Being a conservative to me is taking responsibility for your choices in life. Owning up to your mistakes and working to rectify them. Not whining and being entitled. Working for what you want in life and not thinking what someone else has should belong to you through income redistribution. I suspect I come at it from an economic standpoint for what it means to be a conservative.
I know conservative people who do not have family’s for whatever reason.
I know alot of liberals who have families. I know alot of liberals who are even religious.
I think most of these are personal values and while politically they may be cast as liberal versus conservative I simply consider them part of being human.
I agree with personal responsibility. I would add:
The idea that, as Roger Scruton put it, we have inherited wonderful things from those who came before us that we are obliged to preserve for those who come after us (this includes what you mention as defence, but goes much further).
That human nature is often destructive and that laws, religions and traditions are necessary to guide us to the time-tested ways of moral living. We are not "basically good" or "blank slates" that can be made good by basic upbringing. We need life-long moral and spiritual guidance.
That it is (as Frederich Hayek put it) a "fatal conceit" to believe that any individual or group of individuals can understand something as complex as society well enough to be able to undertake large-scale social engineering projects.
That individuals, families and communities are better at deciding how to spend their own money and how to support the needy than the centralised state is. As Margaret Thatcher said, the problem with socialism is that sooner or later, you run out of other people's money.
You said a lot of things I would have said. So rather than repeat it, I'll just add:
Western culture is the record of human progress. It is something to be proud of, not something to apologize for. As Tom Holland lays out in "Dominion," our Christian and Jewish heritage is so ingrained in us that often we can't even see it. The very notion that every human being has worth comes from Christanity. "Separation of church and state" : same thing, as well as "freedom of religion," "rational and scientific inquiry," and "freedom of speech." All cultures are NOT equal, and Western countries should not feel sheepish about promoting theirs.
Truth vs. perception: to be "right wing" means to accept that there IS such a thing as truth, and it is not merely the subjective preference of the powerful. Solzhenitsyn said that the most revolutionary thing he could think of was just to refuse to lie. In this article: https://terminaldrift.substack.com/p/harmony-through-horseshit-chinas. the author lays out what the opposite of this is: "whatever the emperor (or the Party) says is truth." To be "right wing" is to refuse to play this game.
Agreed. Conservatism (or right wing as currently often described) is rooted in individual freedom and the personal responsibility that comes with it. And that is also the struggle in western societies right now as generation after generation is being taught that the system or the state will take care of things and protect the individual, whatever the cost. It has contributed to deep moral rot and fiscal chaos. It will take generations to fix.
Yes! The reliance and the blaming of systems is a sort of rot. And I think that that’s why the phrase woke right is correct because it’s the trappings of the right without personal responsibility.
I love that you ask the question, JPR, in this open-minded way. The right to dissent without fear is an important one, left or right, without being excluded or persecuted.
I would need to deal with my cognitive dissonance. I am for gun control. I support women’s right for abortion as a means to decide what is best for her. I am for environment control. I am, by and large, against fracking. I am for public parks to belong to the public. Most of the democratic values were my exact values and October 7th wrecked chaos in my allegiance.
However, I never felt the need to shut another side as I believe in respectful discourse and exchange of opinions.
I taught in the left-leaning institutions.
As I shared before, I am politically homeless now.
I appreciate your courage in sharing what right wing means to you. Why do I say courage? Some might scoff at me for that. But we’re in this odd time in history in which certain ideologies (almost all from the left) feel boundless permission to slander the other side, painting a unfactual and inaccurate portrait of other people’s views, yet act as if they’re experiencing genocide if you disagree or call out any of their beliefs as unreasonable. For this reason I appreciate your courage. Every honest dissenting voice is important!
Thank you. I think that that’s why I chose the term right wing. Because it is used as a slur. But the concept-maybe that term (phrase?) isn’t the most apt-has a specific meaning. And the meaning isn’t evil one or loser. People can disagree but most viewpoints aren’t evil in and of themselves.
I appreciate (and agree with) what you wrote, but I'll pose a question that I have pondered. I have a number of Amish friends. They are very family-centered and have an especially strong sense of responsibility that relies on themselves, their families, and their communities rather than on government. However, as a religious belief, they do not believe in violence, even in cases of self-defense. In colonial America, Quakers were persecuted for the same belief. Yet, they are strongly conservative and traditional.
Being conservative, actually Conservative, or right wing encompasses many ideas. I do not rule out any of your observations. As mentioned in the Comments, personal responsibility is a good choice to add. Basically, being Conservative means supporting limited government which translates to lower taxes and more freedom. It also means supporting the right to self-defense and freedom of speech and our right to privacy. Being Conservative means being against everything espoused by the left wing nuts.
I agree with most of your definitions while disliking very much the term "right-wing." A generation ago, what is today considered right-wing was then merely "conservative" or even "traditional." I dislike the term because it's a pejorative, an easy way for those with leftist views to dismiss us out of hand. As a longtime journalist, I've seen how the media has been shedding any semblance of objectivity, and today, younger journalists openly dismiss that ideal as unimportant, given how our "democracy is at risk" and therefore they are free to become hacks. So, for a good 20 years or so, major media outlets would call conservatives "right-wing," but never call leftists or liberals "left-wing." This has continued to further divide us and keep us from being able to have civil conversations about important issues. I'm definitely a conservative, but I'd never call myself right-wing.
This is such a good point. I think that right-wing has become a slur. And I see it most often as people defending themselves and insisting that they are not right wing.
I don't this quite covers it (incomplete), but you're definitely hitting on some core points that are, at minimum, highly compatible with the conservative worldview. And conservativism is of course a rightism, tho I think we've seen ample evidence of late that it's sadly not the only form.
My version of Right Wing basically starts by expending and steelmanning Bryan Caplan's version: the right is defined by opposing the left. I understand that this is unsatisfactory for some. Too reductive, too dependent or symbiotic. If may even sound superficially trivial or circular. "That which isn't A is B, that which isn't B is A." I promise it's a bit more nuanced.
I can define the left independent of the right. "The unifying theme of the left is *attempting to fix society via challenging ideas.* Also noblesse oblige and tolerance," as I said once on Twitter. So yes, the right often resists new ideas, but that just terminates back at conservativism. What defines all rightism, including non-conservative rightism, is an opposition to the left qua the left, not just to specific and novel ideas.
I might also add rightism also tends to include a preference for insularity, for one's group (often a homogeneous group) over outsiders. This could be as simple and benign as familial devotion, or as complex and potentially fraught as ethno-nationalistic sentiments. Notably, it also often (tho not always) includes an Us vs Them element that isn't necessarily as obligatory within leftism. The left doesn't need a group as an scapegoat or enemy (even if it tends to find one in practice). It only needs ideas to challenge or oppose.
Conservative is to conserve. A respect for what came before. Traditional. I wouldn’t say that the right needs the left to oppose. The ideas on the right always come first. Then the left tries to change what came before and the right defends it.
I came of age during the 1994 Newt Gingritch Contract with America. Christine Todd Whitman became the governor of NJ. Giuliani the mayor of NYC. A time of great optimism.
Clinton was as good a Democrat president as the right could get.
With bipartisan resolve, they pushed the crime rate down, reformed welfare and all sorts of things.
Some of these were excessive in retrospect. But the goals were good. The swing back to the right could have been a lot more extreme, like we see today.
You know what, you are right in that my approach to the role of women accepts feminism as the default and fights against it. That’s an example of what you’re saying. I am going to try to create a description of an alternative view of women ex nihilo. The role will not be new. But the description has to be.
Being a conservative to me is taking responsibility for your choices in life. Owning up to your mistakes and working to rectify them. Not whining and being entitled. Working for what you want in life and not thinking what someone else has should belong to you through income redistribution. I suspect I come at it from an economic standpoint for what it means to be a conservative.
I know conservative people who do not have family’s for whatever reason.
I know alot of liberals who have families. I know alot of liberals who are even religious.
I think most of these are personal values and while politically they may be cast as liberal versus conservative I simply consider them part of being human.
Personal responsibility. That is key.
I agree with personal responsibility. I would add:
The idea that, as Roger Scruton put it, we have inherited wonderful things from those who came before us that we are obliged to preserve for those who come after us (this includes what you mention as defence, but goes much further).
That human nature is often destructive and that laws, religions and traditions are necessary to guide us to the time-tested ways of moral living. We are not "basically good" or "blank slates" that can be made good by basic upbringing. We need life-long moral and spiritual guidance.
That it is (as Frederich Hayek put it) a "fatal conceit" to believe that any individual or group of individuals can understand something as complex as society well enough to be able to undertake large-scale social engineering projects.
That individuals, families and communities are better at deciding how to spend their own money and how to support the needy than the centralised state is. As Margaret Thatcher said, the problem with socialism is that sooner or later, you run out of other people's money.
Your comment is better than my post. 🤦🏻♀️
😳Thank you!
well, thank you, Rivka!
You said a lot of things I would have said. So rather than repeat it, I'll just add:
Western culture is the record of human progress. It is something to be proud of, not something to apologize for. As Tom Holland lays out in "Dominion," our Christian and Jewish heritage is so ingrained in us that often we can't even see it. The very notion that every human being has worth comes from Christanity. "Separation of church and state" : same thing, as well as "freedom of religion," "rational and scientific inquiry," and "freedom of speech." All cultures are NOT equal, and Western countries should not feel sheepish about promoting theirs.
Truth vs. perception: to be "right wing" means to accept that there IS such a thing as truth, and it is not merely the subjective preference of the powerful. Solzhenitsyn said that the most revolutionary thing he could think of was just to refuse to lie. In this article: https://terminaldrift.substack.com/p/harmony-through-horseshit-chinas. the author lays out what the opposite of this is: "whatever the emperor (or the Party) says is truth." To be "right wing" is to refuse to play this game.
This is great stuff. Mulling this over.
Truth.
Judeo-Christian philosophy (?) as the root of indispensable ideas.
And that every human being has worth. This is the foundation of women’s rights.
Agreed. Conservatism (or right wing as currently often described) is rooted in individual freedom and the personal responsibility that comes with it. And that is also the struggle in western societies right now as generation after generation is being taught that the system or the state will take care of things and protect the individual, whatever the cost. It has contributed to deep moral rot and fiscal chaos. It will take generations to fix.
Yes! The reliance and the blaming of systems is a sort of rot. And I think that that’s why the phrase woke right is correct because it’s the trappings of the right without personal responsibility.
https://behindthenarrative7.substack.com/p/i-dated-a-progressive-liberal-so?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=bpnge
If 13 year old girls ran the world. This is what it would look like.
I love that you ask the question, JPR, in this open-minded way. The right to dissent without fear is an important one, left or right, without being excluded or persecuted.
Oh, that is great!
Yes!
I would need to deal with my cognitive dissonance. I am for gun control. I support women’s right for abortion as a means to decide what is best for her. I am for environment control. I am, by and large, against fracking. I am for public parks to belong to the public. Most of the democratic values were my exact values and October 7th wrecked chaos in my allegiance.
However, I never felt the need to shut another side as I believe in respectful discourse and exchange of opinions.
I taught in the left-leaning institutions.
As I shared before, I am politically homeless now.
I don’t think that we all have to see things the same way. Just be civil and let each other speak.
When people disagree respectfully, we get our best results.
I appreciate your courage in sharing what right wing means to you. Why do I say courage? Some might scoff at me for that. But we’re in this odd time in history in which certain ideologies (almost all from the left) feel boundless permission to slander the other side, painting a unfactual and inaccurate portrait of other people’s views, yet act as if they’re experiencing genocide if you disagree or call out any of their beliefs as unreasonable. For this reason I appreciate your courage. Every honest dissenting voice is important!
Thank you. I think that that’s why I chose the term right wing. Because it is used as a slur. But the concept-maybe that term (phrase?) isn’t the most apt-has a specific meaning. And the meaning isn’t evil one or loser. People can disagree but most viewpoints aren’t evil in and of themselves.
I appreciate (and agree with) what you wrote, but I'll pose a question that I have pondered. I have a number of Amish friends. They are very family-centered and have an especially strong sense of responsibility that relies on themselves, their families, and their communities rather than on government. However, as a religious belief, they do not believe in violence, even in cases of self-defense. In colonial America, Quakers were persecuted for the same belief. Yet, they are strongly conservative and traditional.
Oh! That’s a great question.
Being conservative, actually Conservative, or right wing encompasses many ideas. I do not rule out any of your observations. As mentioned in the Comments, personal responsibility is a good choice to add. Basically, being Conservative means supporting limited government which translates to lower taxes and more freedom. It also means supporting the right to self-defense and freedom of speech and our right to privacy. Being Conservative means being against everything espoused by the left wing nuts.
That’s true.
I agree with most of your definitions while disliking very much the term "right-wing." A generation ago, what is today considered right-wing was then merely "conservative" or even "traditional." I dislike the term because it's a pejorative, an easy way for those with leftist views to dismiss us out of hand. As a longtime journalist, I've seen how the media has been shedding any semblance of objectivity, and today, younger journalists openly dismiss that ideal as unimportant, given how our "democracy is at risk" and therefore they are free to become hacks. So, for a good 20 years or so, major media outlets would call conservatives "right-wing," but never call leftists or liberals "left-wing." This has continued to further divide us and keep us from being able to have civil conversations about important issues. I'm definitely a conservative, but I'd never call myself right-wing.
This is such a good point. I think that right-wing has become a slur. And I see it most often as people defending themselves and insisting that they are not right wing.
Conservative and traditional have more meaning.
I don't this quite covers it (incomplete), but you're definitely hitting on some core points that are, at minimum, highly compatible with the conservative worldview. And conservativism is of course a rightism, tho I think we've seen ample evidence of late that it's sadly not the only form.
My version of Right Wing basically starts by expending and steelmanning Bryan Caplan's version: the right is defined by opposing the left. I understand that this is unsatisfactory for some. Too reductive, too dependent or symbiotic. If may even sound superficially trivial or circular. "That which isn't A is B, that which isn't B is A." I promise it's a bit more nuanced.
I can define the left independent of the right. "The unifying theme of the left is *attempting to fix society via challenging ideas.* Also noblesse oblige and tolerance," as I said once on Twitter. So yes, the right often resists new ideas, but that just terminates back at conservativism. What defines all rightism, including non-conservative rightism, is an opposition to the left qua the left, not just to specific and novel ideas.
I might also add rightism also tends to include a preference for insularity, for one's group (often a homogeneous group) over outsiders. This could be as simple and benign as familial devotion, or as complex and potentially fraught as ethno-nationalistic sentiments. Notably, it also often (tho not always) includes an Us vs Them element that isn't necessarily as obligatory within leftism. The left doesn't need a group as an scapegoat or enemy (even if it tends to find one in practice). It only needs ideas to challenge or oppose.
That's my read on the binary anyway.
Conservative is to conserve. A respect for what came before. Traditional. I wouldn’t say that the right needs the left to oppose. The ideas on the right always come first. Then the left tries to change what came before and the right defends it.
I came of age during the 1994 Newt Gingritch Contract with America. Christine Todd Whitman became the governor of NJ. Giuliani the mayor of NYC. A time of great optimism.
Clinton was as good a Democrat president as the right could get.
With bipartisan resolve, they pushed the crime rate down, reformed welfare and all sorts of things.
Some of these were excessive in retrospect. But the goals were good. The swing back to the right could have been a lot more extreme, like we see today.
Insularity is the way the right goes wrong. Militarism is another one.
The left goes wrong with authoritarianism and eliminating privacy. Stuff like that.
We agree on a lot of this.
It's a shame right populism doesn't care about tradition.
Or personal responsibility. Or family. Or supporting the military.
You know what, you are right in that my approach to the role of women accepts feminism as the default and fights against it. That’s an example of what you’re saying. I am going to try to create a description of an alternative view of women ex nihilo. The role will not be new. But the description has to be.
Great post. I think the sanctity of human life and moral agency are important.
Me too.