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Conservatives Are Defined by Their Tolerance
The increasingly ubiquitous and bitter partisanship in America recently seems very odd to me, partially because I really don’t understand the basic, central difference between leftists and conservatives. In the Civil War, Democrats and Republicans had obvious and important things they disagreed on, such as slavery and human rights. Things seem nearly as hostile now – surely we’re not arguing about trans-sexual bathrooms or something – there must be a big topic somewhere, that I’m missing. I discussed this in the Land of Confusion podcast with Don and David a few weeks ago, and I’ve linked to that portion of the conversation below – it runs for about six minutes. I hope you’ll listen to it to get my point, but I’ll try to summarize here.
Leftists tend to believe in strong, centralized power structures. Democrats are the party of big government. I know that Republican politicians don’t always do a great job opposing the Democrats on this point, but I think a large majority of Republican voters view their ideal government as much smaller and much more constrained than Democrat voters do. President Obama said that government is the word we use to describe the things we all do together. Leftists profess to believe in cooperative efforts within communities, and view conservatives as radical individualists who believe in an “every man for himself” society, and say that Republicans lack empathy for others. I know these stereotypes are just that – stereotypes – but just for the sake of argument, follow along with me here.
What I find interesting about all this is that leftist societies, which ostensibly are based on cooperative effort and collectivism, tend to be violent, tribal societies that eventually tear themselves apart. While other societies, which are based on respect for individual thought and individual rights, tend to be more peaceful and community-based. Part of this, of course, is the Marxist tendency to coordinate groups of lower- and middle-class people, who use their superior numbers to take what they want from the wealthy few. But I think there’s more to it than that.
Societies that respect individual thought and individual rights are by nature more tolerant. If you want to continue to be permitted to do as you please, you are obligated to allow your neighbor to do as he pleases, or else your rights won’t last long, either. And if you have sufficient self-respect to actually take your views seriously, then you tend to respect the views of others, even if you disagree.
Whereas if you’re in a more collectivist society, then your identity is less dependent on your individual thoughts, and more dependent on your membership in a group. By remaining loyal to your group, you gain power. But only at the cost of conceding some of your rights as an individual. If you are ok with that, then you are less likely to respect the rights of individuals with whom you disagree.
There are some criticisms of conservatives that I can understand. But when a leftist criticizes a conservative for being intolerant, I just don’t understand that. A conservative is, by nature, more tolerant. He simply has to be, if he wants his rights to be tolerated as well. I would even argue that if someone really cares what someone else thinks, and seeks to control their behavior, that their intolerance defines them as a leftist. I’m sure there must be exceptions to that rule, but none leap to mind.
The baker from Colorado (Jack Phillips) has become famous for declining to bake cakes for trans-sexual transitions, or other things that conflict with his Christian faith. But when he declines such jobs, he very politely gives the prospective customer a list of other bakers in his town who would be happy to help them with their request.
The baker is not telling them what to do with their life – he simply declines to participate. That, to me, is the definition of a conservative. I admire him for standing for his beliefs, while allowing others to do the same.
And he is going to lose. They will keep going after him until they destroy him. Because they are Democrats, and they are by nature intolerant. And that’s it.
So societies based on respect for individualism are paradoxically more peaceful and community-minded, while collectivist societies tend to tear themselves apart.
In fact, I’m not even sure that it’s paradoxical. That’s just the way it is.
If you’re so inclined, listen to my effort to explain this – it’s about 6 minutes long, and I have the video below cued up to that point in the conversation.
I’d be interested to hear your perspective on this idea.
Thanks much.
.
Published in General
Remember, often the process IS the punishment.
The more I look at that photo of B.O. I have to wonder; has he ever had a picture taken in which he doesn’t look like a condescending, arrogant martinet?
Sure. Sometimes he just looked simpleminded.
Michelle looks like Barack just broke wind…
Or she is about to.
Good point…
What a doofus. Our first Affirmative Action President. What a great job he did for race relations. Hard to believe his VP is even worse.
To this day, I don’t understand why people such as Ann Coulter consider him a great orator. The way he swung his head from side-to-side looking at the teleprompters when speaking reminded me of those bobble-head dolls popular in the late 1960s. No one questioned the legitimacy of the 2008 nor the 2012 election, so I guess the electorate is stupid enough to have elected Slow Joe.
Those elections were at least believable. 2020, not so much.
He learned how to speak slowly. And look at his audience and nod at the appropriate times. Simple public speaking stuff HS debaters learn. He was good at it. Not that the substance of his lectures made any sense.
Hank, I think that I disagree, in part. I do agree with the goal of preserving the things that you mention. I’m becoming more convinced, however, that this is impossible without religion and morality.
I do have some pretty impressive figures to back me up on this. In his Farewell Address (here), Washington wrote:
About two years later, in a letter (here), Adams wrote:
This suggests that toleration may not be such a good thing.
Why does toleration involve the negation of moral judgement?
How much toleration is needed for things that don’t involve a negation of moral judgement?
Not a negation of moral judgement. People need to tolerate different ideas and different people with vastly different lifestyles. Everyone judges but you need to let other people have different judgements.
If we want to cut to the chase, simplifying the discussion as much as possible, we could do a lot worse than using the Constitution, the Declaration, and the Bill of Stuff Too Important for You People to Vote On as the be-all and end-all. Those old guys with the powdered wigs were pretty darn smart.
I particularly love Franklin objecting to “life, liberty and property” and substituting the Purfoot of Happineffs for property. While I have no doubt that Franklin recognized the profundity of their time and tasks, his insistence on keeping a sense of humor about it all delights me.
(Closing credits: lines stolen from Kevin D. Williamson and Stan Freberg)
He is the Suffering Servant.
Precisely. If they wanted tolerance, they would have stopped at Civil Unions. The Gaystapo and LBGTStasi will not be satisfied until no one dares express even mild moral skepticism about their lifestyle for fear of ostacization, violent attack, job loss, or imprisonment.
I think we are far past the time when you could assign either the progressives or everyone else a pretty ideological trait. We are now polarized. If the progressives’ ideological leaders (they are quite obscured*) came out and said that Roe v. Wade should be struck down, it would only take a few months at current speeds for that position to shift and come up with a way for their followers to come up with an important reason that they will become rabid about shifting their views. For instance, the progressives used to promote “sex, drugs, and rock and roll.” Now they are quite the sexual prudes, and many conservatives promote legalizing drugs, but they are still quite fond of rock and roll (it’s one of their prominent propaganda arms still).
Historically, conservatives have frequently been quite intolerant. I agree with Jerry above that it is the libertarian (or true liberal) strain of the progressive’s opposition that has been fostering tolerance, not the conservatives.
*I’m not saying their ideological leaders are always purposefully hidden, but that they sometimes come from nowhere like the BLM leaders, David Hogg, Greta Thunberg, etc.
Maybe the word “Defined” should be replaced with “Handicapped” . . .
I used to think they were being stupid, but now I believe they are immune. Absolutely immune. The money buys them everything. Just look at the third world elites. They have armed guards, fences walls, and bullet proof Mercedes. These people have enough money to buy off anyone.
The agitators are destroying their competition. Bezos and Zukerberg made more money than anyone else (possibly. combined) this past year.
Yeah, it always seemed to me that he was modeling for his sculpture on Mt. Rushmore (after all the other dead white men had been sandblasted off, of course).
When he came out with his famous line of “…We are the ones that we’ve been waiting for…”, I suspect he was dying to say “I’m the one that you’ve been waiting for”.
I wrote an essay about Murray a while back. You can learn more about his work there. In summary, it is good.
What’s good? Murray’s work or your essay?
Both honestly. I was referring to Murray’s work but I summed up a chapter of his book pretty well.
A long time ago I spelled out the process for Imperative New Ideas. Approval is not the end point.
First, you have to tolerate. This is easy for most of us; live and let live.
Then you have to approve. This is now the minimum standard for entrance into polite society.
Then you have to agree that the New Idea is equal to the Old Idea; both are part of the theater of options and concepts.
Then you have to admit that the New Idea is, in many ways, superior to the Old. It has its own unique advantages for our evolving society!
Then you have to endorse.
Then you have to participate.
Applied to racial equality, the template is virtuous. Participation, in this example, means you must adhere to laws prohibiting racial discrimination. You cannot have a whites-only public lunch counter, you cannot stipulate that black people cannot buy your house when you sell it. This is moral and necessary. (I’m sure there’s a libertarian argument for racial covenants based on reasons that have nothing to do with race, but those arguments had nothing to do with the reasons the covenants were put in place.)
The template, however, has been applied to everything. Example: it took about four or five years on the trans issue to go from “I don’t care what you do as long as it doesn’t frighten the horses” to “genital preference is transphobia.”
“Approval” does not end with shouting at Goldstein; it ends with turning in a friend to the state for insufficient shouting at Goldstein, because it is expedient at the moment to do so, and will buy you a day or two before anyone suspects you. Of course, if you could access that part of our heart you keep in the vault, you don’t really believe in Goldstein’s existence. But you’ve shaped your life to profess this falsehood whenever required – it’s not that hard, it’s natural now, you have your reasons for not shouting as loudly as you could, sore throat, long night, the ever-escalating requirements of zeal, really, it’s a bit much. But you do not extend that explanation to anyone else in the row of seats in the theater. What might be a spark of sanity in you – a spark smothered the moment it is observed, out of reflexive fear others could detect it, and judge it for the reasons held forth by the state, not the perfectly sensible reasons you have – must be wrongthink in them. Will their views contaminate you by mere proximity? Denounce. It’s the only safe choice.
When you end up in Room 101, you protest that you approved, you endorsed, and you participated. It’s still not enough. It’s never enough.
My fourteen year old daughter tells me that kids are now taunted if they are “super straight,” which means that they are so hateful and transphobic and homophobic that they would refuse to date someone of the same sex. The world is going mad.
Do they get accused of blonde-phobia if they prefer brunettes, etc?
Why do only THEIR preferences count, but nobody else’s?
It’s all crap.
Because no one tells them to sit down and shut up or get their faces pushed in. We’re too polite and accommodating, y’see. And they take advantage of us.
One of the problems with being tolerant is that when you finally get pushed over the edge, your reaction is swift and violent. Liberals don’t understand this . . .