by Brett Stevens on March 29, 2019

All of politics distills to a war between ideas. Each human perception of reality is itself an idea, and that ideas approximates reality in a heuristic way, but can never be reality (although, being in the brain, it is part of it).

When we assemble our perspectives of reality, we tend to come up with behaviors that seem to work most compatibly with those impressions. These eventually become prescriptive philosophies, or frameworks for constructive activity.

Conservatism, if we boil it down to its roots, is the scientific method rooted in both history and aesthetics. We look at all of the actions taken in the past, the results and unintended consequences they achieved over a long time, and choose those that are best.

The term “best” baffles moderns because for them, everything is binary: it either makes money, or it does not; it pleases the audience, or it does not; the code compiles, or it does not. We can think of better results, like more money, but not better in the sense of something being better in itself, like a better experience.

The debate over “best” has more to do with aesthetics than anything else. We do not aim for the utilitarian standard of most people do not complain, but something that maybe only a few of us can see, which is what constitutes the optimum realistically-achievable experience.

For example, consider a park. The utilitarian plants a few trees, runs a trail through it, and installs some benches and a play area. That is enough for most people. However, compare it to a classical English garden, with its clusters of forest and plantings, gently sloping hills, lakes, flowers, and stonework. One is clearly better than the other.

Things which are best tend to inform us about the excellence possible in life, and inspire us to do more than we might if feeling tired, grumpy, resentful, overloaded, or any of the other common negative emotions that most humans walk around befuddled by.

However, this “best” requires two stages. First we find out what is real, and then we discover how to optimize what is possible there. A good garden requires good dirt, drainage, foundations, and most of all, land in the right place.

Naturally the conservative clashes with the utilitarian. Utilitarianism, or “what is best for the most” as determined by their assent, consists of a passive relationship: someone in power offers something and the mob shouts it down or cheers.

Utilitarianism also leads naturally to egalitarianism, since instead of counting our smartest, bravest, and wisest, we are looking at the herd as a whole to see how many shout yea or nay. This method proves pointless because most people do not know what is best and merely go along with the mood of the room as best they can determine it, which leads to a constant zeroing in on the lowest common denominator. Over time, this creates a consistent lowering of standards, since the lowest common denominator of last year produces enough slackers below that point that this year the standard in common will be even lower.

As you probably know, conservatism itself suffers from the utilitarian nature of being a response to something offered by a more powerful party. In 1789, with the overthrow of the king in France, it became clear that egalitarianism had established itself on the political landscape, and since proles were numerous and the middle class liked selling them things, it was going to be on top for awhile.

In response, conservatives adopted a pose of resistance. They sat on the right in the French Assembly and did their best to talk into people and preserve what they could of the Old Ways, knowing that these were time-proven and would result in better outcomes, but over the centuries the herd has had its way as it always does as an agent of randomness, entropy, and reduction to the mean.

This takes us to the current day where conservatives have forgotten their origin, or even their philosophy, and instead focus entirely on defense of functional things, forgetting that by doing so, they are simply keeping the Left afloat so that it can make further changes to everything else.

That shows us how societies die. The normal people hang on to what works despite feeling dread at the ever-shrinking circle of what they can defend, and the crazies change everything else, which in time makes more people crazy and soon the herd is screaming for obviously unrealistic and destructive things.

We joke about “accelerationism,” and how worse is better, but there is a middle option. Instead of attempting to preserve what is left of our society, we should conserve what is left of our people: the group united by heritage and culture that consists of good people.

Doing that, however, requires that we acknowledge that the Left will not leave these people alone, and so until we seize power, we will always be losing. They will roll right over us and install us into mental institutions, jails, gulags, concentration camps, or the waiting line for the guillotine.

To them, equality comprises the only good, and everything else is both an enemy and something that can be repurposed as a means to the end of equality. They have no qualms about killing, destroying, corrupting, and subverting because to them, there is only one good, and they are doing what is right and correct to achieve it.

For too long we have listened to conservatives preach about the few principles they defend — defense, Christianity, business, guns — and not heard enough about the fact that we cannot coexist with the Left. We tried that; it failed. We need our own spaces now.

You, who are conservative by dint of not being an egalitarian, probably want nothing to do with conservatives. Like our mainstream Christians, our mainstream conservatives have no answers. They hang on to a few things they enjoy and ignore the world, flipping it off and muttering about how everything always goes to the dogs. Then they go back to work, funding and protecting the very Leftist virus that consumes us.

However, you might consider that there are only two paths. There is what works, and there is equality. You will be forced into one of the two before the end. If you are not bewitched by equality like so many others, you will want the realist path, and that makes you a conservative, not only because that is how they will see you and treat you, but because your mentality rejects the utilitarian choice and instead opts for the limitless options offered by life instead of a human group.

For this reason, even though you dislike conservatives, you will find it advantageous to ally with them and then slowly show them the light. You will see that our path consists of victory or defeat, with no option for staying in the current slow defeat since Leftism has an accelerationism of its own built in.

We cannot simply retreat to our homes and comfortable armchairs and focus on being alive. We must do that and also find a way to seize power and drive the invader philosophy of Leftism — it is Asiatic in nature — from among us.

Anything else is cowardice.

Tags: best, conservatism, egalitarianism, realism, utilitarianism

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