On Conservatism as Masochism
20th August 2018
I’ve been close to despair of late as it appears, to me at least, that the divide on the right has widened considerably, nearly reaching the point of irreconcilable differences where both parties no longer talk to each other but instead face each other while talking mainly to themselves. For those who respect certain minds on both sides of the divide, the feeling is one of dismay at what is fast becoming the political equivalent of being caught between divorced parents who each insist that we take one side over the other notwithstanding the fact that they both screwed up.
The problem with people who describe themselves as ‘conservatives’ is that they can never define what being ‘a conservative’ is that would satisfy somebody else who ‘self-identifies’ as ‘a conservative’. I am confident that it’s because there is no such thing as ‘conservatism’ and hence no such thing as ‘a conservative’. In order to be a Real Ism, an ideology has to have some sort of target state toward which it strives, and soi-disant conservatives do not have a single target state on which they can all agree. The best you can say is that there are a number of aspects of current (or proposed) culture that they are together in being against, and I suppose that such is the best for which one can hope.
I prefer to describe myself as an anti-progressive, the way some people back in the Good Old Days described themselves as anti-Communists, because proglodytes do have an ideology and a target state towards which they are working, and I’m here to get in the way of that process as best I can.
The next time you’re trapped in a social situation with someone who ‘identifies’ as ‘a conservative’, just ask: ‘Okay, what do you want to conserve?’ and watch the reaction. It can be entertaining, but also rather sad.