I want to propose a different way of thinking about conservatism and progressivism.
I suggest we think about the two positions not as detectable ideologies themselves, but as situational orientations around an existing order.
getrevue.co/profile/julius…
I suggest we think about the two positions not as detectable ideologies themselves, but as situational orientations around an existing order.
getrevue.co/profile/julius…
Specifically with this order. The one that exists. This reality. The way our systems and laws are set up, the way they’re codified and the way they’re operationalized. What they claim to intend to do, and what they actually do.
“The way things are,” in other words.
“The way things are,” in other words.
Let’s think of conservatism as being, in its essence, an orientation that desires to keep the existing order just as it is, or to make slow and deliberate calculated minor adjustments, to the existing order.
Conservatism, then, sits at the center of the existing order, whatever that order is.
Conservatism, then, is only as good as the existing order upon which it sits.
Conservatism, then, is only as good as the existing order upon which it sits.
Another way of saying it: in order to understand conservatism, you need to look at what it’s trying to conserve. For us to know whether we need conservatism requires judgment and discernment about the existing order—which requires some underlying value against which to judge it.
Let’s think of progressivism, then, as an orientation that seeks to move the existing order from its existing state to some other existing order.
A deliberate movement, and possibly a dramatic one.
A deliberate movement, and possibly a dramatic one.
Progressivism pushes out from the existing order, whatever that order is. It’s only as good as the direction it intends to go.
Another way of saying it: in order to understand progressivism, you need to look at the end to which it is trying to progress, which also requires judgment and discernment, and some underlying value against which to judge.
If you accept these suggestions, then our struggles are not taking place on an axis of conservatism and progressivism at all, but on an axis of moral value.
We’re contending not simply over movement, but over what moral value will undergird our moral order … which will determine whether or not we should stay or move in the first place.
Let me propose a name for the current struggle.
Let me propose a name for the current struggle.
Let me propose a name for the struggle: I think we are experiencing a struggle between a moral value of universal justice and a moral value of specific dominance.
In case you missed it, a bunch of truckers have blockaded the Canada-US border at the Ambassador Bridge, in protest of mandates implemented to prevent the spread of Covid, which is a deadly virus in case you hadn’t heard.
They’re doing it because of bodily autonomy, or because recommended Covid prevention measures are bad for the economy, or to protect children from harm, or for personal freedom, depending on who you ask when.
Anyway, they’re blockading this specific chokepoint of the border, and two other spots, and all of these crossing are collectively responsible for an estimated fifty-eight trillion GDPs of Economy every fiscal year.
And they’re using their schoolchildren to blockade roads, and so forth.
So much for the economy.
So much for the safety of children.
So much for the economy.
So much for the safety of children.
These truckers are *conservative.*
Good. So: What do they seek to conserve?
Here’s my observation: they seek to conserve a reality in which they and they alone dominate as a social, economic, and political force.
Good. So: What do they seek to conserve?
Here’s my observation: they seek to conserve a reality in which they and they alone dominate as a social, economic, and political force.
They are being told by their government they must act as if the lives of immunocompromised people matter, or else they must face a consequence. The truckers find this intolerable.
I'd like to focus not on *why* they demonstrated but *what* they are demonstrated, which is this:
That the current order allows them, and only them, to define reality, to determine whose lives matter, and to take extremist action with relative impunity to defend that order.
That the current order allows them, and only them, to define reality, to determine whose lives matter, and to take extremist action with relative impunity to defend that order.
They are demonstrating their specific dominance. We might call it their supremacy, since their actions are being accommodated by power even as they harm that power, in a way other people would very clearly not be accommodated.
You might call these truckers “regressive,” I suppose, because they actually want to move us further out, back toward a world even more dominated by their supremacy. But I’ll stick with “conservative,” because ...
... it is what they call themselves, and because the supremacy they want to move deeper into observably exists in our present order, and it is that supremacy which is the observable constant of their ideology—which both they and less extremist conservatives act to conserve.
As a contrast: Black Lives Matter activists took to the streets in 2020 because the police have been brutalizing and terrorizing communities—particularly Black communities—for years.
But leave aside for a moment *why* they demonstrated, to focus on *what* was demonstrated.
But leave aside for a moment *why* they demonstrated, to focus on *what* was demonstrated.
They demonstrated that they were indeed terrorized and brutalized by an occupying force, which indeed terrorized and brutalized them, night after night, in city after city.
It was observable. It is *the way things are*.
It was observable. It is *the way things are*.
Black Lives Matter, like any civil rights movement, inescapably demonstrated the existing order of specific dominance, while pointing us toward universal justice.
And, like any civil rights movement, they are opposed by those who do not want to move.
And, like any civil rights movement, they are opposed by those who do not want to move.
Those activists seek to move us from our present order of specific dominance: of police over their lives and bodies, to a new order of universal justice, in which their lives matter, in which the money spent on oppression went instead to community services and public good.
And yes, there are a lot of other issues tied to that issue, which conservatives present as a reason to not move. But the real progressive answer is to address those issues, too.
That’s where progressives want to move us, and I sure hope we get there someday.
That’s where progressives want to move us, and I sure hope we get there someday.
I think it’s worth working for a day when nobody would block a bridge to defend their right to put other people in mortal danger, or to insist on their individual right to define reality for everybody else.
I think it's worth working for a day when nobody will have to block a bridge to force the world to contend with their lives as something that ought to matter—because we have become so aligned with that belief that it has become *the way things are.*
We’re not there yet, obviously. So, until then, I’m a progressive.
But I would love to someday be able to be a conservative, protecting and maintaining and improving a new order of universal justice.
But I would love to someday be able to be a conservative, protecting and maintaining and improving a new order of universal justice.
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