Conservatism is a losers philosophy. Discuss

Well you clearly didn't take on board anything it said.

Social conservatism doesn’t really work as an ideology as it’s basicalky how normal, healthy l, functional societies, families and people behaved until people like Freud and Adorno et aI pathologised this for their own sick purposes.

Most people regardless of ideology are intrinsically socially conservative

What makes you think that social conservatism is healthy? Equal rights and respect for men and women is pretty healthy if you ask me, to give just one example.

You sound like you have a very romanticised opinion on what social conservatism was like back in the 'good old days'. It wasn't all happy nuclear families.

Read a great quote recently:

‘Conservatism is merely the shadow that follows radicalism (The modern left) as it heads towards perdition’.

Conservatism has always been powerless to stop and in some cases even advocated for and encouraged the radicalism which it is in theory meant to be opposed to.

If you are opposed to the direction that society is hurtling towards; mass immigration, insane social liberalism, suppression of free speech etc then you are eating your time with conservatism as an ideal let alone the abject failure that is the U.K. Tory party.

The simple explanation here is that the post Thatcherite Conservative party is a party with its roots in Victorian liberalism rather than Conservatism. Hell, we even have people like Bowles and Grieves who while talented have no national pride and are essentially Liberal Democrat’s.

You can’t really say its a looser ideology, it’s just that the party is far more populist than most people like to think. Campbell once got it right a few years ago when he said that ‘a conservatives first duty is to be in power’.

its wrong on a societal scale.

Its better to think of it like a car.

The left is the accelerator
The right is the break

Without the accelerator, we wouldn't move forward
Without the break, we are likely to crash and burn

Liberalism pushes us forward, but its unrelenting and uncontrolled. It accepts and loves all things new, and has no sense of danger or risk at all. Conservatism is the break that says 'hold on... slow down a bit... lets think about this.. maybe its not worth it.. etc.'

The reason that people percieve librealism as winning, and conservativism as loosing is because they misinterpret what function conservatives have in society. They think that their ultimate function is to keep society stationary - in which case they always fail - when in reality its to act as a filter to sort out the good from the bad change. Librealism is a stream of new things and new ideas.. and conservativsm acting acts as the filter. Only the best and strongest ideas break through it, and become the new societal norms.

So no, its not a loosers game - in fact, without it.. we would all loose.

No this falls into the trap of relativism. Either something is ultimately right or wrong, for instance e it would be absurd to think that gay marriage for instance would be completely wrong forty years ago but fine now. Either it’s wrong now and has always been or it’s fine and it’s prevention and has been an injustice.

Also liberalism doesn’t love all things new, it is it’s own ideology which perceives things as good and evil just like religion and has such a monopoly on power shuts down those ideas it perceives as evil e.g Alex Jones and anyone deemed far right.


You remind me of the civil servant in yes minister

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cIYfiRyPi3o

No, I don’t think so. The sexual revolution has been an unmitigated disaster for society with countless repercussions. If you think that traditional marriages are oppressive to women but Tinder is liberating then you need your head examining.

Nuclear families were indeed the norm and were healthy and beneficial to society and them. Now single parent families are the norm, which of course leads to such progressive outcomes as crime, drug addictiction and suicide, but we need to worry about ‘toxic masculinity’. But it’s precisely by attacking traditional masculinity as oppressive that we have lead to this. We really need to have a talk about toxic feminism, which has robbed women of loving husbands and used them as cheap labour and has turned men who should be strong and providing fathers into man children who play video games and get marvel tattoos.

i don’t hark back to the good old days , but I think that on balance life was better for virtually everyone. I should add that there is big spiritual dimension to this- if you are a grubby materialist who values only material wealth, mindless consumerism and instant gratification then you will seek solace in today’s nihilistic ‘society’ of consumers.

Fine, give me a tldr version that article was too bloody long winded

I don't agree at all that somthing is ultimatly right or wrong - morally when it comes to societies I am an absolute relitivist. things can only be judged morrally right or wrong dependant on the time they are percieved and the society they are in. Gay marriage can be both immoral and moral within different time frames without contradiction. Also, when speaking on a societal scale, right/wrong in terms of morality is not very effective - its better to look at things that are sucessful or unsucessful for the society.

Taking gay marriage for example, and put it into my way of thinking about the con/lib dynamics:

What would have happened if a liberal goverment had come in, and legalised gay marriage in 1960?

Most likely there would have been outcry on the streets.. a violent backlash against gay people.. protests from the religious.. and a massive swing to the conservative goverment in the next election, who would have quickly and swiftly promised to reverse the change.

But that didn't happen, because the conservatives in society act again as a breaking and slowing mechanism for liberal change. The acceptance of homosexuality, and the eventual legalisation of gay-marriage, progressed slowly.. all the time limmited by the conservatives within society, that kept legaslitive change in line (or just a bit behind normally) social change. As soon as society was ready, and the public opinion had come around in favour of gay marriage.. the conservative party backed it, and legalised it.

Its a great example of how conservatives dont (when working correctly) function to stop change, but slow down the change. Something that is essential, because societies in general do not respond well to rapid changes.

Also liberalism doesn’t love all things new, it is it’s own ideology"

it used to be. These days its a trend-following mass, with love of all things it considered progress (new).

in my experiance classic traditional liberals, those with any sense of perspective at least, find much more ideological companionship with the right, these days.

Power for powers sake alone is a pretty despicsble ideology. Whilst I am all for power and pragmatism it’s the means to an end.

So women and men shouldn't have equal rights? For example, women shouldn't have the right to vote, women shouldn't be allowed to drive, etc?

Firstly, nuclear families weren't beneficial and healthy to the people who didn't want to live by them and were forced, either through their own family, the law and/or by societal expectations, to live by them. They also weren't very healthy for the women who were unfortunate and married husbands who later turned abusive and could never leave their marriage because of the stigma surrounding divorce. You can't act like these problems simply didn't exist. The liberalisation of marriage now enables people to live lives how they want and to break from relationships that are abusive. It certainly doesn't stop people from having a nuclear family either, if they so choose; a majority of families, I am sure, still follow that model.

Secondly crime, drug addicition and suicide were as much problems of the past as they are now. Single parent families were also present 'back in the day' but the taboo surrounding sex outside of marriage led these women to be hidden away by their families and probably abused by them too, or in the worst cases kicked out of their family and expelled from their community. It's obvious that what we have now, which is societal and financial support for those in that position, is far better than that. Plus don't act like men are innocent here - it takes two to tango.

On a related note, despite the sexual revolution the teenage pregnancy rate has dropped since the mid 1900s, mostly thanks to better sex education (which socially conservative people don't like, strangely).

There is a big spiritual dimension to what I am saying too, particularly in that people should be free to decide how they wish to live their life. You liberate yourself so much if you do away with stupid and restrictive conventions.

If a man wants to play video games and get Marvel tattoos so be it; if they are happy doing that then good for them, hell they may even find a woman who enjoys the same things and later marry them and have kids (this happens very often by the way). It's far better that than them be pushed into a marriage with someone who they don't particularly get along with and be a "strong and providing father" simply because it's expected of them. I certainly wouldn't like to do that. If and when I get married I'd much rather both me and my wife work; it'd take so much pressure off me to support the family financially and we'd have lots more money to spend on doing the things which we both love to do.

You also didn;t read the quote I sent you XD

I gave you a quote from the article that shows "alpha male" hunters letting thier wives sleep with other men on a seasonal basis. I gave the link as a source. If you are generally interested in anthropology, as apposed to being a partisan for your fash view, you should probably read it.


The article is basically about how both the Rousseau noble savage and Hobbs brutal savage are both basically useless for forming narratives around human nature and where humanity came from. The narrative humanity went from small hunter gatherer groups to agriculture then civilisation if false. Hunter gatherers were capable of living in large groups, humans went back and forth between cities and living off the land and that humans would often swapped between differing society types with ease. Example I gave you of a deeply patriarchal set up transistioning to what you would see as a decadent feminist free for all on an annual basis when the inuits went to live in big communal gatherings once a year. Human society is incredibly fluid basically.

You have to seperate the party from the people. Almost all politicians like May do have a vision or sense of duty which motivates them to attain power in order to do good. The party as an institution however is riddled with an aristocratic sense of entitlement, a fear of change and a desire to attain power for the sake of it.

That can't really be changed though easily since the party is 200 years old and in theory just a vehicle (the reality is not, but that's somewhat because of FPTP).

I would also remind that you that being a movement is not in its own right a good thing. The kippers and labour are both out of power and far from guaranteed to even keep what they have. For all the whaffle about certain economic policy being popular, the Tories are still trusted more on almost every important issue even if technocratic in its approach.

I’m ambivalent about women voting. They’re ultimately too conformist as a whole. Maybe if they’re married and have children. Don’t see why they shouldn’t be allowed to drive.

The people who don’t want to have children and get married are a tiny minority. Why should we sacrifice the majority’s happiness for a tiny minority? (And yes it is a zero sum game see below)

1: There is always going to be some sort of social pressure for something. Right now there is social pressure on people having less children because of the environment (lol) , so that women can focus on their careers or the other financial pressures that it brings.

2: marital abuse did certainly happen but abuse against women will ALWAYS happen. A husband has many reasons to take care care if his wife. An employer, colleague or random tinder date can exploit her at whim and has a lot less to lose.

3: I’m afraid the choices that individuals make do have an impact because we live in a society. And this will have wider implications.

You know how free market idiot say to people ‘oh you want nationalised rail/ healthcare etc why don’t you make your own rail company/ nhs and do it the way you want. Then people can choose’ for themselves what they want’ that is basically what you are arguing

Sometimes it takes a society to make something works

As to your other points

1: I’m not letting men off the hook. That’s why I called them man children. They also are equally responsible for the sexual revolution and its consequences as they wanted lots of loose women to ha e sex with without thinking that someday these were going to be their wives and daughters.

2: of course men with marvel tattoos and video game addictions are getting married - there’s seldom any choice. But it’s not healthy or and fulfilling for them to be preoccupied with children’s entertainment. In any case they are not reaching their potential. Your liberal view points are immoral and vacuous and boil down to not caring about anyone. I want my neighbours and colleagues to get up off their arse and go to the gym or learn something fulfilling. And society should pressure them too.

3: if women hadn’t entered the work force you would have been paid a family wage. But those nice capitalists who care so much about equality let women into the work force and, naturally lowered wages as a result. (This is also why capitalists are so pro lgbt - they typically wont have children to look after or need things like maternity leave)

Women are members of the same democracy that we're members of. Decisions made by our representatives will affect all people including women. Therefore it is right, if you believe in the principles of representative democracy, to allow women to vote. Of course we restrict this to only allow voting once someone reaches a certain age, but this affects both sexes equally.

When you say, "Why should we sacrifice the majority’s happiness for a tiny minority?" what do you mean? I've never said that women shouldn't be able to get married, nor that women shouldn't be allowed to take on a more traditional family/marriage model. What I support is giving people the choice to decide what kind of family they want to have (or not have) and the eroding of barriers/cultural expectations which say that you must do X, Y and Z or risk societal repercussions.

Martial abuse doesn't have to happen if: A) Divorce is a viable option for the person being abused, B) There is no stigma surrounding divorce for the people involved, C) You aren't going to be forced (either legally or culturally) to marry people who are abusive. You're right in that abuse against women (or men) will happen regardless; but trapping people into a family (or worse, arranging one) that is abusive with absolutely no way out is awful. I'd rather them divorce and leave their family than to disallow/shun divorce because of this preconceived idea that divorce is always wrong when it clearly isn't.

When you say "I’m afraid the choices that individuals make do have an impact because we live in a society." what exactly are you referring to?

Who are you to say "it's not healthy or and fulfilling for them to be preoccupied with children’s entertainment"? You sound like a bitter old man! People can do what they want with their life (within reason) and if they decide they wish to spend it playing video games (which, by the way, is a very social activity now) then so be it. It's far healthier for them to spend it doing things they enjoy, such as playing video games, then them be forced into activities which they don't care for and don't like because someone else has thinks 'real men' should be doing X, Y and Z instead.

Plus it's a bit rich of you to call other people "man children" when you spend a lot of time on this forum complaining about 'the liberals', women, gay people, etc. If I were to look at your life with the same eyes that you look at the lives of people who play video games and/or enjoy Marvel, I'd say you're a bit of a man child yourself really. I'd tell you to go outside, get your head out of your bumb, stop being so tight about everything and live a little. Of course, I wouldn't say those things because I'm not prejudiced enough to make wild and sweeping statements about people based on very specific things.

Decisions made by our representatives will have effects on other countries does that mean non British citizens should have the right to vote in the U.K.? The crowning achievement of allowing women to vote is allowing women to have abortion on demand which I think is a wonderful example as to why women should not be allowed to vote. I think we’d all be better off if only married men in employment were able to vote.

I think you missed my point. The NHS takes away choice from people but it is better for everyone rather than letting people choose for themselves. It’s the same with defending traditional families , even if it what isn’t what some people want and even if it it always isn’t the most effective of systems, it is what works the best for the majority and society. Granting the same privileges to other types of family as the nuclear family is the same as if you privatised the NHS and let people choose it for themselves- it devalues it and allies it to be undercut and do naturally less people are going to want it.

A home for everyone is a home for no one.
If anything can be a family nothing can.
If anyone can be European/ whatever nobody can be.

I’m not saying for a moment that wives should stay with abusive husbands. That is obvious legitimate grounds for a divorce provided it cannot be worked through. But this is a minority of divorce cases.

Why should people be allowed to do whatever they want, particularly if it’s known to be destructive such as becoming morbidly obese? How dare anyone do such a disgusting and shameful thing, it’s sickening.

According to my number of posts I post an average of 2.5 posts every day, I don’t think that’s a lot. I also don’t watch TV and have a job which occasionally involves me commuting where I’m doing nothing.

As for you not saying it

A: well, you kinda did.

B: you’ve basically just admitted that you DO think about it but simply don’t care enough about to help them. One of the many masks of liberalism is that it masks selfishness as kindness and generosity.

@Davij038 all you are doing is demonstrating why conservatism or at least your brand of pub-bore conservatism is so unpopular.