse of "mental illness"
Yeah, I didn't say anything about mental illness. Some people obviously do awful things because they're mentally ill. But in the case of many mass shooters, particularly the racially motivated ones, I think they know exactly what they're doing. The common thread here is accepting a bad idea and being unwilling to change it.
“Wokism” is another great example of a bad idea. Or a bad set of ideas. Presumably, you'd like to change “woke” people's minds. So would I! But this brings us back to the point you made earlier. Some deeply held ideas are bad, and it's important to be willing to examine them honestly and change them if necessary, instead of clinging to them because you don't want to “stop being a conservative.” I hold some views that might be labelled conservative, more that would be labelled liberal, and some that are just centrist (or as we'd have called them in the good old days, common sense).
There's nothing wrong with holding conservative views. But that doesn't mean that you need to buy into everything conservatives say, or see yourself in opposition to everybody with liberal views. To reject “woke” ideas you don't have to embrace their polar opposites. After all, the lunatic, QAnon fringes of the right are easily as insane as anything the "woke" have to offer.
Re-evaluating our ideas sucks. Not just because it stings the ego, but because, if we have any intellectual integrity, it usually prompts a rethink, large or small, of how we see a bunch of other things. We might need to reevaluate the identity we’ve spent our lives carefully constructing. We might need to ask what else we’re wrong about. We might need to—gasp—change our behaviour.
For some people, clinging to faulty beliefs is preferable to doing this work. Cognitive dissonance be damned. But it’s not nearly as difficult if we shake the habit of clinging to our ideas. After all there’s another way that opinions differ from assholes; we can change them whenever we like.
A subject dear to me. At different times in my life, I have been a registered Democrat, Republican and Libertarian. At this time, I am registered unaffiliated. On some issues I tilt right, others left and others neither. My views have changed on some matters, others not so much. I see no reason for anyone to walk in lockstep with all of the beliefs of any political tribe.
Quoting Muhammad Ali, "The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life."
The thing about bad beliefs is that I can sometimes understand how people can embrace some of them. Partly because there have been times in my life when I entertained them. Those can be honestly discussed in hope of flawed ideas being rejected. When the reason is political partisanship/tribalism and a defense of an associated label it is a much more difficult task. Most difficult is when their belief is based upon uncomfortable facts that lead to a pyrrhic victory.
I don't know that you're all that far apart with Maria. I disagree with some of what she said about the dangers of wokeism but I doubt she and I would fight too much if we sat down for coffee. I don't think one necessarily *should* change being 'liberal' or 'conservative'. Both are very broad, encompassing ideologies encompassing many different ideas and values and policies, not all of them bad. Jonathan Haidt argues that liberals and conservatives can work together to bring out the best in both ideas, and they temper each other's tendency toward going too extreme. Like the welfare state: I believe in the need of a taxpayer-paid social safety net for people who are down on their luck, and who didn't do as well as others in the birth lottery, but it shouldn't be something you rely on and don't work, which is what conservatives worry about and liberals pooh-pooh. And I say, "Exhibit A illustrating the conservative concern is living across the hall from me." Wonderful lady, but she's got mental health issues within her control to deal with and she hasn't, and she's admitted she'd rather just continue to be taken care of by the entities who are doing so now. I don't think she's lazy, I think she'd like to have a different life but doesn't pursue it for a lot of different fears that are understandable, but not excusable.
So to talk about erasing poverty by just throwing money at it isn't the answer, as some liberals would have it, nor is it 'pulling yourself up by your bootstraps' without help from others as the Reagan-style conservatives held it. We need to help some folks with their own bootstraps, for a time anyway, but structure the safety net in such a way that people are encouraged, and pushed, to get off it unless they have *genuine* debilitating mental health issues they can't just decide to deal with.
The real problem we face is we become too married to our ideas and ideologies and don't want to hear anything that contradicts them. Often it's not wanting to admit to ourselves we were wrong about something, or it somehow offends our self-image (like challenging victimhood narratives).
I'd like to see people become less hardcore <whatever label> and treat their ideology more like a salad bar - take what works for you and leave the rest, but be mindful that what you consume and retain should be *healthy* for you and those around you.