To my knowledge, the concept of “conservatism” is the will to conserve, preserve past values that are seen as superior. While I don’t agree with this either, this community has almost exclusively posts about fearing new things and trying to show them as evil. Evil migrants, evil new generations, evil new sexualities, whatever.

I do not see any “values” in it, only fear. Rejecting migrants is not based on morals or values that are rational, but on fear. Same for the rest. Which leads to the question, what is the point of this community? It does not lead to debate, people calling it out as fascism on one side (which is quite justified as the root ideas are seemingly identical) and the other side just saying that it’s wrong and that’s it. There’s no debate of values, as there are no values to debate about.

I do not agree with the concept of conservatism, and I couldn’t care less if this place is forever doomed to be downvoted in oblivion. But if you actually want to do something else than fear-mongering, even if you insist on talking about conservatism, then maybe it would be a good idea to refocus the community on actual ideas, and not the typical far-right speeches of hatred and fear that already flood a lot of media.

Of course I believe that it would be better to reconsider opinions that basically encourage the worst of humanity; but even aside from that, there is more to do than to replace every possibility of a conversation with the (stereo)typical “immigrants bad, jesus good, gays evil” speech.

  • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
    01·
    7 months ago

    …this community has almost exclusively posts about fearing new things and trying to show them as evil. Evil migrants, evil new generations, evil new sexualities, whatever.

    I do not see any “values” in it, only fear. Rejecting migrants is not based on morals or values that are rational, but on fear. Same for the rest. Which leads to the question, what is the point of this community? It does not lead to debate, people calling it out as fascism on one side (which is quite justified as the root ideas are seemingly identical) and the other side just saying that it’s wrong and that’s it. There’s no debate of values, as there are no values to debate about.

    Fear is a valid emotion when it comes to politics. Underlying articles based on fear, if that’s what you see, are the values to be protected, sustained, or advocated. I don’t really see fear itself as a problem.

    That you see only fear is reductive. Isn’t “conservatives are afraid of everything” too easy? For me, it has no explanatory power. Why are they afraid?

    it would be a good idea to refocus the community on actual ideas, and not the typical far-right speeches of hatred and fear that already flood a lot of media.

    Yeah, but also meet them halfway.

    Go beyond the hatred and the fear to what values they’re really trying to communicate. If all you see in a Trump speech, for example, is his fascist tendencies (of which there are many, don’t get me wrong), then you’ll miss the appeal to regular people on the losing side of Democratic policies. The pathetic, in both the colloquial and rhetorical sense, appeal to leftists as invasive vermin is itself an expression of values defined in opposition.

    As far as I’m concerned, the job of leftists in this community is to tease out the values that conservatives routinely fail to identify clearly and discuss that. That should be what makes this place different.

    • Eldritch@lemmy.world
      1·
      7 months ago

      Fear is the mind killer. It’s rarely valid, despite being an emotion. Often highly irrational. Leading to bad decisions. Policy and legislation should never be based on fear. Fear should be the last thing anyone accommodates politically.