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I would like for whoever to compiled that list to name the "novels" of T. S. Eliot. He wrote lots of poems, plays, and essays, but no novels that I am aware of. Furthermore, his friendship with Ezra Pound during the former's fervrent support of Mussolini suggests that he might better be labelled as more Fascistic than Conservative, although his ardent monarchism is perhaps proof that he was a "paleoconservative", a conservative not in the American sense of limited government but in the European sense of support for the ancien regieme and divine right. Rlquall 13:25, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I don't know what Joyce was politically, other than to assume that as an Irish intellectual he was something of an Irish nationalist. Did he engage in any political activity that would tend to label him somewhere along the political spectrum? Certainly friendship with someone alone doesn't necessarily indicate agreement with their political beliefs; I am proof of that myself, but in absence of any evidence to the contrary one tends to associate a person's views with that of his closer friends. Was Joyce ever as close to Pound as Eliot seemed to be? I guess my appreciation or lack thereof for Pound's work was always at least slightly coloured by what I at least found to be his very unappealing political views, which never really affected the esteem in which I have generally held Eliot, perhaps because I knew that he was originally from St. Louis and figured that somehow, deep down, he really couldn't have meant all of it, although I suppose that now I imagine that he really did. Rlquall 18:29, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Well, I finally did the deed with regard to Eliot the Novelist. I would only ask anyone wishing to revert to please send me, or tell me where I can get, The Collected Novels of T. S. Eliot, for which I will gladly pay.
Rlquall 21:55, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
This article still doesn't really suit me, not that such should be its primary purpose. Perhaps it is because of the inherent strain between the so-called "classic conservatism" which states that everything should be left alone and that it will get better and better on its own and the more typically American economic strain, in which "conservatives" are inherent activists, always working to lower taxes, remove governmental obstacles to productivity, etc. To American conservatives, reactionary elements in the Chinese government will never be "conservatives"; neither will they see the "Taliban" as such, because their social policies cripple the economy by denying particiaption in it to half the citizenry, the female half. Also, few American conservatives see Theodore Roosevelt as a conservative. He was more of a "conservationist", hardly the same thing. He was socially conservative in that he wanted government to do "good things" in a moral sense; while an official in New York he vigorously enforced a ban on the Sunday drinking of alcohol that strikes most economic conservatives as a ridiculous attempt to enforce morality by government in a way which bans actions by what should be free people in a free marketplace. His "Fair Deal" was in many ways a precursor to his cousin Franklin's "New Deal" and entailed considerable govermental intervention in the economy well beyond mere "trust-busting", which most conservatives do see as a necessity in a truly free market. Perhaps because he was a vigorous interventionist and believed in the "Big Stick" policies with regard to Latin America he is considered to be a conservative by some measures; this perhaps makes him more of an early "neocon" as American conservatives have had within them a strong isolationist stream -- along with "Impeach Earl Warren" the first John Birch sign I ever remember seeing (displaying my age here) was "Get US out of the UN!"
Rlquall 16:14, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I very much agree on Teddy Roosevelt. I've raised this before, but didn't feel like a fight on the matter. As for the fact that conservatives in different places don't agree and aren't comfortable being under the same name: well, this is even truer over time, in that few U.S. conservatives today would object to women's suffrage (strongly opposed by U.S. conservatives 100 years ago) or integrated schools (strongly opposed by U.S. conservatives 50 years ago). Nonetheless, those stances at those times can rightly be called "conservative" and the same contrasts apply to what conservatism means in different countries. -- Jmabel 04:02, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)
U.S. conservatism is probably more anti-statist than is typical elsewhere, more "libertarian", but hardly equivalent to it. Some of the harshest critics of post 9/11 measures like the "PATRIOT" Act have been from people on the "hard right" like Bob Barr. Conservatives are generally against drug abuse, but many see draconian anti-drug laws as a larger threat to freedom than that posed by drug abuse. Even social conservatives who want the government to ban things such as "gay marriage" are skeptical about things like "public-private partnerships" which they see as giving the monopoly power inehrent in government over to a few carefully (politically) chosen private hands, not "the market". George Bush is not really a hero to most "true-believer" U.S. conservatives as he has presided over the largest expansion of government since at least LBJ's "Great Society" and Vietnam War, if not FDR's "New Deal" and World War II. He is mostly regarded there as a "lesser-of-evils"; some conservatives are genuinely puzzled as to why he is portrayed by the mass media as a conservative when he is so unlike them. This is becasue George Bush shows little tendency to be an anti-statist. Most U.S. conservatives are less concerned about using the power of the state for conservative purposes than they are curbing its power. Reagan's rhetoric was well to the right of his acutal record but he did succeed in reducing the rate of the growth of government. Bush, far from this, has vastly expanded it. Perhaps part of this is political naivete on his part. By putting massive new federal funding into education, he apparently sought to appease his critics form his left. Instead, he still faces the same and more (He doesn't really meant it! It's nowhere near enough!) from the left and at the same point makes his core right-wing supporters, whose position is that education is a province of state and local government only, feel abandonned.
(unsigned, but this was User:Rlquall) (Correct.)
You hit it on the head. The reason that I didn't touch the article and put this in "talk" is that I would think that it needs verification beyond "I know it's true" to belong in the article. But I think that making what could probably characterized from a logical sense as "gratuitous assertions" is perfectly acceptable here in talk -- as acceptable as it would be unacceptable in the article. Perhaps this will motivate someone to do this. Sometimes this sort of thing has prompted me to be the one to do it on other issues, but this time I'll leave this to someone else. Rlquall 20:00, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Where did the difference between "fiscal" and "economic" conservatism come from? This is a very arbitrary distinction, which seems to me contrived. What would the benefit of distinguishing between a balanced budget and the rest of the conservative economic platform be? And where, historically, does one find this distinction, other than here? Amicuspublilius 00:23, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Here are a few U.S. citations using the term "fiscal conservatism" in exactly the sense Matty and I understand it (BTW, I am from the U.S.): , [], [] Here is a particularly interesting one from the American Prospect in 1999 discussing Bill Clinton's fiscal conservatism: Here is a citation from India: Here is one from the UK: . Do you have comparable citations for a broader use of this term to refer to economic conservatism in general? -- Jmabel 04:35, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
The following was cut without comment (not by me: I'm just making the cut visible):
I think this is basically true, but it's not very well put and lacks citations. I think the article would be strengthened by a well-written (and possibly slightly expanded) version of this content, or by a separate article that could be referenced from this one, but I don't particularly think this content is worth restoring. -- Jmabel 05:55, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)
"...many former southern Democrats joined the Republican Party, even in the face of greater proportional support for civil rights legislation among Republicans..." (emphasis mine). This may well be true, but it goes so against the "received wisdom" that it really ought to have clarification and a solid citation, not just simple assertion. In particular:
If it is confined to the years up to the mid-1960s, I suspect it is true, because the strongest opposition to Civil Rights legislation came from conservative white southerners, most of whom would be counted at this time as Democrats.
"Barry Goldwater... argues that... conservatives split on the issue of civil rights... due to some conservatives advocating ends (integration, even in the face of what they saw as unconstitutional Federal involvement) and some advocating means (constitutionality above all else, even in the face of segregation)." This is doubtless a real quote, but it ignores the fact that some of the conservatives (not Goldwater himself, to his credit) were the active segregationists. I don't mind keeping the Goldwater quote, but it seems to me to be a bit to self-serving (for conservatives collectively, not for Goldwater personally) to stand without some comment on this matter. I suspect that comment would be more diplomatically added by a conservative than by me, so I'll give a week for someone to add this, but if no one does, I will try to write it myself, expecting to be "edited mercilessly". -- Jmabel 06:30, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)
Again, the multiple meanings of "conservatism" come out. Goldwater's conservatism was one of federalism and states' rights -- he wasn't comfortable with using the "commerce clause" to force people to be fair economically, and thought that the violation of the principle of free association was more dangergous than even segregation. Other Republicans, even conservatives, felt that the right of people of all races and religions to participate fully in the economy trumped the above concerns. Believe me, as a native Southerner I know that in the 1960s especially the term "conservative" was used to mean "segregationist" by segregationists themselves (which is why the old White Citizens' Council is now the Conservative Citizens Council). But this doesn't meant that conservatives are or were ever generally all segregationists, Conversely, George Wallace will forever in the minds of some be considered a conservative because of his early support of segregation, but in reality his economic policies as governor of Alabama were essentially indistinguishable from other Southern Democratic governors not identified with segregation (i.e., Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton).
Rlquall 13:03, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Aggreed. In fact, GCW probably put more blacks into state jobs during his last term, when segregationism was dead as a political issue, than his Southern Democratic contemporaries. Also, it's little-known now, but he was endorsed by the NAACP in the 1958 race. Only when he lost that race did he decide to be a hard-core segregationist. (Don't think that the infamous "Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" is in the article on him yet either. Probably ought to be.)
Rlquall, 3 Sep 04
In reading about the Second Great Awakening, I ran across these passages:
We see here the word 'conservative' being used, in the middle of the nineteenth century, in a way that was unrecognizable to Europeans. This suggests to me that nineteenth century American Protestant thought (specifically: revivalism) may have been an antecedent of the "ideological conservatism" discussed in the article.
Do people think this possibility is worth mentioning in the article? I've never seen this connection made in discussions of conservatism, but that should not be surprising, since political scientists tend not to know anything about the history religion. -- Hyperion 01:59, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I think that the uniqueness of American conservatism may well go back to this strain of thought. It is right in that, ACLU protestations to the contrary, unlike European conservatives who were generally "Establishmentarian", that is, in favor of a national church, no serious Amercian conservatives were ever in favor of a national church and it was the ideological forebears of today's conservatives, the Anti-Federalists, who only accepted the Constitution after the Bill of Rights was attached, and they put the non-Establishment clause in the First Amendment. Madison really wanted the First to go farther and say, "Neither the United States nor any State shall make any Law regarding the Establishment of any Religion," but was convinced that it would not be adoptable with that language at that time. American conservatism is small-government conservatism.
American conservatism is not descended from the idea of "divine right of kings". It is descended from the American revolution, the world's first conservative revolution, in which pre-existing rights were defended from Crown encroachment. The idedological underpinnings of the Confederacy were likewise based on attempts to use "state's rights" to justify a right of property in human beings -- which had been previously formally recognized in the Constitution and other documents. So the American Civil War was a failed conservative revolution to that degree, and cemented the idea in the mind of the American public, at least the Southern public, that conservatism was segregationist. But using government to prevent human rights is antithetical to what the American principle underlying conservatism is really about. Rlquall 13:11, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
So... is it worth trying to get this into the article? Or (as we already do with Liberalism in the United States) is it time to start a separate Conservatism in the United States article and merely summarize that here? -- Jmabel 22:44, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)
I'm pleased that my tentative proposal got a quicker and more positive response than I was expecting. I was enthusiastic about my little discovery, since I've been puzzled by American conservatism for a very long time (following I guess Louis Hartz's train of thought that since the US is based on liberal ideas, American conservatives should be liberals, although I learned about Hartz only recently), and this seemed to be the first thing I ran into that shed light on it. I get the impression that writers of the article were struggling with this too, judging by the introduction of the unconventional term "ideological conservatism", not employed by political philosophers.
Anyway, to answer Jmabel's first reply: Williams and White specifically are unimportant, since these citations were just examples. Apparently this use of "conservatism" became quite widespread by evangelical Protestant writers in the period leading up to the Civil War. I can't say anything intelligent in reply to Rlquall since my American history is very poor. I think Smerdis's points are very suggestive and some of them could possibly be incorporated into the article. To bolster them, I can't resist giving this quotation of a leading fundamentalist Christian of the time I ran into here, which uses 'liberal' in a religious rather than political sense:
It's not really my place to voice an opinion on whether this should be worked into the article or a new entry on American conservatism should be started, since I am new to Wikipedia, haven't made a significant contribution to this article, and don't really know that much about the subject. That said, my initial inclination was against starting a new entry, because encyclopedias of philosophy don't treat American conservatism separately in this way. On the other hand, considerations of symmetry would seem to require a new entry, given that a separate entry already exists for American liberalism. -- Hyperion 03:18, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I moved Santayana from the list of novelists to the list of philosophers; his philosophy is better remembered than his novel, at least in my impression.
I also removed Plato from the list of philosophers, and added Aristotle. Plato's The Republic strikes me as a scarcely conservative document, calling for the establishment of a communistic society ruled by philosopher kings. By contrast, Aristotle's Politics contains a well known passage condemning utopias and attacks against property. Smerdis of Tlön 15:00, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
It seems to me Confucius is in a parallel strain of thought to the Western tradition of conservatism. His emphasis on tradition, gradual change and restrained government fits to me. Would it be too, er, radical, to link him in? -- User:Conflatuman, 13 Sep 2004
Moving Santayana made me think --- are Edmund Burke, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison philosophers, or would they be better included among the politicians? Smerdis of Tlön 19:40, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Near the end of the article "A growing strain has appeared in the conservative movement in the United States. This strain takes the form of the divide between the paleoconservatives and the newer neoconservatives."
I would sense that the "growing strain" is this: Many "paleos" are basically isolationists, the "neos" are emphatically not such. This really didn't matter as much in times of peace (by '92 the first Gulf War was pretty much all over) as it does now. Some "paleos" still have something of the Fortress America mentality. They aren't interested in "Old Europe" or "New Europe" to any great extent, and are similar to the "America Firsters" of the 1930s. However, this strain is rejected as increasingly unrealistic by many, even many who once felt that way themselves, as unreflective of 21st century realities. Most "paleos" are still deeply disturbed by Bush, as they most assuredly were his father; they support him only as the "lesser of two evils", whereas the support of the "neos" is still fairly enthusiastic for the most part. On the whole, I would say that true conservatives are only slightly more accepting of GWB than true liberals are/were of Bill Clinton. Rlquall 14:31, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
You "would sense". Let's either get this appropriately into the article or not, but none of this convinces me that these two sentences in their present unlikely location in the article serve any purpose. Don't we address this all better above? Also, you didn't address my question: in what sense are neoconservatives "newer" than paleoconservatives? -- Jmabel 19:43, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)
The reason that I almost never touch this article is that I think that pretty much everything in it should be documentable, footnoteable, etc., and won't enter anything into it based on "I think" or "I suppose". The reason that I even bother to make such comments, other than that this is what "talk" pages are for, is to prompt someone with all the right tools to take action.
"Neocons" are generally "new converts" to conservatism. The current "neocon" movement traces its ancestry back to Norman Podhertz (sp?) and Commentary magazine in the 1970s. Most of them were/are moderate to liberal on social issues (affirmative action, homosexual rights, etc.) and "conservative" only or primarily in the sense that they support a strong defense and a vigorous, active foreign policy. (For a while, many of the same people were called "neoliberals".) Sen. Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson (D.-Wash) was such a creature before they were named. Neocons shifted their opposition from Communism, after it fell, to Muslim extremism as a new threat to freedom, largely doing so even before 9/11/01. Most neocons are strongly pro-Israel and many are Jewish (whereas almost no "paleos" are). The term "neoconservative" is now relative, as the movement is no longre truly new, and was never stridently conservative beyond the pale of defense and foreign affairs (by this definition, Ed Koch is more or less a neocon).
Rlquall 20:55, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Yes, of course, but I'm pretty certain that the identification of "paleoconservatives" in contrast to simple "conservatives" is even more recent than that of "neoconservatives", so in what sense are neoconservatives "newer"? And again, given that the matter is discussed at greater length elsewhere in the article, are you objecting to my deleting these two stray sentences? -- Jmabel 21:52, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)
You're correct that the term "Paleoconservative"/"paleocon" is even newer as a term than "neocon", it just represents an older philosophy that its adherents generally still think of as "the" conservatism. I'm still torn on whether those two sentences add anything to the article, and you seem to have devoted a lot of reasoning to why they don't, and since unnecessary, non-contributory statements really don't belong in an article, if you delete them I certainly won't revert them.
Rlquall 20:30, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm inclined to add the following at the end of the section on classical conservatism; since it may be controversial, I'm "staging" it here first. Please respond here if you think this addition is wrong:
Elements to this position of Burke's can be found in Aristotle's critique of Platonic idealism or in the philosophy of Burke's contemporary Immanuel Kant, especially in his Critique of Pure Reason.
Jmabel 22:23, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
Elements to this position of Burke's can be found in Aristotle's critique of Platonic idealism. Something of an analogy can be drawn to Burke's contemporary Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, arguing that certain matters of metaphysics were simply beyond human reason and must be viewed as matters of faith (although Kant, unlike Burke, felt reason to be quite sufficient in the area of morality).
-- Jmabel 06:13, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
I don't disagree with any of this: what I was saying was that in some ways Kant's questioning reason in metaphysics is analogous to Burke's questioning it in morals and politics (even thought Kant would not have agreed with the latter). Both were in the spirit of their times in this, the transition from the Enlightenment to the Romantic Era. But I can see now that this is trickier than I thought and certainly not easily addressed in a couple of sentences, so I will back off on such an addition to the article, unless someone else wants to propose a better (and still reasonably brief) way to say this. -- Jmabel 20:44, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)
I don't think the paragraph beginning "Generally, economic conservatism opposes graduated taxes..." is particularly good. It seems to describe more of a "soft libertarian" position than a specifically conservative one; roughly the position advocated in the U.S. by Jack Kemp. Oddly, it doesn't even mention strong support for capitalism! (It also leaves out any discussion of charity and noblesse oblige.) I am not sure that I am the best one to try to rewrite this paragraph, because it is not a political view with which I have much sympathy. Could someone else take a shot at it? If no one else has done so within a few days, I may plunge in (and in any event I reserve the right to jump back in as an editor), but I'd rather see someone with more sympathy for the position take the first shot at characterizing it accurately. -- Jmabel 22:53, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
I've removed the following article from the section Conservatism vs. Fascism on the basis of lack of relevance:
In The Road to Serfdom, Freidrich Hayek, who describes himself as a "classical liberal", makes the case for Fascism to be considered as a form of socialism. At the time of its writing, Hayek desired to critique what he saw as the rampant leftism of the age. However, a critique of leftism and Communism would not be well-received. As such, Hayek wrote a critique of the economic policies of Nazism. The intent of the book is clear: Nazism and fascism utilise forms of state control of the economy. By criticising Nazi state control of the economy, Hayek clearly also intended an implicit critique of socialist and communist state-controlled economies.
What is the relevance to an article on Conservatism of a putative classical liberal holding the opinion that fascism resembles socialism or communism? What does this have to do with conservatism (other than, I guess, some --mostly U.S. -- conservatives agree Hayek on this point, but there is no citation to indicate that) I have to suspect that someone just wanted to get this paragraph in the Wikipedia someplace and for some odd reason wasn't willing to simply put it at Freidrich Hayek, or The Road to Serfdom, which is where I'd think it belongs. And why would Hayek be any more relevant than just any of the rest of the literature on totalitarianism? -- Jmabel 06:38, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
Removed from Economic conservatism:
What fiscal conservatism (from the classical conservative position) strives for is a free and fair market in order to better society: unfettered corporatism and monopolistic enterprises are arguable anti-conservative. Whereas anti-ideological conservatism is not opposed, in principle, to such regulations, ideological conservatism might be. Where the markets themselves become moral agents, as in the philosophy of Ayn Rand and those in her Objectivist school (e.g. Alan Greenspan, current US Federal Reserve Chairman), antitrust laws, environmental legislation, and labor unions become intolerable.
What a mess. There may be something worth saying here, and if someone can fix it, something like this may be worth restoring but, again, what a mess:
Jmabel 06:57, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
1. The paragraph beginning "The interests of capitalism, fiscal and economic conservatism, and free-market economy do not necessarily coincide with those of social conservatism..." is really rather POV. It really should have some citations and say who makes this argument. I happen to believe that the analysis is totally correct, so (unlike some other passages) I can't bring myself to delete it, but it really isn't appropriate to Wikipedia standards; someone should do some research to get citations and bring it up to snuff. -- Jmabel 07:01, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
2. The paragraph beginning "It can be argued that classical conservatism tends to represent the establishment..." seems more like it belongs in an essay than an encyclopedia article. Again, what it says is relevant and seems essentially correct, but this ought to cite some authority saying this: it doesn't belong in the narrative voice of the article. I'm leaving this alone for now, but can someone fix this? -- Jmabel 07:12, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
"Contemporary conservative platform Assuming this is a quotation from Kirk, would someone please cite page number? Thanks. -- Jmabel 07:17, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
I have deleted the claim that Clinton was "forced" by the Contract With America in to a balanced budget. This is a POV statement as against the mere fact that he achieved one. If you want to cite someone at reasonably authoritative as making this claim, fine, add it to the article with citation, but there is no way it should be asserted as fact in the narrative voice of the article. My own view is that this was the famed Clinton "triangulation" in action and that it was mainly a (rather successful) attempt to coopt the Perot people. I'd rather just leave both hypotheses out of the article (it's not an article about Clinton, after all), but if the "Contract" hypothesis must be added (with appropriate citation) I'll do the legwork to find a citation for the other. -- Jmabel 05:02, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)
It'd be nice to have more sources claiming the listed entertainers are conservative. I find it hard to believe that, for example, David Lynch is a conservative.
In an article -- "Tentacles of Rage" -- in the September 2004 issue of Harper's, p. 31- 41, Lewis H. Lapham gives an interesting rundown of the shift from a liberal to a conservative consensus in the U.S., before launching into a diatribe of his own against the latter. The article contains much useful material worth mining for this article (and/or for Neoconservatism, where I'll also drop a note, and for a possible factored-out article on conservatism in the U.S.). I'll probably mine it for a few quotes pertaining to the mid-century liberal consensus, which will go at Liberalism in the United States. -- Jmabel 23:13, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
I don't think Herbert Hoover, who has been dead for forty years, belongs on the list of "leaders and commentators" which is otherwise comprised of mainly contemportary figures. He certainly deserves mention as someone associated in the public mind with conservatism, but in another context. (His presidency was from seventy-five to seventy-one years ago.) But I'm not certain that he belongs in the philospher list with Santayana either. In reality, a figure more like modern small-government conservatives, and far more admired by them, would be Calvin Coolidge.
Rlquall 12:45, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Number 4 in the introduction is extremely biased, first in its implication that conservatism and compassion are the same, and then by its flowery praise of Bush administration policy.
Rlquall 13:51, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
"Economic liberalism coupled with social conservatism is typically referred to as populism or fascism." This sentence is very confusing. In British usage, the term "economic liberalism" means laissez-faire!
Bear in mind that laissez-faire was originally a liberal philosophy. There is nothing inherently anti-statist or anti-government about conservatism, at least in Europe. (anon)
David Lynch is listed here as a conservative. Does anyone have a source for this? It seems a little unlikely, given the style and content of his films.(anon 195.92.67.209, unsigned)
This part seems strange to me. Taking into account the origin of right and left in politics (the places in parliament in the French Revolutiona according to political stands), those who oppose change are by definition what makes up the right wing. The fact that conservatists have opposed change from parties that can be described as right, has more to do with the placing of parties on a two-dimensional political spectrum and the problems of the definition of conservatism itself in modern society, than with the placement of conservatism on this spectrum. Auke - 12-10-04 - 23:57
Sorry, I disagree. On the one hand, one can be a gradualist reformist -- conservative but not right-wing -- and on the other, one can be (or be a follower of) a right-wing, charismatic leader bent on tearing down many of the foundations of society -- right-wing, but not conservative. Or, for a different example of right-wing but in many ways not conservative, look at Ayn Rand, utterly opposed to tradition as a basis for practice, but certainly on the political right. Yes, "right-wing" and "conservative" are correlated, but they are not even close to interchangeable. -- Jmabel|Talk 23:03, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)
I find some of the recent edits by User:24.6.127.24 mostly to be either hairsplitting or misleading. However, they are not actually false or imbecile. Would someone else please weigh in on whether these should be kept, reverted, or some of each? -- Jmabel | Talk 05:41, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)
The following was recently added to the "History of conservatism" section by Stbalbach. I've cut and moved it here for discussion; I'm not firmly opposed to adding this or something like it, but I'd like to see some discussion first:
I presume that the (implicit) claim here is that the towns were liberal and the countryside conservative? I don't have too much argument with the former (but this isn't the article about liberalism). What evidence is there for conservatism having an intially rural base? I think of it as having an initially aristocratic base, independent of geography. Certainly in 1789 one could hardly call the French peasants uniformly "conservative": until the land reform in the Directoire era, peasants in some areas were one of the most radical forces in the Revolution: it wasn't a bunch of urban liberals out there burning title-deeds and châteaux. Similarly, in the U.S. many of the most radical forces were rural, and this remained the case until some time in the first half of the 20th century.
Do you have any citation for conservatives initially having a rural base? And in what countries? -- Jmabel | Talk 22:39, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)
Rlquall 13:06, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Rlquall 06:48, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
...so this time I won't delete anything, but I wonder about this recently added paragraph:
Is there any reason to believe that conservatives were particularly more opposed to communism than liberals were? I mean, in the U.S. of the 1950s and 1960s, at least, "liberal anti-communism" was almost a cliche. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:50, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)
I'm getting ready to pull the string on Herbert Hoover unless someone can tell me why not. 1) He's been dead over 40 years, the other names on the list are still living or have died in the last five years. 2) He wasn't even all that conservative. His impact on contemporary conservative thought is around zero. He's just a figure that liberals like to use to bash conservatives, as if he somehow singlehandedly invented and implented the Great Depression.
Rlquall 22:59, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I didn't much care for the idea in a new paragraph that was anonymously added about how one's view of the U.S. constitution was a test of one's conservatism. That seemed to assume, among other things, that Wikipedia was entirely aimed at a U.S. audience. Rather than attempt to saw off someone who may prove to be a valuable newcomer at the knees, I chose to rewrite that paragraph rather than just delete or revert. This may well belong somewhere else or not at all, I leave it in the capable hands of others.
Rlquall 14:33, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The following seems to me to be so totally wrong that I don't know what to do with it: "Economic liberalism coupled with social conservatism is typically referred to as populism or authoritarianism."
Populists don't particularly favor economic liberalism. They certainly favor a liberal fiscal policy, but that has only a loose etymological connection to "economic liberalism": the latter basically means laissez faire. As for authoritarianism, it has nothing to do with any particular economic policy; I suppose it does involve social conservatism, but since the rest of this is so garbled, that doesn't seem to be worth much. Was there a coherent thought here? If so, please feel free to reword. Otherwise, I will delete this, it wasn't much more than an aside anyway. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:03, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)
I see that "...or authoritarianism" has been reverted as vandalism. As indicated above, I still have a problem with the sentence. Does it perhaps mean some thing like, "Fiscal liberalism and expansive domestic investment by the government coupled with social conservatism is typically referred to as populism"? That's close to true,
This all feels very redolent of Nolan, and I wonder if what is going on here is that this was written by someone whose knowledge of this does not extend much past the Nolan Chart. I'll give another day or so for response, then I'll feel free to edit. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:19, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
I've cut the following, which was recently added to the "types of conservatism" section.
Clearly this is more POV than encyclopedic content. I don't thing the notion of "Thorough-going conservatism" as a distinct type of conservatism is meaningful. I also think that the notion that Bush, et. al., are "conservative on every issue" borders on silly. We've just had User:Silverback (who I disagree with on a lot) on Talk:right-wing politics] trying to write Bush out of the conservative camp entirely. Neither of these views belongs uncited in an encyclopedia. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:05, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)
I have deleted this:
"Economic and fiscal conservatism" makes no sense since economic conservatism is described just above that as a product of fiscal conservatism. There is nothing implicit in the belief that budgets should be balanced, deficits avoided, taxes low, to make you a supporter of the US Libertarian Party (rather than the Republicans, pre-Dubya at least, or even some Dems). On the matter of economic conservatism this is described as the wish to minimize government intervention in the economy, but the Libertarian Party opposes all government intervention in the economy. Anarcho-capitalism goes further and opposes government altogether. Neither of these are conservativism. Jmabel explains above the problem with the reference to Populism. Perhaps the article should explain why these aren't forms of conservatism, in the same way it does with fascism. (Anon... 212.140.125.129 11:40, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC))
Someone might want to break out country-specific information into separate articles, as has been done with Liberalism. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:39, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)
I agree with the proposal to separate country-specific info. A related issue is that the American stuff is creeping over the whole article. For instance, I see that neoconservatism and compassionate conservatism are listed as types of conservatism, though they are both uniquely U.S. movements (And neocon has a second long reference under US as well). -Willmcw 00:50, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Is it appropriate to include Adam Smith in the list of conservative philosophers? He has inspired modern conservatives but was the antithesis of conservatives in his day.
The list of people (especially entertainers) was getting overwhelming. As with some other movements and philosophies, conservatism now has a list of its own. Cheers, -Willmcw 05:22, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
"Social conservatives generally wish to preserve the current state of their society and impose their society's values on others societies, as opposed to supporting the natural advancement of societies, as liberals do. A notable contemporary example is the Second Iraq War, whose supporters (conservatives) wish to impose their values (such as democracy) on the various societies of Iraq. The opposition (liberals), on the other hand, believes that imposing something on a society that is not ready for it will actually hurt that society, as it will react negatively towards what is being imposed on it(in this case democracy)."
I believe this particular passage needs to be changed as it is seriously lacking in neutrality.JetsLuvver 00:38, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
As a representative of paleoconservatism, should the 'The New Conservative' be used in the external links instead of 'Chronicles'? 'The New Conservative' has a circulation of about 15,000, and I think I read that 'Chronicles' has one of around 6,000. Also, 'The New Conservative' was founded by the most well-known paleoconservative, Pat Buchanan. I'm going to go ahead and change it, but feel free to change it back if I overlooked something.
When entering 'conservative' I wanted to look up the meaning of 'conservative extension of a theory' in the sense of mathematical logic. This is quite an important notion; you find it e.g. (without explanation!) on the page Von Neumann-Bernays-Gödel set theory. However, I have been redirected to 'conservatism', a completely unrelated page. There should be some disambiguation page. Tillmo, May 04 In the meantime, I have created a page conservative extension. Tillmo, May 04
This article is a bad example of over Wiki-linking. At its length, it would be fine for the same people and things to be linked more than once, I'll admit, but several times in the same para for things like Republican Party and Edmund Burke is a little bit much. Remember that style guidelines dictate that if the same person or thing is to be Wiki-linked more than once within the same article, there should be enough space between them that they are not both within sight of one another; i.e., repetition should not occur until the first link has been scrolled completely past and is out of sight in a normal view. Rlquall 03:40, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
All the references to "conservatives" in this paragraph were just changed to "liberals." To being with, if it is so, then we should move the paragraph to the liberalism article. But is it true? Were Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher really liberals? -Willmcw 00:14, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)
Nothing about Leo Strauss under the neo-con section? I think he deserves at least a passing mention. Without Strauss, we'd have no neo-conservatives (oh, if only :) ). --195.93.21.2 01:55, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
File:Http://www.joric.com/Hitler-1.jpg
conservatism=nazism
Conservatism equals WHAT? Excuse me but do I compare liberals to Communists? Conservatism is treating minoraties the same as majorities, not better like some parties I could mention. Why am I the only one complaining here?
Also the two sections of text right under the contents is very biased and are not very NPOV. All the subjects talked about in those parts are discussed later in the text, and there much more neutral. I tried to edit it to be a little more neutral (for an example i removed the text that said that conservatism is neccesarily oppresive, and added a part explaining the relationship between conservatism and facism. But I believe that the sections should be removed in their whole (except perhaps the first part of the first subject), since they do not add anything new to the text and is very non-NPOV written.
I don't want to do that myself before others have had an oppertunity to either better it or explain why it should be kept in. (unsigned user)
Please note that most of this talk page now refers to an older version of the article, that was primarily about U.S. conservatism. The article is no longer about the United States, it is about conservatism as a global phenomenon. That includes things like the Franco regime in Spain in the 1950's, and Ayatollah Khomeiny. I re-inserted the point that value-conservative regimes - such as those of the Ayatollah - are inherently repressive. There is no other way for them to function.
Nowhere does it say that conservatives are fascists, so it was unnecessary to insert a disclaimer. Nevertheless, I added the point that many conservatives are unhappy with the association, and clarified the historical and current ideological relationship. Once again: the article is not about the United States, it is not a disclaimer article, and the global history of conservatism is not always filled with nice people.Ruzmanci 11:55, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
Please DO NOT INSERT COMMENTS IN THE MIDDLE of this text, but under it.
The factual accuracy of the entire article is disputed, because it is not what it purports to be, namely an overview of conservatism, but an article on Anglo-American, and substantially US-American, conservative traditions. As a result of the anglo-centrism of the article it contains factual errors in its description of conservatism, for instance..
The article in its present form can not be amended and that is not necessary. The simple solution is to give the existing article a new title, such as ‘Anglo-American Conservatism’, and to create a new overview article, on conservatism as a global and historical ideological and cultural phenomenon.
Ruzmanci 11:41, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
A short draft replacement, a new general overview article on Conservatism, is now linked from the main page. The present article would be renamed "Conservatism in America' or something like that.Ruzmanci 17:27, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
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