What does "progressive behavior" mean? What does "conservative behavior" mean? The sort of thing typically being discussed here (in relation to so-called "cancel culture") typically involve the action of a few thousand (or less) people working almost entirely online or within the context of a small social context (for example a college).
For me, what matters are policies enacted that have the power to affect thousands or millions of people. Whether or not I approve of or even believe in "cancel culture", it's a marginal affair whether it's affecting conservatives or progressives.
Progressive policy vs. conservative policy? There's no contest, no comparison between the two that does not differentiate heavily between them on the basis of inclusivity, tolerance, egalitarianism and so forth.
As Atrios notes (a lot; Eschaton) "oh noes, those crazy powerful college kids have gotten another conservative speaker to go away while meanwhile there's been another tax cut, another step toward voting disenfranchisement, another shift towards even greater wealth/income inequality etc. etc".
In short, given the scale of the impact actual policy, I'm not sure how much I care whether there actually is a "cancel culture" or not.
What you've got here is a political argument between conservative and progressive. To be clear, I mean each term as used explicitly in this context. The argument is whether or not to change contemporary societal behavior.
The natural result is selection bias for any progressive viewpoint, because there is inherently more to be said and more motivation to say coming from the progressive perspective than the conservative one.
I think there's no consistent difference between conservatives and progressives on this point. Conservatives, for example, are much more prone to think that human sexuality can be shaped and controlled by society, whereas progressives take the attitude that every variety and quirk of human sexuality must be dealt with as it is. It's the same thing with the desire to be productive and contribute to society: progressives tend to see it as an innate drive that can simply be harnessed for any purpose, while conservatives see it as a fragile thing that withers unless it is cultivated under the right conditions (i.e., low taxation and strong protection of private property.)
Note that it is both conservatives and progressives who worry about media warping the minds of children: conservatives worrying about sex, irreverance, and irresponsibility, and progressives worrying about racism, sexism, and violence.
The specific concerns may be new, but the general tactics are neither new, nor specific to progressives; in fact, while the labor movement has had some notable successes with it, the general approach has been most extensively deployed in this country by, and still is extensively used by, conservatives, particularly Christian conservatives, against policies, institutions, art, personages, etc., they disapprove of.
They call it “cancel culture” when it is their ox getting gored, but it is not as if no one told them what the harvest is like when you sow the wind...
The thing is, I am not a progressive in your understanding and by English sense of the word and I fully agree with your rewordization. In my country, progressives are comparable to US libertarians.
What you list as positive traits seem to be just rational politics. That's how it's known in my country, not as something conservative or else. So is that conservatism, being rational and pragmatic instead of... Irrational as progressives? Or is the key message of conservatism something else? The word conservative suggest a stop of change. I thought the message of conservatism would be more related to that.
Those would be the literal meanings of the words, yes.
In practice, the fundamental difference is probably more about a person's radius of empathy (progressives tend to apply their empathy to a larger group of people), and then lots of vaguely related things flow from that, e.g. different outlooks on power (conservatives prefer a strong man - obviously only assuming he's from their own "tribe" - and therefore strongly tend towards authoritarianism) and economics (empathy with more people tends to make one prefer more equal distributions of wealth and income).
The terms progressive and conservative simply arose at a time when the world was largely shaped the way conservatives like. Since then, the world has changed more towards the progressive vision, so today conservatives do want to change creating things.
Thank you for elucidating what I've been attempting to communicate to people when I tell them I'm a liberal, not a progressive. Your point about conservatives being progressives of sort just in the other direction is spot on.
Thank you for elucidating what I've been attempting to communicate to people when I tell them I'm a liberal, not a progressive. Your point about conservatives being progressives of sort just in the other direction is spot on.
It is very difficult to talk about both words given the amount of meaning that has been layered on top of both over the years. Generally conservative just means you are cautious around change, whereas progressives are much less cautious and more willing to experiment with new changes.
but no matter which culture gets dominant, it's the conservatives who will try and maintain it (by definition) and the progressives the ones trying to change it
So are you making the “small vocal minority” argument? “Most progressives are principled liberals who condemn cancellation but we never hear from them”? And why are you focusing so much on doctrine as though progressive doctrine and not progressive behavior is on trial. I take very little consolation from the idea that progressive doctrine condemns cancellation or that in theory progressives ought to be tolerant and conservatives intolerant.
Progressive - a person advocating or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas
Conservative - a person who is averse to change and holds traditional values
And now if we drill in, we get a problem.
Traditional values - long-standing beliefs, customs, and practices passed down through generations within a particular culture or society, often reflecting moral, ethical, or religious principles
Problem number 1, different conservative hold different set of traditional values. To be conservative kind of requires some level of social hegemony, where everyone holds the same traditional values.
Liberal -
1. a supporter of policies that promote social welfare.
2. a supporter of a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.
Problem number 2, there are now two definition of liberal ideas. One are geared towars social welfare. The other towards democracy and individual liberty.
This makes it that, all conversation that stays high level, and talks about clusters as conservatives and progressives, to me, is misconstrued, and confusing, because the subject could dramatically be different. Are we discussing Judeo-Christian values, gender roles, etc. ? Are we discussing the need for social welfare, the importance of democracy, the value of individual rights?
It all gets conflated in a way that simply divides people based on labels, not substance.
The terms "progressive" and "conservative" have been completely stripped of meaning in our political discourse, (like "agile"!) but fundamentally they have a core meaning.
Progressive philosophy is to seek change to improve/fix problems, even with the risk that action can have side effects that also will need to be dealt with.
Conservative philosophy is to maintain the status quo and not take action to address problems even if they are causing harm - until we can establish all possible side effects can be dealt with. ( https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Chesterton%27s_fence )
Which is why it's so strange and disappointing to me to see the overall discourse on this site about Twitter and the steps they take to try to deal with misinformation on global society-impacting subjects like pandemics, vaccines, and climate change.
People are not wrong to worry about knock-on effects, but it's shocking to me that by default most of the comment upvotes suggest it's preferable to do absolutely nothing and offer no moderation of content like this.
This would never fly in our day-to-day jobs. If HackerNews is for startup enterpreneurs, being stuck in analysis paralysis is no way to build a startup. Progressive bias for action is the only available option.
I would have believed the original meaning of "conservative" was someone who wanted to keep things they way they are. Advocates for the status quo, which is good enough. Usually it means they are relatively risk averse. Changing the system is likely to make things worse, not better.
"Progressive", on the other hand, traditionally meant advocating for continuing change to the system with hopes we can get even better.
Since those original meanings, the terms have co-opted into meaning something else entirely. Conservative = Capitalist or Royalist. Progressive = Socialist or Populist.
Conservative means they want to conserve an old way of life, as opposed to progressives who want progress. Modern conservatives are in favor of heavy government regulation of stuff like lgbt rights
>"Is anything you're attributing to "progressives" not a quality of "conservatives" as well?"
I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate - keeping in mind I am not talking about all conservatives or even trying to estimate a percentage of them who fit this observation.
There are many conservatives who hold an "I just want to be left alone" or "the free market will fix it" mindset. The result is that when they are upset about something, they tend to act individually and "vote with their wallet" while hoping that the silent majority will follow suit. This is not to say that conservatives don't organize protests or mass boycotts, just that it seems like they don't do so as readily because they expect the free market to produce the pressure that brings about change. Again, this isn't true for every conservative cause and certainly not the major ones like the 2nd Amendment or overturning Roe v Wade.
I contrast that with how progressives tend to see problems as structural or systemic. In this worldview, they have to be active and vocal to dismantle these systems in order to bring about change. If they don't, the system will continue functioning because that is how it was designed. Because it takes much more energy to reform or replace a system than it does to maintain one, I sense progressives necessarily have to be active and vocal.
Broadly speaking, I believe that conservatives expect that "system will fix it" while progressives expect to "fix the system".
You might want to read the post again since I did not describe conservatives as progressives, quite the opposite. What I do say is that both philosophies have a role to play in society. Too much conservatism leads to stagnation while too much progressivism leads to chaos. Both scenarios have played out in history for your perusal.
He did not say progressives, he said " anyone who spends a lot of time thinking about this type of thing", which I interpreted as the conservatives which can't stop talking about this.
For me, what matters are policies enacted that have the power to affect thousands or millions of people. Whether or not I approve of or even believe in "cancel culture", it's a marginal affair whether it's affecting conservatives or progressives.
Progressive policy vs. conservative policy? There's no contest, no comparison between the two that does not differentiate heavily between them on the basis of inclusivity, tolerance, egalitarianism and so forth.
As Atrios notes (a lot; Eschaton) "oh noes, those crazy powerful college kids have gotten another conservative speaker to go away while meanwhile there's been another tax cut, another step toward voting disenfranchisement, another shift towards even greater wealth/income inequality etc. etc".
In short, given the scale of the impact actual policy, I'm not sure how much I care whether there actually is a "cancel culture" or not.
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