So often times I think of, or should I say that it jumps out at me about the differences between progressives and conservatives. Obviously there are many, but the ones that always seem remarkable to me are the ones that exemplify the names: progressive (progressing towards something) and conservative (conserving something). I think it’s rather telling the obviousness of this, but I also think that it’s rarely remarked upon.
For instance: squashing mysogyny, allowing Gay marriage, gender rights, the breaking of racial (or more accurately cultural, geographic, ethic) barriers, legalization of marijuana… In the last few decades, all of these have gained sufficient acceptance by “the average person” that it’s kind of obvious that they are the future, sooner or later. Progressives accept that and work to integrate, while conservatives continue to fight for “the old ways” even when it’s obviously futile and will do nothing but extend hostilities and other troubles for everyone and for no purpose aside from saying “look at me! I’m standing for the old ways, even if just to make the transition unpleasent for people”. It actually reminds me of an employee I used to have who said,when faced with a schedule change “I know that you can do this, but I’m going to make it as unpleasant as possible for you.”.
Anyway, I’m thinking about it now because we were watching some show about “incredible interiors” or something and they did a segment on luxury survival bunkers. They had state of the art home theater rooms, kicthens, all the comforts of a well equipped fancy modern home. And then they talked about shelter from the radiation and coming out in a year, being the ones who could “start over”. And I thought… They’re not looking to do anything but continue and repeat the world that would have got them into whatever mess they are imagining is coming.
I would think (progressively I guess) that if you were building a bunker to survive a disaster so you could come out and start society over again, you would build and idealistic setup, to start the new society off on a good foot, not to conserve some decadent, wasteful continuation of the self-oriented society and way of life that got us in a mess in the first place.
It doesn’t make any inherent sense to me.. to always fight for the status quo without analysing if it’s actually the best way to do something. But then, it got me thinking of George Lakoff’s Moral Politics and that there is a genuine and profound difference in the world views of conservatives and progressives. And it really does show it’s face in the rationale of just about everything.
P.s. what actually got me thinking was… If you’re thinking that millions/billions of people are dying in some kind of horrible disaster, how can your thoughts of survival include “I need to make sure I have a big leather couch and a giant TV to watch movies on as the world falls apart and everyone up there is dying”. What?
And then it made me think of the second Cloverfield movie. The world’s going to hell,so let’s make sure that he have a safe place to hide and play board games and act like everything is normal… Of course, maybe if some disaster happened and I was stuck in a cave for years, I would really just want to lick back and watch a movie, who knows. But it just seems weird to be so nonchalant about the whole thing.
Leave a Reply