The Top 10 Conservative Movies of the Last Decade

[Sheilbh]

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.

But this is also very much a North American thing.  I think in the UK we'd probably have some country gentry figure in a Barbour jacket - but derives importance from being a pillar of the community, as well as living his life the sort of person who's a magistrate, Church warden, regular in the local pub, wife runs the local WI and so on.

The liberal icon?

I can't think of one either.

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.

I think you can use them but I think it's always worth remembering their or original meaning within a society when talking about their modern meaning. 

[Savonarola]

I think Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) in The Grapes of Wrath was (or at least wanted to be) a liberal icon.  Wherever there's a a cop beatin up a guy, he'll be there.

[Barrister]

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.

Huh - you caused me to google, and I never knew Jimmy Stewart was a staunch republican. 

[Sheilbh]

Actually Henry Fonda in Twelve Angry Men is probably a liberal icon (albeit an establishment one).

[Malthus]

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.

"Honour" in this sense means being reliant on one's own social and moral code, usually drawn from the idealised social norms of one's traditional society & history: in our case, as you said, the notion of the mythical cowboy or frontiersman. No-one imposes it on you, but you know some things just ain't right.  It is bottom-up, grassroots stuff. It isn't necessarily libertarian, since those who hold to it do not see it in relativistic terms: what I think "ain't right", I'm happy to enshrine into law so that no-one else can do that, either. This explains why conservatives can see ownership of guns as being no-one's business but their own, while at the same time supporting criminalization of drugs, etc. An honourable person can be relied on to deal with their guns properly, but people who do drugs aren't honourable, by definition.

"Justice" means creating a social and moral code inspired by notions of fairness and reciprocity. These notions may have been inspired by traditional philosophical sources, but are ultimately divorced from them - they are abstract and universal, and unrelated to one's personal convictions or situation: it is Rawlsian "veil of ignorance" stuff, creating the ideal society in ignorance of your possible place within it. It is top-down, in that  all of society has a duty to positively enhance justice. Thus, liberals see regulation of drugs and guns similarly, as issues of harm containment; they are less likely to draw distinctions between these activities based on assumptions about the persons engaged in them.

[Savonarola]

Huh - you caused me to google, and I never knew Jimmy Stewart was a staunch republican. 

He also wrote a book of poetry:

[Barrister]

Malthus,

I've attempted to discuss the issue in as neutral a language as possible, but you have all but explicitly laid out liberals as being more highly 'morally evolved' ala Kohlberg.

[Malthus]

Malthus,

I've attempted to discuss the issue in as neutral a language as possible, but you have all but explicitly laid out liberals as being more highly 'morally evolved' ala Kohlberg.

Oddly enough, I was going to add that the older I get, the more important I find personal honour.

I guess I'm ... devolving. 

Though OTOH, I don't think that personal honour has to be culture-specific, only that in the case of NA conservatives, it mostly is.

[grumbler]

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.

I agree with the justice comment.  I am not so sure that conservatism is about honor, per se, but I think you are on to something.  Conservatism, it strikes me, is more about the personal, as you nopte, but I think it is more about individuals being able to carry out their "duties" than preserving their "honor."  Classical liberalism is more about opportunity.  My thinking on this definitely does need some more work.   

[grumbler]

Malthus,

I've attempted to discuss the issue in as neutral a language as possible, but you have all but explicitly laid out liberals as being more highly 'morally evolved' ala Kohlberg.

I don't see this at all.  I think that the key difference is that leftists see the "right outcome" as justice coming from society and controlling the baser instincts of the individual under stress, whereas the right sees the "right outcome" as people doing what they know is right, and the communal sort of action as being needed only because there are always a few bad apples.  In a sense, I think, Kohlberg would think the right, with their assumption that "bad things happen because of individual bad people" is more advanced than the left's more "bad things happen because social conditions make people bad."  But he would, on the other hand, think the "classic liberal" view that moral reasoning has to be intrinsic (not coming from religion, tradition, and the like) is a higher level of reasoning than is typical from those I consider to be "on the right."

We need to bring Rousseau into this:  you could find something from him supporting just about any position one could take in this discussion! 

[Eddie Teach]

I love his paintings. 

[Malthus]

Malthus,

I've attempted to discuss the issue in as neutral a language as possible, but you have all but explicitly laid out liberals as being more highly 'morally evolved' ala Kohlberg.

I don't see this at all.  I think that the key difference is that leftists see the "right outcome" as justice coming from society and controlling the baser instincts of the individual under stress, whereas the right sees the "right outcome" as people doing what they know is right, and the communal sort of action as being needed only because there are always a few bad apples.  In a sense, I think, Kohlberg would think the right, with their assumption that "bad things happen because of individual bad people" is more advanced than the left's more "bad things happen because social conditions make people bad."  But he would, on the other hand, think the "classic liberal" view that moral reasoning has to be intrinsic (not coming from religion, tradition, and the like) is a higher level of reasoning than is typical from those I consider to be "on the right."

We need to bring Rousseau into this:  you could find something from him supporting just about any position one could take in this discussion! 

Yup, this is pretty well how I see it.

I was going to say that, Kohlberg aside, what I tend to disagree with in conservatism is the reliance on traditional sources for forming their notions of honour & morality; I tend to disagree with liberals that individual honour and morality are not particularly significant compared with social forces acting on the individual.

[jimmy olsen]

Looks like Languish still has some interesting discussions left in it.

[MadImmortalMan]

-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.

You have all convinced me that neither liberalism nor conservatism is a coherent ideology. Congrats.



I think both are at times individualistic and collectivist. Liberals (in the US) are certainly not individualistic economically, but they are when it comes to privacy and bedroom politics. The same is true for conservatives, but in reverse.

I don't really get the point about honor and justice. They aren't opposing concepts for one thing. The opposite of justice is, well, injustice. Or if you prefer, pardon, parole, mercy or compromise. The opposite of honor is something more like shame. So, honor would be more of a collective thing to me, since it comes from a set of expectations of behavior agreed upon as a group--and it deals primarily with how a person is viewed by others. Justice would be more on the individualistic side, since it has more to do with rights.

[grumbler]

I don't really get the point about honor and justice. They aren't opposing concepts for one thing. The opposite of justice is, well, injustice. Or if you prefer, pardon, parole, mercy or compromise. The opposite of honor is something more like shame. So, honor would be more of a collective thing to me, since it comes from a set of expectations of behavior agreed upon as a group--and it deals primarily with how a person is viewed by others. Justice would be more on the individualistic side, since it has more to do with rights.

So, if you are saying that Conservatives are not the opposite of modern liberals... congratulations.  You have gotten to a point many conservatives and modern liberals never get to.  I feel that they are more like baseball players arguing with hockey players.  Baseball players are not the opposite of hockey players, they just pursue different goals.