I've long thought "progressive vs conservative" speaks to the main difference between their worldviews. These seem to me fundamental (and equally valid) ways of seeing the world. Progressive views ensure society keeps moving forward, while conservative views prevent leaping off cliffs. But both need to be honest and authentic in their approach, a condition we rarely see anymore. Politics has become a team sport with fans rooting for their team regardless of its failures and weaknesses.
That all said, I read about a study that found a notable correlation between conservative views and the sense of disgust (a sort of anti-openness). Hard to quantify but rings true to me. A lot of conservative politics does seem to trace down to a sense of disgust about something, for instance, immigrants, the poor, other races and cultures.
I've also read this about disgust and conservatism. I think at base a lot of political impulses do come from these kinds of personality differences, and the differences are reinforced by internal population movement: people with greater openness often move out of their small towns or rural places and cluster in cities where they can experience more in life, and this in turn heightens city/provinces cultural divides.
That diffusion is very apparent here in Minnesota. The Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area, plus the city of Duluth, are the liberal bastions, whereas most of the rest of the state is rural and conservative (and hates us “citiots” for usually carrying the state).
What’s tragic these days is the polarization. Perhaps it’s only nostalgia, but it seemed like we used to be able to put aside our differences and work together better. We were genuinely interested in governing. Now we just seem to fight.
It's definitely not just nostalgia. The internet and other communication/media technologies have dramatically changed people's "lived experience," and exposed a bunch of individuals and institutions to competitive dynamics that were previously suppressed by "elite" control of institutions and people's ignorance of most things outside their local environment. Now, we have plenty of groups/institutions finding the worst behavior of the "other" side and saturating people's minds with that in order to delegitimize the beliefs of "normal" people who could "support" such behavior. Just as casinos have optimized slots to be more addictive, I feel like the dynamics between politics and media is optimizing for divisiveness. It's not that these pressures came out of nowhere in the last 3 decades, it's just that globalization increased the rate of (perceived) change faster than our culture and institutions were set up to handle.
That sounds something that makes sense while we talk about the ideal type of conservative that moderates who read Chesterton would like to see, not the one we actually see in the world.
Ignoring climate change (or generally environmental issues) seems a pretty clear cut case of Chesterton's fence (in the case of forests, they are cutting down something that works like a literal fence). How do conservatives vs liberals find themselves?
On eg, Trump, you have a guy promising to radically change how the govt works (project 2025), with effects impossible to really foresee, and conservatives are loving it, because they think the proposed changes are good and any unintended consequence is entirely acceptable as long as they get what they want.
See the Tories' plans for a Singapore on the Thames, Berlusconi's "liberal revolution", etc.
Self-IDed conservatives always have some clever reason for why, if you squint enough, they are really just respecting the spirit of tradition _as an idea_, which just so happens to require an actual overhaul of how the entire system concretely works in practice.
I don't think conservatives fear death more, but their attitude might still fit within terror management theory: one strategy to avoid confronting thinking about death, and by proxy the existential risks of the world, is to insist that they don't exist: that the way things have been done in the past has served us in good stead so far, so why change. This attitude is, at various points in history, in favour of driving without seatbelts, polluting the environment, smoking, increasing car fumes, sending children down mines etc.
I've long thought "progressive vs conservative" speaks to the main difference between their worldviews. These seem to me fundamental (and equally valid) ways of seeing the world. Progressive views ensure society keeps moving forward, while conservative views prevent leaping off cliffs. But both need to be honest and authentic in their approach, a condition we rarely see anymore. Politics has become a team sport with fans rooting for their team regardless of its failures and weaknesses.
That all said, I read about a study that found a notable correlation between conservative views and the sense of disgust (a sort of anti-openness). Hard to quantify but rings true to me. A lot of conservative politics does seem to trace down to a sense of disgust about something, for instance, immigrants, the poor, other races and cultures.
I've also read this about disgust and conservatism. I think at base a lot of political impulses do come from these kinds of personality differences, and the differences are reinforced by internal population movement: people with greater openness often move out of their small towns or rural places and cluster in cities where they can experience more in life, and this in turn heightens city/provinces cultural divides.
That diffusion is very apparent here in Minnesota. The Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area, plus the city of Duluth, are the liberal bastions, whereas most of the rest of the state is rural and conservative (and hates us “citiots” for usually carrying the state).
What’s tragic these days is the polarization. Perhaps it’s only nostalgia, but it seemed like we used to be able to put aside our differences and work together better. We were genuinely interested in governing. Now we just seem to fight.
It's definitely not just nostalgia. The internet and other communication/media technologies have dramatically changed people's "lived experience," and exposed a bunch of individuals and institutions to competitive dynamics that were previously suppressed by "elite" control of institutions and people's ignorance of most things outside their local environment. Now, we have plenty of groups/institutions finding the worst behavior of the "other" side and saturating people's minds with that in order to delegitimize the beliefs of "normal" people who could "support" such behavior. Just as casinos have optimized slots to be more addictive, I feel like the dynamics between politics and media is optimizing for divisiveness. It's not that these pressures came out of nowhere in the last 3 decades, it's just that globalization increased the rate of (perceived) change faster than our culture and institutions were set up to handle.
Indeed, and I quite agree a lot of this traces back to the shock of globalization.
That sounds something that makes sense while we talk about the ideal type of conservative that moderates who read Chesterton would like to see, not the one we actually see in the world.
Ignoring climate change (or generally environmental issues) seems a pretty clear cut case of Chesterton's fence (in the case of forests, they are cutting down something that works like a literal fence). How do conservatives vs liberals find themselves?
On eg, Trump, you have a guy promising to radically change how the govt works (project 2025), with effects impossible to really foresee, and conservatives are loving it, because they think the proposed changes are good and any unintended consequence is entirely acceptable as long as they get what they want.
See the Tories' plans for a Singapore on the Thames, Berlusconi's "liberal revolution", etc.
Self-IDed conservatives always have some clever reason for why, if you squint enough, they are really just respecting the spirit of tradition _as an idea_, which just so happens to require an actual overhaul of how the entire system concretely works in practice.
I don't think conservatives fear death more, but their attitude might still fit within terror management theory: one strategy to avoid confronting thinking about death, and by proxy the existential risks of the world, is to insist that they don't exist: that the way things have been done in the past has served us in good stead so far, so why change. This attitude is, at various points in history, in favour of driving without seatbelts, polluting the environment, smoking, increasing car fumes, sending children down mines etc.
Wouldn't one expect people who are succumbing to terror-avoiding rationalizations to search death-related topics *less*?
My instinct is that if we are scared of X, X tends to fascinate and absorb our attention. I agree it's an open question though.
Death is nothing to fear. It's exactly like before you were born. Dying, on the other hand...