#anti-conservatism

[cybersheeper]

The fact that most people on earth believe that you can't wear a differently shaped piece of fabric if you were born with male genitals, despite that piece of fabric being comfortable for all genders, really makes me doubt how smart most humans actually are.

[neighbourhood-threat-official]

I refuse to belive that social/political conservatism arises out of love for the homeland, for one's native culture, for traditions. If that were the case, conservatives would join historical reenactment groups or become historians etc. but they do not. Because their ideology is rooted in privilege, fear, ignorance and hatred, the latter originating from the former three. Not to mention the division they create in societies and their stubborn clinging to nationalism only serves the interests of the bourgeoisie.

[shaffyreads]

Weirdo Conservatives: Why should my media be inclusive? It's just a movie! Why do you care so much?

Normal People: Media doesn't have to be inclusive, but I don't know, it would be nice if we saw different people in it and not just the same people. That would probably mean a lot to those who don't get to see a lot of people who look like them or share similar experiences as them. Plus, people shouldn't be typecast to play the same harmful stereotypes over and over again, as that has the potential to influence how they are perceived outside of the media.

Weirdo Conservatives: Oh, my god! You are all such snowflakes! They're just movies! They have no connection to how people think about this stuff!

[Insert the moment a movie includes one or more people of different marginalized groups or contains political themes that frame being an asshole as a bad thing.]

Weirdo Conservatives: Oh, my god! Our children are being indoctrinated! Make it stop! Make it stop!

[eccentric-opinion]

Assorted problems with Chesterton's Fence:

Our ancestors were paperclip maximizers, so even if the tradition served their goals, it's not that likely to serve ours. Think about how different you are from your parents, and the generational clashes and changes just in the past several decades. How much do you think you have in common with an ancestor from the 19th or 16th century?

Existing traditions are optimized for survival, not quality. If your society practices a tradition in an environment roughly like the one in which it developed, it probably won't go extinct - but that's an extremely low bar! It doesn't mean anyone's life is better for following it, and if you think you can do better for yourself by disregarding it, you may well be right.

Communism is the common Chestertonian counterexample - "It seemed like a good idea for legible reasons,", they say, "but it turned out to be so horrible, it killed a huge number of people! Better to stick with our illegible traditions.". But there were legible, non-traditionalist reasons (e.g. standard liberal arguments, neoclassical economics, the calculation problem) to oppose communism even before its famous famines/atrocities.

A tradition might never have served a useful purpose at all, if it was perpetuated as a mark of group membership. ("If you want to set yourself apart from other people, you have to do things that are arbitrary, and believe things that are false.")

If a particular tradition is good, it can be justified on its own merits, without appeals to Chesterton's Fence. The case for it isn't necessarily persuasive, but that's a problem for any argument, not just for keeping traditions. That's a reason to double down on explicit, legible reasoning to make sure you get it right, not to set it aside for "Well, it didn't kill our ancestors...".

[awearyexile]

Yeah, this seems rational. 

[awearyexile]

Julian Assange unironically described himself as a, “Deplorable” so all you Reddit Liberals can stop pretending that he isn’t just a clandestine propagandist for resurgent fascism now. 

[awearyexile]

“ As state attorney general, Pryor filed a brief that supported the right of states to make consenting private homosexual conduct a crime. "The states should not be required to accept, as a matter of constitutional doctrine, that homosexual activity is harmless and does not expose both the individual and the public to deleterious spiritual and physical consequences," Pryor wrote in the brief. “

One of Trump’s god-awful Supreme Court nominees.  

[awearyexile]

What is even the point of the, “If you LIBCUCKS had jobs you wouldn’t have time to protest!!” comeback? Do conservatives want people to be so inundated with working to survive that they literally don’t have time to care about political justice or to even participate in governance? (hint: yes)

I can’t even imagine constructing my entire ideology and sense of self-worth around making money for some rich asshole (or being that exploitative asshole).