Someone started talking about "traditional values being lost" on Facebook.

[POFP]

Discussions on this board are wayyyy more efficient than on other boards. Sometimes. But this time especially. Not many boards have people who will discuss a seemingly minor topic until it becomes mind-altering. On most boards, if I got a response, it would've likely been "TL;DR" or "OP is f****t."

So, thank you.

[Cain]

Thanks everyone.

"Traditional values" usually means conservatism, ie. maintaining the status quo, whatever that happens to be.

There can be value in resisting change, because change can have negative consequences. There can be value in conservatism, because it helps prevent the progressives in society from enacting change too rapidly and destabilizing core systems.

Not that I disagree with what you are saying...I guess I want to refine it?

I hold with Corey Robin's general thesis, that the status quo is inherently reactionary, but Conservatism, as an outgrowth and co-option of liberal political processes in defence of the Ancien Regime, is actually dynamic.  One of the greatest conservative political thinkers, Joseph de Maistre, posted a brilliant defence of absolutist monarchy...which is a shame, because France was never an absolutist monarchy (Machiavelli neatly disposes of that lie in The Prince).

Which pretty much sums up Conservatism all over.  It creates an imagined better past, to denigrate the present.  That past usually never existed, as those who operated as part of the status quo in the past were normally more heterogenerous in their views and attitudes than conservative theorists allow for.

This isn't entirely unsurprising, as the British political philosopher John Gray noted the same problem in how the concept of the "free market" was approached, a good few years before Robin wrote his thesis on conservatism (I'd love to see them sit down and discuss their respective books together).  The actual theorists of the free market were far more complicated and nuanced in their thought than their modern disciples...which is no surprise to anyone who has actually read Adam Smith.

And I agree, there is some value in conservatism.  Shaking up the core processes of society in a fast and haphazard manner is probably going to have negative consequences, because shit is complicated.  The French and the Russians tried that complete overhaul method, and well it didn't turn out too great.  Of course, all governments impact on their society, even the ones which claim they don't, but it's a matter of degrees, methods and implementation.  Gay marriage isn't going to ruin civilization...but putting farmers in charge of factories and factory workers in charge of farms might create an industrial recession and famine, leading to greater social unrest which spurs on political violence both by the regime and those who oppose it.  For example.

[LMNO]

Which pretty much sums up Conservatism all over.  It creates an imagined better past, to denigrate the present.  That past usually never existed, as those who operated as part of the status quo in the past were normally more heterogenerous in their views and attitudes than conservative theorists allow for.

Cain has won today's internet.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

The French and the Russians tried that complete overhaul method, and well it didn't turn out too great.

The fall of those regimes was also helped along a great deal by the fact that people everywhere were put off by their insistence on taking bloody revenge on the old regime (in the form of the reign of terror and stalin's purges) rather than simply removing it

[Cain]

Please could you stop talking.  I'd specify "on subjects you know nothing about", but based on your past and current output, it amounts to the same thing.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Just looked through the relevant wikipedia articles and my assessment of the Thermadorian Reaction, the Reign of Terror, and the White Terror seems to have been more or less accurate: people got sick of, disgusted by, and most importantly afraid of the Reign of Terror and rebelled agaiiinst the new government in favor of returning to royalism.

The comment about Stalin I can't solidly justify, but I get the distinct impression that even if it wasn't necessarily the reason for the west's hardline opposition to the USSR it certainly gave them a damn good excuse for it; one that still somehow manages to occasionally get bandied about today, despite it being 61 years after Stalin's death and 23 years since the Cold War was over and done with.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Please could you stop talking.  I'd specify "on subjects you know nothing about", but based on your past and current output, it amounts to the same thing.