sj_zero on Nostr: The big question is this: Is conservatism as it stands today something with it own ...

The big question is this: Is conservatism as it stands today something with it own basis, or is it just a reaction to progressivism?

I think the answer is "it depends who you're talking about".

In my view, a conservative who reads history and the great works of the past such as the Greek philosophers, the romans, Christian philosophers such as St. Augustine, the enlightenment philosophers, and so on, well there's a huge body of knowledge there that doesn't rely on the current zeitgeist. It is truly conservative, and trying to use the wisdom of the past to help understand the future.

By contrast, there is a brand of conservatism that is just progressivism but taken in a different direction. Most lefties won't like it, but the fact is that National Socialism and Fascism are both deeply steeped in the progressive project. After all, they both intend to implement whole new ways of doing things that have never been seen before in the name of progress. It's no mistake that Mussolini and Hitler both came from Socialist parties.

Another contrast is the current brand of conservatism which only seems to have positions in opposition to the current progressive zeitgeist. For example it can oppose wokeness, but it doesn't have much of a vision of what else could be other than just "not that".

Ironic, since the current progressive zeitgeist is in many ways as dysfunctional as it is because it is also set up as a "not that", focused on the Nazis in world war 2. Much of it is just a scramble away form one point, as if that's going to get anyone anywhere meaningful.