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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (48328)	8/2/1999 11:42:00 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I don't know when you think Christendom was not broken down into competing sects- but simply taking the history of England we can see the bloody (and everlasting) competition between Catholics and Protestants. Sects have always been with us, and persecution too, it is not something new to this century. Toleration may actually be on the rise, despite the media's attempts to portray the contrary. I also do not see conservatives standing up for "human values", I see them standing up for conservative values. You can, of course (and did), beg the question and define them as the same thing, but they are not.

To: Neocon who wrote (48328)	8/2/1999 12:01:00 PM
From: jbe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Neocon, I submit that most people who call themselves conservatives do not fit your description very well. Let's put it another way. They can hardly be traumatized by "the breakdown of Christendom into competing sects," because that breakdown goes back to the Reformation (and even earlier, if you want to count the Albigensians, etc.). They can't be traumatized by "urbanization," because most of them were born in modern, urbanized areas, or by "industrialization" either. Philosophy "fell into radical questioning" in the 17th century, and really got under way in the 18th. (And I would argue that no modern philosopher has been as "radical" as Hume, in many respects.) In my judgment, the only thing on your list that any modern-day "conservative" -- in this country, at any rate -- could have been genuinely traumatized by, personally, is the revolution in science and technology. I would add a few things that are not on your list: social changes like the collapse of whatever there was (not very much) of a traditional class structure, the change in sex roles, and the breakdown of racial barriers. Where these last "traumatizing" experiences are concerned, conservatives have not distinguished themselves "maintaining human values." That is, not if they are trying to maintain the status quo at the same time, which is what one expects conservatives to do (otherwise they would be "reactionaries," or "radicals," or whatever). Your conservatives are "ideal types," in the sense employed by sociologists. Now the problem with "ideal types" -- and here I will admit to being a thoroughgoing nominalist (a position that goes back to the Middle Ages, of course) -- is that one seldom, if ever, meets them in real life. Sorry. Just my opinion. :-) Joan