The Conservative Vision of the World

The conservative vision of the world values order above all. There is a logic to it, of course: the world is actually chaotic, with lots of things happening by chance or for no clear reason, and this uncertainty is scary for us humans. This is why Conservatives try their best to make things as stable as possible, by organizing everything in their power according to rules meant to be strict and permanent. Said rules are intended to provide certainty in an uncertain world; in other words they are a shelter, they provide solidity and structure for people to feel safe under their power. It is reassuring to know that criminals are punished, it is reassuring to know that children are taught traditional values at school, it is reassuring to rely on a hierarchical society where the strongest people at the top are naturally entitled to more than the the weak peple at the bottom and where everyone knows their place.

Of course, it is also important in this setting to make it easy to distinguish right from wrong, and naturally people overwhelmingly prefer to see themselves on the right side of things. Religion is a reliable way to achieve this moral distinction from a conservative point of view : first, my God is the only one so the people who believe in another God are simply wrong; second, every time I am faced with a moral dilemma, regret or any moral difficulty, I can pray and believe that God helps me solve the problem. Of course, this state of mind requires “moral strength”, which is actually just a stubborn refusal to consider any alternative way to think. This can be an issue from a societal point of view: if I believe that something is right and my “moral strength” and/or God’s supposed support for my views make me convinced that there is no other option, then if you disagree we are going have a conflict obviously.

This is a natural consequence of the conservative state of mind: in order to feel safe in this world, I need things to align with the structure that I project on it. It does not really matter if this structure properly reflects the reality of world¹, as long as it is apparently believable and appears natural, obvious, normal (that is, validated by a majority). This often causes contradictions to appear in this fancy mental construction:

• if the contradiction is not too visible, it can simply be ignored or denied. For example, systematic racism is a pervasive problem which is often difficult to identify. If one believes that police forces protect public order and therefore society, it is easier to pretend that there is no systematic racism (say it’s a problem made up by Progressives;² possibly admit to a few black sheeps if needed) than to question the whole nature of police forces, which are practically the foundations which support the conservative system.
• if the contradition cannot be ignored, for instance the now evident impact of climate change, a sneaky change of world vision happens. For instance, who remembers now that twenty years ago, a lot of conservative voices were arguing that climate change was only an hypothetical theory, possibly a hoax? And they succeeded during a long time maintaining the line that climate change was an opinion, not science. But where are these conservatives who fiercely attacked science now? They are nowhere to be seen, at least nowhere worth mentioniong, because this view has become impossible to maintain, climate change cannot be ignored anymore. A fascinating magical phenomenon occured: the conservative view disappeared, its most vocal representatives retired from the limelight and left the stage for a fresh, less obsolete, generation to emerge.

Basically when an old conservative view becomes untenable, it gets swept under the carpet and everyone moves on, and this is made easier by the fact that this usually happens over at least one generation. Actually one can live their whole life holding the same conservative views that they were taught when they were young. For example, older people are more likely to be racist, and occasionally to express it bluntly, simply because this used to be perfectly normal when were young; if they were brought up in a rigid culture where order and stability are important, they have no reason to change their views. But when this generation dies out, this racist world vision slowly ceases to exist, although it’s replaced by a less obnoxious version.

Across history, there was a time where the normal conservative view was to defend slavery for instance. At this point, I assume that Conservatives were sure that the young anti-slavery movement was an idiotic fad, that these crazy liberals would have to realize that there is no way the world can function otherwise. The belief that progressive ideas are “obviously” impossible is a typical conservative argument, and this belief is often expressed with the condescending or mocking tone of a serious adult giving a lesson to a child. At some point in history, it was obvious to conservative people that the Earth was the centre of the universe, that women should not be allowed to vote (or to think), that it is right to colonize non-civilized countries, etc. Going further back, there were certainly some people to argue that humans should not play with fire because only the gods can (something like that, I’m assuming). And of course when it became obvious that these conservative views were outdated and bigoted, the new generation of conservatives would silently admit the previous change and fiercely fight to prevent the next change to happen. Until this new conservative fight is lost again of course, and the loop restarts again.

So eventually, given enough time, every single conservative idea is going to be wrong. People might get uncomfortable with it, but things change. So you might believe in something very hard because it has always been like this, and your ancestors have always lived like this, and everyone knows that things cannot be different… But sooner or later even this one thing might change, and all your efforts to prevent this change are going to be vain eventually. But you might still be able to successfully postpone the change for as long as you live, so that you can die thinking that you fought a rightful and successful fight. Conservatives who lived in the past would certainly be horrified by the current world, because most of the values they believed in turned out to be invalidated. Progressives might be surprised, maybe disappointed that some of their hopes didn’t pan out, but overall they would see that some progress has been made according to their views.

Yet it would be a mistake to assume that Conservatives are just idiots who are unable to admit their own shortsightedness. We all at times crave stability, a place where we feel safe, the reassuring feeling of knowing how things work. This is what Conservatives cling to in their vision of the world. Their environment didn’t prepare them for accepting too much change in their understanding of the world, perhaps they were even encouraged to believe that some things always stay the same. They are simply scared on a completely subconscious level, they feel that some changes could cause their world to really collapse, and it’s understandable that they can’t accept this. Ironically, they often like to present themselves as strong, serious and smart, as people who are “well prepared” for anything in this world.³ The healthy way to consider conservative people is to realize that they are like scared children who can’t admit that they’re scared, even to themselves. They need to be patiently reassured that the object of their fear is not as scary as they see it, but this is tricky without acknowledging their fear. Nobody likes to be forced to admit their fear, and people can react angrily to this of course.⁴ So it’s all about slowly getting people used to this new thing, about soothing their discomfort until it becomes a distant memory.

And in some cases the discomfort will last until they die, and even this is fine.

Comments

You can use your Mastodon account to reply to this post.

Reply

Load comments