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this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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You're partially right. I am confusing the two, but not the spirit of their meaning, which is "to conserve". Conservation is a force for good, but this political party thing is only focused on the bad.
Why let it occupy the entire meaning and overshadow its better uses? To say "Conservative" with disgust is to ignore its potential for better uses.
Why change things when you can argue semantics?
This is about changing things. But we're talking about different things to change it seems.
And yes, semantics.
I appreciate that there has been some confusion regarding the use of this word. And I also appreciate your sentiment that it would be nice to focus on the positive. However, so much evil throughout history has come from conservatism, that the word weighs heavily with negative connotation that should not be removed.
In social context, nothing good in the history of mankind has ever come from conservatism. Nothing at all.
Here is a non-political definition, for some clarification. Note the lack of preservation of nature.
conservative /kən-sûr′və-tĭv/ adjective
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik
(My apologies for the American dictionary reference in a thread about an English person. It was just the easiest one to copy/paste on a phone.)
Yes, these are my thoughts on the word's meaning, in large.
A moderate and cautious approach to change.
Absolute refusal of change is the extremism part of this definition that seems to be viewed as its defining attribute instead.
Edit: Maybe this view of mine is flawed, but it's how I see a Conservative party should be. To avoid unchecked progress, maintain stability and implement only rigorously verified policies, in small, but certain steps. Their core tenets are moderation and cautiousness.
Lol no
Viewing words that prescriptively is kinda insane and willfully ignorant.
When someone says "gay", do you start arguing about how "it has nothing to do with sexuality, it just means carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'."?
Cmon. Cmon. CMON
It means both. And both meanings started as positive, then one meaning became the focus and the other completely ignored.
That's what you should be upset about.
Fair enough. If politically conservative people legislated with a moderate, cautious demeanor, I would respect that. In fact, I might even side with them on several policies.
What would the moderate and cautious approach have been to gain independence from colonialists?
What would the moderate and cautious approach have been to ending slavery?
What would the moderate and cautious approach have been to giving workers basic rights?
Shore up the defenses, create logistics trains, be certain of the allies available, initiate battle when ready and after all diplomatic recourses have failed.
Have a standing replacement framework, compensate losses, ratify laws to support equal rights in its entirety, reduce support of transgressors in public eyes over time. There were few slave owners. Turning the masses against them wouldn't have been difficult.
Prepare alternative replacement in case of refusal, then support unionizing while giving subsidies to encourage participation.
Ideally, it's supposed to advance slowly while keeping everyone relatively happy and stable.
A government is supposed to consider all of its citizens and that means taking into consideration the consequences of failure, while also planning how to remedy them.
I'm sorry... are you actually going against revolutions against colonial powers?
And if turning the masses against slave owners wouldn't have been difficult, why did a war have to be fought over it?
You asked for a moderate and cautious approach. I gave you an example of one.
If you draw from this more than what it is, then that's on you, not me.
The war in the US at least was fought due to a poor approach on the subject.
The UK, at the very least if anything, managed to end slavery peacefully on its soil.
Britain has not ended slavery. And when it technically outlawed slavery within the British Isles (which is actually all the anti slavery laws did), it was neither a moderate nor a cautious approach.
But, more importantly, there is still slavery in Britain:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_the_United_Kingdom
Britain didn't even end slavery in the 19th century either. They just changed the term to 'indentured servitude' and 'blackbirding.'
So it wasn't ended peacefully because it wasn't ended.
Also, the idea that you even should end slavery gradually is pretty offensive to all of the people enslaved throughout history. Would you be comfortable saying to them, "you won't be freed, but we're ending this eventually because it's a gradual process."
Yes, it should be done gradually.
What did the former slaves in the US have after they were freed? Nothing.
Food, clothing, housing are burdens we can't afford even now. Did you expect them to magically appear out of thin air once the slaves were freed?
You want everything to be done now, on the spot, a fair and just world for everyone. How nice of you. But do you have the resources? The infrastructure? The personnel?
You think that everyone will without a doubt respect everyone and everything without enough basic necessities to go around?
Weird, that wasn't an issue for freeing Holocaust victims.
Or should the closing of Treblinka been cautious and casual?
But there were issues. The starving ones who were fed too much and too fast died, while because the train tracks and roads leading to these camps were destroyed, logistics was slow in giving them the help they needed.
So freedom wasn't as instant as you'd like to believe.
There is a gulf between instant and gradual. You advocated for the latter. The latter means only killing fewer Jews.
When death is unavoidable, the goal is to minimize the number of deaths. Taking into account the situation before, during and after can help create the better results.
If we just free someone without taking into account whether they'll be able to live afterwards is just patting ourselves on the back. Sure we can say we did the right thing, but without making certain they at least have a starting point, we might just be condemning them to desperation or crime.
Like I said- kill Jews less until they can all be freed. That's the gradual way of ending death camps.
Yes, not killing people in general is preferred.
"In general"
"preferred"
Still sounds like "kill fewer and fewer Jews until the killing can stop."
Actually, by in general, I was thinking about people who live their lives in constant suffering and would like to have the option of a peaceful release.
Euthanasia is still taking a life, and I would prefer an alternative to that.
Was writing "in general" not enough to go beyond this particular instance?
When talking about gradually and cautiously ending a genocide? No, it was not.
Really? How many good men or women can one find in a country, willing and able to head out across borders to get involved into a war, solely to sacrifice themselves for the sake of saving others from genocide?
I'm not seeing armies heading out to save Palestine. Ukraine. Any of the African countries currently at war that i know so little about.
Simple truth is that not everyone agrees with this kind of selfless sacrifice.
The US had a small, but growing Nazism political party in its ranks before the war and the majority of those able to vote were against sending troops before Pearl Harbor happened. What do you think would have been the result had the acting US government sent troops into Europe without the approval of their citizens and without the shaming of the middling Nazis among them?
When forcing the issue, without making sure the ones opposing it won't suddenly strike at your back, you only send out more people to their deaths. And instead help the enemy achieve their goals more easily instead.
Nazist America was a real possibility at the time, not just a fantasy.
So yes, moderate, cautious and gradual isn't the evil you want it to be. It's just another route that considers the consequences of failure. And it's not without flaws, principal being the people involved.
Also, you may think I'm advocating for it, but that's just a side effect of my original point. Anything can be a force for either good or bad. Only focusing on the bad points and ignoring the good, vilifies it.
Tell me how that at its most basic meaning is different from what those you claim to hate are doing. Just because the subject of the hatred is different doesn't change the fact that the act of hatred is the same damn thing.
You don't like that things can be both bad and good? That's fine. But what you're pursuing is purity. Doesn't matter which side of the extreme you're looking for, it's still an extreme.
None of that has anything to do with the idea that gradually ending genocide is anything but abhorrent.
The fact that people do abhorrent things doesn't make things less abhorrent.
And gradually ending the Final Solution, slowly killing fewer and fewer Jews, is a monstrous idea. But that's what 'gradual' means.
I wrote a lot of stuff, but then I realized I don't really understand what you're trying to say.
Are you speaking exclusively about the idea itself or the circumstances of the past?
Because if you're talking only about the theoretical idea, then I agree with an immediate stop or prevention.
But if you're talking of the circumstances of the past, I was pretty much wrapped up in the details of realistically trying to reduce the losses. Couldn't figure out what magic way you wanted for the allies to save them sooner.
No, the freedom was instant. There may have been logistical issues with medical treatment of the now free people. In all my conversations with Holocaust survivors, I have never heard one say that they were not free after the camp was liberated. That is just a nonsense take.
Then you know better than I.
The big problem about discussing conservatives / Conservatives here is that this board seems quite US-focused. The British Conservative Party (the current party of UK government) pretty much came in to existence back in the day to “conserve” things and put a check on “progressive / liberal” policies. Conservative means something different whether your context is American-politics or whether it’s politics-politics.
I think context is more important and in this context disgust is the correct emotion.
I've found that context matters little when emotion takes precedence.
So which of your emotions made you ignore the context?
Pity.
Well time to pack up the pity party, Lath. There's context to consider.
Nah. Context rarely matters.
Conservative is yet another word that's been commandeered to the ends of the right wing. They have a long history of distorting or outright willfully misinterpreting words and symbols. Their use of the punisher logo is a classic example
That's the thing though, anyone can twist words to fit one's view. So why accept their vilification? Why jump into that pot of vitriol and say "yes, this is how it has to be"?
Oh my fuck, clearly the context is lost on you.
To believe "conservative" branded political parties are conflated with the English connotations of the word is quite frankly falling for propaganda at this point. Politically speaking "conservative" has a unique meaning that has nothing really to do with financial prudence or slow and measured progress. What they seek to "conserve" is old power structures. Heirachies founded on intergenerational wealth or old exclusionary policy that created privileged citizen classes. Sometimes they dress it up in the mask of "traditional values" but it's all basically just smoke and mirrors. It's why they attack inclusive policy, civil rights fights including education policies, social safety nets and tax policies that target wealthier citizens. They have to "conserve" the pecking order where old money remains uncontested power, new money casts the illusion that upward mobility it possible and nobody is allowed to mention that they are being treated as a second class citizen.
The idea of self branding yourself a "conservative" serves by flattering ones own ego because as a label it's primed to make one feel reasonable and measured... But. It's just fluff.