“oh, don’t worry, it was dead before I started”

One time at work someone had the idea of “let’s all swap our favorite playlists”. No one was happy. I got some like top of the charts rap that’s not my jam. The product lady got my sludgy doom metal and I don’t think she made it through one track. I think the mega kpop fan just refused to participate.

Would this entire conversation (and I appreciate you taking the time without being too prickly) gone a clearer route if my initial post had been something like “The dominant political ideology of the US, which I want to call conservatism because that’s what the US republican party calls it, but is arguably liberalism (and not the propagandized “freedom and prosperity for all” version), is built upon hierarchy. The capitalist class lives by a different set of rules, and sometimes bestow a lesser form of that to others- eg: white supremacy, patriarchy. People are not equal, in this view.”

Or maybe it would have slammed into this:

These ideas are not contradictory if you accept my thesis that the underlying concept is the preservation of hierarchy.

Which no one who studies the field accepts.

Well I guess I’ll have to go get my PhD then! Heh.

But, to review, what I was responding to was this

People in power (and unfortunately most people not in power also) think that there is a “fair” order to things. Those deserving will be successful, and the undeserving will not (and should not and must not) get anything.

And I think that idea of a “fair” order, with some on top, some under them, and a lot on the bottom is endemic in… what I would have called conservative thought but after all this I guess I’d now call liberal. Or maybe “right wing” is a parent category?

They think liberal means left-wing. Socialist. Communism

They don’t. They’re not idiots. They’re playing the population for fools. They know that they’re fans of Adam Smith and John Locke, and they know that both of them were Liberal. They hire staffers from Harvard. Most of them are lawyers who studied this stuff. They know what they’re doing. They’re pandering and confusing. Deliberately. Because it gives them the power to manipulate.

Point of order. The “they” in my sentence was referring to what I called street level republicans. Guys with maga hats who don’t read non-fiction and certainly don’t know who John Locke was. Not the people running the show. The capitalist class and high ranking officials may be more in line with your description there.

The only reason they were expanded to include things peasants cared about was to get the peasant to fight on the side of Liberals

A recurring theme highlighted in people’s history.

I swear you’ll see things in Locke that you’ll realize are totally batshit, like the idea that if a virgin forest is inhabited by indigenous humans who forage for food, they don’t own it, but if I personally chop down a tree, sell it for money, then hire 2 people to chop down more trees, sell them, and then pay an army to chop down all the trees, now I and I alone own all of that land and it’s within my right to kill anyone who would trespass that land AND ALSO the purpose of government is to provide a police force that will kill people for me because I couldn’t POSSIBLY ever personally defend all of the land that I would be able to own…

Yes, that does sound batshit.

American conservatives are Liberals.

This is one of those things that’s technically correct but in colloquial conversation causes much confusion. No street level republican will cause themselves a liberal. They think liberal means left-wing. Socialist. Communism. Abolition of the old systems and ushering in a new one without states, castes, or private property to stratify people into their different levels. Hierarchy, if you will.

Are there any major players in US politics you would identify as conservative? The democratic party is also primarily concerned with private property and markets, with some lip service paid to civil rights and labor. It’s less anti-science and anti-intellectual, at least.

Note how on the one hand you think Conservatism is about protecting the monarchy and on the other hand you think American Republicans are conservatives despite their focus on private property, profits, corporate profits, and tax loopholes for the rich. You can’t hold both of these views if you actually engage with the ideas.

These ideas are not contradictory if you accept my thesis that the underlying concept is the preservation of hierarchy. The details are less important. The idea is that there are some people who are on top, who rule, who have different rules applied to them. A republican senator can take a month of paid sick leave, because he’s Important, but a regular laborer cannot do such a thing. Sometimes it’s nobility. Sometimes it’s just the capitalist ownership class. But there’s also the lower levels, that are similar in a way. That’s where you get whites dominant over everyone else. Men above women.

I identify as a Communist - I believe in the abolition of private property, in decolonization and anti-imperialism, in active repression of reactionary forces, and the subsequent century or more of conscious, deliberate adaptation and planning that will be required to reshape human society as it purges itself of the last 600 years of EuroCentric hegemony and eventually creates the conditions for humanity to process its collective traumas and hopefully come out the other side into a sustainable community that can work together for several thousand years to reintegrate with the ecosystem and once again become healthy participants in the web of life

So we actually agree on all of that, perhaps barring some minutia and details.

Just read John Locke and Edmund Burke. They’re good starting points.

I’ll submit this suggestion to my book club. (No, I’m serious. We just read Zinn’s people’s history. Don’t laugh.)

A dictionary is a fine place to find the definition of something. An encyclopedia is a reasonable resource for a high level view. Wikipedia specifically is open for edits. You are empowered to change the article, if you believe it is mistaken.

Do you have some books you would recommend?

Do you identify as a conservative?

If you read even a little bit you’ll be confronted with various other potential hearts like wisdom, community, history, social cohesion, stability, and tradition.

Some of these are nicer ways of saying “hierarchy”

It’s a very rich history with lots of challenging ideas and tons of wonderful debates that help us understand where we are today and lay the foundation for how to move forward.

I find this hard to believe given the conservative party in the US, the republicans, have atrocious positions on every policy. It is a party of white supremacy (hierarchy) and the rule of capital (also hierarchy).

Now that song by the clash is in my head again

I’m all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for that special offer
A guaranteed personality

My vibes align with Wikipedia, at least

Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values.[1][2][3] The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in which it appears.[4] In Western culture, depending on the particular nation and the particular time period, conservatives seek to promote and preserve a range of institutions, such as the nuclear family, organized religion, the military, the nation-state, constitution, property rights, rule of law, aristocracy, and monarchy.[5][6]

I don’t know if I’ve heard it described as a reaction to liberalism

Conservatism is built on support for monarchy, the most hierarchy of hierarchy.

More trolls should suffer consequences

Bit of a waffles and pancakes response, or maybe squares and rectangles.

I am inclined to agree with you, but don’t see what you’re saying as a contradiction of what I said.

People are pretty stupid and uncritically believe the myths about the republican party. Guy I worked with said “the republicans will unlock the economy” so he voted for trump. And then tariffs borked his business, and the war in iran probably killed some of his family. But he still jokes, as an iranian immigrant, about ICE abductions. Some people are just stupid.

That’s the heart of conservatism: hierarchy

There are many who would happily lobby to refuse all emergency services, rights, legal protections, healthcare, etc to those who are “undeserving”.

I go on about this a lot, but the book “Dying of Whiteness” has examples of that. One guy literally was dying but still didn’t want those people to have free health care, even if it would save his life.

I think part of the problem is that Bethesda doesn’t really seem to have a good critical understanding. They like the superficial stuff, like children. Like this meme, I guess.

If you haven’t read Eco’s essay on ur-fascism, it’s a good read: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism

So we come to my second point. There was only one Nazism. We cannot label Franco’s hyper-Catholic Falangism as Nazism, since Nazism is fundamentally pagan, polytheistic, and anti-Christian. But the fascist game can be played in many forms, and the name of the game does not change. The notion of fascism is not unlike Wittgenstein’s notion of a game. A game can be either competitive or not, it can require some special skill or none, it can or cannot involve money. Games are different activities that display only some “family resemblance,” as Wittgenstein put it. Consider the following sequence:

1___2___3___4

abc bcd cde def

Suppose there is a series of political groups in which group one is characterized by the features abc, group two by the features bcd, and so on. Group two is similar to group one since they have two features in common; for the same reasons three is similar to two and four is similar to three. Notice that three is also similar to one (they have in common the feature c). The most curious case is presented by four, obviously similar to three and two, but with no feature in common with one. However, owing to the uninterrupted series of decreasing similarities between one and four, there remains, by a sort of illusory transitivity, a family resemblance between four and one.

Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola.

Maybe I can work this fact in the next time I’m going on about how cars are bad for us

Some of these streets are busy with double parked cars and a painted on bike lane. I still believe if someone’s parked in the bike lane you should be able to do whatever you want to the car.

There’s one spot I’ve been through a lot, on this list, where they want the bike to merge into the center lane in order to continue. Insane.

Just read people’s history by Howard zinn and that’ll radicalize a lot of people. It’s just the rich fucking everyone over and over.

the reaction I’ve gotten from many of my family members and friends is that choosing to study abroad as an American is inherently a downgrade, regardless of the university or country

That’s insane. Pure emotional slop not based in any facts.

You’re not casually going to convince them otherwise. Facts don’t matter. Here, read this: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

Conservatism is entirely about the laws applying differently to different people. The king is special. The nobles are a little less special. The peasants are trash. The slaves are worse. That’s the conservative world. Hierarchy. So of course they don’t want to apply rules to their chief.

They are worse than children.

I remember when 9/11 happened I wanted to know who did it, why they did it, what we would do next. Most of the adults were just freaking out and had no idea.