On Conservatism

(originally published Oct. 5, 2012)
“It is not the failure of others to appreciate your abilities that should trouble you but rather your failure to appreciate theirs." - Confucius
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I know that I promised a note featuring a less serious topic, namely, 'In Defence of Video Gaming.'  It's almost finished but, in honour of Canadian Thanksgiving and for self-care reasons, I had to publish this note first.

I've touched on this topic in the past, indirectly, especially in my first note ever, The Deadliest Sin.  To save you the trouble of reading it, if you haven't already, excessive pride is bad.  If you don't agree, then you might find it interesting.
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What is conservatism?

Wikipedia defines it as "a political and social philosophy that promotes retaining traditional social institutions."  My definition is somewhat broader.  I'd argue that conservatism is a state of being.

A small "c" conservative (as opposed to big "C" Conservative) has lost, or submitted, in an internal struggle with his/her self.  As I noted in On Free Will, every human being is born with the "motivation to enhance and incur pleasure while minimize and eliminate pain."  The self, constrained by the ego, arbitrates that struggle.

At birth, we don't question the dominance of the self and of the motivation to maximize pleasure and to minimize pain.  It's natural in the innate sense.  A baby will smile when it feels pleasure and cry when it feels pain.  I'm referring to both pleasure and pain in the widest sense; pain would also include fear and insecurity.

However, as we become more experienced, we gradually become sensitive to the feelings of others, not just our own.  As empathy develops, we become less and less self-centric and more and more liberal and not in the strictly political sense but rather in the sense that we value the welfare of others.  This transition helps explain why almost every late teenager and student in their early 20's in North America votes for the politically Left.

Eventually, however, most people in North America turn away from liberalism and become more and more conservative.  Why is this?

Simply, they give up.  Liberalism is great in theory; after all, it's easy to be in favor of raising taxes when you aren't paying any.  But the moment that you start to pay your own share of taxes, "to support the drug habits of the homeless at Richmond and Dundas" as one of my favorite professors once stated, you turn inward.  You focus on your immediate values such as your family.  You argue that the state will take care of "those people."  And eventually, you go full-blown curmudgeon like my boss at work and my academic adviser.

After all, it's easy to be conservative.  It's a part of our basic hardware as human beings.  But, here's my point, conservatism isn't going to change anything - by definition.  In fact, in some respects conservatives cause more harm than they claim to prevent.  They choose alienation and segregation rather than community.  When has alienation ever created anything positive?  It defies our existence as a species and as subjects within an ecosystem.

Conservatives have given a "great sigh"; they feel like the ultimate victims. The Tea Partiers in the US illustrate this perfectly: all those flags that demand "don't tread on me."  They've given up on trying to appreciate others, and now they demand that the world appreciate them.

To be honest, I pity conservatives.  The most conservative person out there is usually the most alienated; the one that feels that they're the most victimized.  Conservatives are the most in need of community, and they have one of the greatest struggles ahead of them to ever appreciate anyone besides themselves (if they can even appreciate that).

As such, the far "leftists", those who tend to care about the future of the planet as a whole, have a great responsibility to the conservative.  Just as it's easy for the conservative to turn inwards, it's easy for the liberal to turn his/her back on the conservative.  All one accomplishes by turning his/her back on a conservative is to alienate, victimize, and, therefore, further feed the conservative's conservatism.  It's easy to mock Tea Partiers but much more difficult to empathize with them - to invite them to come together for the benefit of all.

I find Canadian Thanksgiving presents a serious challenge for conservatives.  It forces them to appreciate others, if only they're immediate family.
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To be honest, I kind of detest "Thanksgiving," how so many in Western society pride themselves on their being thankful for what they have "one" day a year.  It makes a mockery of all that we have been given.