Conservatives Will Never Get the Respect They Crave. They Don't Deserve It. [View all]

[kpete]

Conservatives Will Never Get the Respect They Crave. They Don’t Deserve It.
by David Atkins April 28, 2018
...............


Conservatism is fundamentally about preserving current in-group power structures and maintaining established social hierarchies. It keeps the powerful in power, and keeps the downtrodden underfoot. Insofar as government helps keep rich, powerful white men rich and powerful, conservatives love it and rally around the flag. Insofar as it helps equalize the balance of power, they despise it and want to drown it in a bathtub.This has always been the case for conservatism throughout history across the globe (replace “white” with “relevant regional powerful ethnic/religious majority” and it applies in all cases), and it has never been more true than of American conservatism today under Trump.

................

And just what are these traditions the modern conservative wants respected?They’re very rarely stated out loud, and when they are it’s usually in code: family, God, country. But dig deeper and it’s the sort of deplorable stuff that no one involved in the creation of culture would ever want to countenance: that women should serve as obedient reproductive vessels; that white men are biologically and culturally superior to others; that the ability of corporate executives to get rich from polluting air and exploiting workers is a greater freedom than that of communities not to be poisoned and abused; that it’s the inherent right of powerful countries to bomb less powerful ones and steal their resources; that being rich is a sign of divine favor, and the poor deserve their plight; and so on.

These are bad ideas. They are deplorable. They appeal to our baser instincts, and they preserve the power of society’s abusers at the expense of its victims. In every case, the hindsight of history looks with displeasure on those who defended such things. And in every case, the heroes are not only the activists, but also the culture bringers who pushed slowly but surely to drag societies into a better place.

It doesn’t matter how many elections conservatives win, or how much power they hold. Politics is downstream of culture, and they will never get the cultural respect they crave.

They don’t deserve it, those who shape our culture will never give it to them, and with the rise of a more progressive generation than ever, even corporate power is shifting to acknowledge the views of its customers. The battle for the soul of America is already over until the next realignment, and today’s conservatives know it. It’s just going to take a few more elections for it to filter through the system.



the rest:
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/04/28/conservatives-will-never-get-the-respect-they-crave-they-dont-deserve-it/