The Top 10 Conservative Movies of the Last Decade

[grumbler]

They are going back to an imagined time of religious austerity.  Such people are called Reactionaries and are right wing.  They are "returning" to previous more pure time which fits in my definition. 

I don't believe that they are.  I think that they are creating the Iranian religious nation, not recreating it.  I don't think this religiously pure time ever existed, as far as they are concerned (and certainly not in Iran, even if they think it existed in the Arab world during Mohammad's lifetime).

Since countries have different meanings conservative might be for different things in different countries.  American conservatives see in their past more personal and economic freedom (where that really existed is for debate), while a conservative in say Saudi Arabia might view their past in terms of stately monarchs who kept people in their place.

This is part of the reason why "conservative" is such a poor and imprecise (even personal) word, and lacks the "traditional and actual" meaning you mistakenly attach to it.

[Josquius]

I think the Iranian regime is overall quite right wing but they're aiming for centrism.
At the core it is of course a religious regime- and religion is at the core of tradition and conservatism.
However- the Iranian regime is officially also revolutionary and left wing.
What you have in Iran is the very right wing Supreme Leader who is supposed to act as a stabilising, conservative moderator over the left wing idea of democratically elected candidates (Ahmajidad of course being a serious rightist to begin with....and lets not go into his vote fixing).
What Iran wants is to be left wing but left wing in moderation. Just as left wing as the people want whilst still keeping their traditions in mind.



A big problem I see with the word 'conservative' overall is it is firmly routed in the evolution of right/leftism way back in the 18th century.
Back then the right were TRUE conservatives. The nobility and the ilk who wanted to keep everything as it was. The left meanwhile were the democratic reformers and bourgois- who if transported through time to todays world would mostly be horribly far right people.
The world keeps moving ever leftwards hence I see 'true' conservatives as people fighting a rear-guard action. Trying to stop the rate of change or perhaps in extreme circumstances temporarily set it back.
Of course though few conservatives are true conservatives. Especially not on every front. In the UK at least things are totally messed up with there being no right or left and just two major parties with different ideas of how to do things and trying to court more votes.
Conservatives just can't afford to be real conservatives and only look out for the elites these days, back when mobilising your voters was all important they could do this but in these modern times...They've had to look for something else. The conservative name sticks with them but in reality they're anything they want to be.
At their core they do still perhaps see the key to success as being with the success of the elites and they have somewhat traditionalist social values but otherwise...right/left sucks.

[Razgovory]

They are going back to an imagined time of religious austerity.  Such people are called Reactionaries and are right wing.  They are "returning" to previous more pure time which fits in my definition. 

I don't believe that they are.  I think that they are creating the Iranian religious nation, not recreating it.  I don't think this religiously pure time ever existed, as far as they are concerned (and certainly not in Iran, even if they think it existed in the Arab world during Mohammad's lifetime).

Since countries have different meanings conservative might be for different things in different countries.  American conservatives see in their past more personal and economic freedom (where that really existed is for debate), while a conservative in say Saudi Arabia might view their past in terms of stately monarchs who kept people in their place.

This is part of the reason why "conservative" is such a poor and imprecise (even personal) word, and lacks the "traditional and actual" meaning you mistakenly attach to it.

There seems to have been an urge in the Revolution to return to an age before the Americans and Russians dominated and even before there was a split between Shia and Sunni.  The cry of the Conservative revolutionary or reactionary is always "We want to take our country back.  That is the constant thread.

[DGuller]

Raz is doing a good job disecting the nature of conservatives all the world over.

[Razgovory]

Raz is doing a good job disecting the nature of conservatives all the world over.

When it comes to conservatives vivisection is often preferable.

[Barrister]

Raz is doing a good job disecting the nature of conservatives all the world over.

When it comes to conservatives vivisection is often preferable.

Sure thing Razmeister.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

The authors of the article are morons. some of those films are the opposite of what they think. Most don't have any actual "political view" other than one made up to suit whatever review you want to write. I could write Marxist crits of each of those films in my sleep, it wouldn't make the films Marxist, or any political stripe.

Lives of Others for example is a film about the dangers of a totalitarian world view, and how even Big Brother can be made to cry, given the right impetus.

[DGuller]

Raz is doing a good job disecting the nature of conservatives all the world over.

When it comes to conservatives vivisection is often preferable.

[The Brain]

Why isn't Passion of the Christ the #1 conservative movie? It has antisemitism, religion and indecipherable gibberish.

[MadImmortalMan]

Why isn't Passion of the Christ the #1 conservative movie? It has antisemitism, religion and indecipherable gibberish.

It has Jews.

[Sheilbh]

-belief in the individual over the group
-belief in collective rights (e.g. collective bargaining)

I have issues with these two.  I think liberalism is all about individualism, while conservatism is to some extent largely about a collective understanding.  Tradition doesn't mean nothing without a community.  Restraint is restraint because of collective values and a collective sensibility.  Conservatism doesn't make sense as a liberational, individualist ideology.  That sounds to me like self-centred materialist libertarianism that I think conservatives would be more likely to oppose than lefties.

[Malthus]

-belief in the individual over the group
-belief in collective rights (e.g. collective bargaining)

I have issues with these two.  I think liberalism is all about individualism, while conservatism is to some extent largely about a collective understanding.  Tradition doesn't mean nothing without a community.  Restraint is restraint because of collective values and a collective sensibility.  Conservatism doesn't make sense as a liberational, individualist ideology.  That sounds to me like self-centred materialist libertarianism that I think conservatives would be more likely to oppose than lefties.

I dunno if either position has any sort of coherence, but the best I can do is to note that conservatism appears more concerned with honour and liberalism appears more concerned with justice.

Both imply a social setting to be sure, as neither honour nor justice really have meaning absent a social setting. Yet the emphasis is different: honour is generally more a personal thing; justice something provided from the collective.

[Barrister]

-belief in the individual over the group
-belief in collective rights (e.g. collective bargaining)

I have issues with these two.  I think liberalism is all about individualism, while conservatism is to some extent largely about a collective understanding.  Tradition doesn't mean nothing without a community.  Restraint is restraint because of collective values and a collective sensibility.  Conservatism doesn't make sense as a liberational, individualist ideology.  That sounds to me like self-centred materialist libertarianism that I think conservatives would be more likely to oppose than lefties.

I was really discussing these points in a fairly North American context.  Certainly both left and right will describe themselves as supporting individual rights, and certainly both left and right do in certain instances actually use much more collectivist language (right: much more nationalistic, left, much more class-based rhetoric).

But I still think my comments are broadly fair.  The classic conservative icon is the cowboy, the self-made and self-reliant man of the frontier (which ignores the historic reality than the cowboy was probably given his land by the government in exchange for settling there), but it's still a much more individualistic point of view.

The liberal icon?  Nothing quite so obvious, but in trying to be fair I'll put forth George Bailey, from It's a Wonderful Life, who spends his life trying to help the people of Bedford Falls, and in return is saved from ruin by the community coming to his rescue.  A more community-based point of view.

Now I'm not trying to come up with a PhD level thesis here.  If I remember correctly I was only trying to argue that you can meaningfully use terms like "conservative" and "liberal" - that they do have meaning.

[Barrister]

I dunno if either position has any sort of coherence, but the best I can do is to note that conservatism appears more concerned with honour and liberalism appears more concerned with justice.

You're going to have to work up that idea a bit more, because off the top of my head I can't see how you tie conservatism and honour, in particular as something being different from justice.

[Savonarola]

The liberal icon?  Nothing quite so obvious, but in trying to be fair I'll put forth George Bailey, from It's a Wonderful Life, who spends his life trying to help the people of Bedford Falls, and in return is saved from ruin by the community coming to his rescue.  A more community-based point of view.

Oh my, Jimmy Stewart is turning over in his grave.