Well, I'd say there are a bunch of reactionary progressives. So I'd say its a good idea to distinguish them
Idaho and Critical Race Theory
- Thread starter Trunkage
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I'd agree with the =/= statements but.. MAGA was a broad church.
Also, I feel that reactionaries are usually about upholding traditions. MAGA was about destroying traditions and pretend what replaced it was traditional. Most of their ideas weren't tradtional at all. I don't think reactonary fits here, like conservative doesn't fit. You can also hear it in most of Biden's speeches. He's clearly, broadly speaking, a conservative. Trump was fighting against conservativism
I don't know there's an easy descriptor for Trump fans. No word is going to be able to cover a self-contradictory position like "we need a fresh-thinking outsider to shake things up and take us back to where we think we used to be". Following Trump is the defining characteristic, and like, there's a word for populists. But what do you call the people who follow populists?
More relevantly, there are progressive conservatives. Resistance towards change doesn't give an indication either way what sort of change you find more allowable. A reactionary conservative would be one resistant to change, but giving preference to past tradition. That's certainly a valid description of some people. Someone who demands radical change is not a conservative, regardless of whether that change is to try something new or to try something old.
A huge part of Trump's popularity was his claims about explicitly challenging the status quo. "Drain the swamp" is not a conservative mantra.
Anti-corruption is a stance orthogonal to conservatism, progressivism, socialism, and most other isms you care to name. It doesn't even make it onto that particular map.
What shared political positions do you think the "stop the steal" crowd have collectively that make it onto that particular map and specifically allow you to identify them as "conservative"?
Bring back manufacturing.
Bring back fossil fuels.
Unrestricted 2A enforcement (or I suppose lack thereof)
Ban abortions
Stop immigration reform and just kick them all out
Well, sort of.
Reactionism is not traditional conservatism, but it is either a form of conservatism, or derives from the same roots with similar beliefs and attitudes. Society constantly progresses: conservatives must therefore either roll with the changes or refuse to accept them. The latter are reactionaries.
That's not what reactionary means. A reactionary seeks a return to an idealized past. A conservative conserves out of the belief that the things people have done to make the present have had a positive effect. Society has progressed, which is exactly the reason not to throw it all out recklessly.
You are confusing conservatism with a particular justification for conservatism.
No, I'm not. Any other explanation for conserving the status quo would total nonsense.
I hate to be the downer but stop mentioning race to ordinary Americans yes I mean both white, and people of color.
The social and economic policy is what matters. We need to sell progressive policies as a war on the rich, and powerful, not on white people who will vote you out of office.
It's the end goal that matters not the method. There is a reason Fox News is waging a culture war on the democratic party because it's backed by science that this method is their only way to succeed.
The social and economic policy is what matters. We need to sell progressive policies as a war on the rich, and powerful, not on white people who will vote you out of office.
It's the end goal that matters not the method. There is a reason Fox News is waging a culture war on the democratic party because it's backed by science that this method is their only way to succeed.
Erm...that's never an unpopular idea, but suffice it to say it has had serious problems in the past, and will continue to do so in the future.
Oh, I'm firmly convinced that the US is so racist that mentioning "this policy coincidentally helps non-white people more than white people" is a detriment to actually that policy implemented.
Lord knows how to fix that problem.
Lord knows how to fix that problem.
Yes. But the idea of an idealised past is generally based on the same notions as conservatism is: belief in tradition and aversion to novelty, that the old tried and tested ways work. It's just a typical conservative, after change has occurred, tends to tolerate it and move on. The reactionary does not tolerate it and fights for reversion.
Yes but some people do it more overly than others if you want to go by the statement that everything and anything political, economic, is a culture war. It's the method, not the goals that are the problem I have with the woke liberals, and progressives.
If you're fleeing towards higher ground, you have a destination. The destination is higher ground. In this metaphor it's even more apt, because it implies you can judge the relative height of ground, which isn't easy to do in political terms.
Okay, I'm sorry.
So again, let's go back to the first question, why do you think you don't live in a rational utopia? What about this society do you think is irrational and, here's the really important bit, relative to what.
Imagine going back in time and trying to explain the society you live in to someone like Kant. Do you think, provided you coul;d convince him you were not crazy, that he would see the society you live in as utopian? After all, it's full of things that he either thought were impossible, or never dared to imagine at all. Imagine trying to explain that science has put people on the moon, or discovered the fundamental particles of the universe. Imagine trying to explain the mass eradication of disease, the virtual abolition of war between major states, democracy, the principle of universal equality being enshrined in law.
When you declare your own society to be irrational, are you comparing it to the society of Prussia in the late 18th century? If not, what are you comparing it to? What society would or has ever been rational? And if the answer is that you don't know, then how are you making that comparison at all? How are you deciding what makes a society rational, and if rationality is truly impossible and imagining it is pointless, then how are you able to make any kind of judgement? Moreover, how did you arrive at that conclusion at all? Is it a rational conclusion?
You've just said that prejudice is literally hardwired into human neurology and the only way for a non-racist society to exist would be for us never to come into contact with each other. Faced with that, how are most people somehow managing to come to the conclusion that racism is bad? Did they all spontaneously mutate and grow extra parts to their brain?
As you correctly pointed out, scientific racial theory used to be taught in schools as fact. Almost everyone believed it and accepted it as true. What happened? How could almost every person on an entire continent, armed with broadly the same theories of science that we have today, have turned out to be completely wrong for centuries, and what changed? The answer, I'm afraid, is likely going to require philosophy.
Let me tell you what I think. We are living in a society that is in transition between two systems of knowledge regarding race. On one hand, most people now subscribe to the theoretical understanding that race does not determine the quality of a person. However, the lived reality of race has been a part of our society for literally hundreds of years. Almost no part of our society is untouched by that historical knowledge system of race, and that includes our individual perception of reality. We can all pretend that we don't see race, but we do not yet live in a society where race is meaningless enough that we don't see it in actuality.
A transitional period requires a theory adapted to the reality of a transitional period, not a theory that simply pretends to exist in an ideal colourblind utopia, but a theory that embraces the possibility of a raceless society as a critical position from which to attack the raced society in which we live. In other words, a critical theory of race. If only such a thing could exist..
Kant might correctly judge this to be the rosy propaganda of the time.
Or he might not. I don't know.