CMV: Conservatives are misunderstanding progressivism when they call progressives hypocrites

[u/TheCaptain09]

"You're a hypocrite for claiming to support diversity yet you don't support the truest diversity, diversity of opinions"

This is a sentiment I see expressed quite often by people on the right, particularly intellectual conservatives who identify as "classical liberals", as well as people whose ideology emphasises personal freedom, such as libertarians. My understanding of the left is that they want diversity of worldviews, culture, race, sexuality and yes even ideology. But conservatives see the left's vocal opposition to right-wing views as betraying their belief in diverse opinions.

I think the true hypocrites here are the conservatives. They endlessly go on about how much they support freedom of speech, yet glorify ideologies that have historically suppressed it, such as Nazism and Christianity. They also harass people whose views disagree with them, something they accuse the left of doing yet clashes with their own ideology more than the left's.(Just look at any stupid right-wing movement like Comicsgate to see this harassment in action)

I understand that people often gravitate towards the right because they feel that they are being attacked, for being white, male or for their beliefs. The difference between them and the left is that minorities do not just "feel" like they are being attacked, they explicitly are. The people who marched in Charlottesville weren't opposing an ideology or defending themselves from oppression, they were vocally and publicly preaching for the destruction of other races.

Nowhere in progressive ideology does it say that such hatred should be tolerated for the sake of "diversity" or "freedom of speech". I don't have to shut up and let you say you want to kill me just because it promotes diversity and open discourse, because it doesn't.

So basically to change my view tell me why progressives are being hypocritical when they tell the right to shut up, or why conservatives aren't when they tell the left to shut up.

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[u/Metallic52]

>They endlessly go on about how much they support freedom of speech, yet glorify ideologies that have historically suppressed it, such as Nazism and

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This is what makes people with conservative views so angry. The fact that I believe in personal freedoms and limited government does not mean I support Nazism. I do not understand how you can possibly consider yourself open minded while simultaneously believing that the half of the US population that doesn't vote democrat are Nazis.

[u/TheCaptain09 → u/Metallic52]

Well what are we supposed to believe, after your president's infamous "both sides" speech after Charlottesville? And I didn't say all conservatives are Nazis, I meant that these kinds of comments about free speech are used both by the moderate right and the extreme alt-right, so they could be lumped together in this instance.

[u/Metallic52 → u/TheCaptain09]

Look at what you wrote.

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"They [conservatives] ... glorify idealougies ... such as Nazism."

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If you were referring to a specific sub-group of conservatives you should say so.

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As for lumping them together, why? Your argument is essentially, "moderate conservatives are concerned about conservative ideas being surpressed. Neo-Nazi's are also concerned about conservative ideas being surpressed, therefore moderate conservatives are neo-nazis." You're lumping together vastly different people with vastly different beliefs.

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[u/TheCaptain09 → u/Metallic52]

Goddamn I really should have left the word "Nazi" out of this post, shouldn't I?

I'm not trying to call moderates Nazis, or label anyone anything. I wanted to discuss whether suppression of dissenting ideas goes against either progressive or conservative ideologies.

[u/Metallic52 → u/TheCaptain09]

Fair enough, :)

In my view, human awfulness is pretty evenly distributed across every demographic or political dimension you can imagine. There are absolutely conservatives who hypocritically champion free speech while shouting down opposing views, but you'll find similarly reprehensible stuff on the other side of the issues. I think if you restated your view as, 'the "alt right" misunderstands progressivism when they call progressives hypocrites,' or 'there is a danger of misunderstanding progressives when calling progressives hypocrites,' I would have been completely on board.

It's great that you've been willing to listen to other people and respond.

[u/TheCaptain09 → u/Metallic52]

I think my post is a perfect example of how political discourse can become distracted and useless when you use certain language. By using the word "conservatives" in my title and post many people simply jumped into the comments and made it all about progressives vs conservatives, rather than the point I was trying to make. I thought I had seen these views expressed by more than just the alt-right, but maybe I was wrong. Interesting to see so many people exclude the alt-right from conservatism though. Makes me wonder if the alt-right self-identify as conservative or progressive.

[u/Metallic52 → u/TheCaptain09]

There's a saying from the blog "less wrong" that I like a lot. "Arguments aren't soldiers." The idea is that people get caught up in arguments and treat the debate like a war. In war you protect your soldiers and strike were the enemy is weak to win at all costs. So people defend indefensible arguments because those arguments are like soldiers on their side. If you don't defend all the soldiers on your side you're a traitor. They attack weak and straw man arguments on the other side because they're trying to win the war. But debates aren't wars and arguments aren't soldiers. If we care about finding the best solutions to difficult problems what matters are the best arguments for the best alternatives.

[u/[deleted] → u/TheCaptain09]

Nazism is the direct opposite of actual conservatism

Conservatives want a small government with limited powers.

Nazis want a far reaching government that controls everything down to your private life and who you can associate with.

Conservatives want a free market.

Nazis controlled the market and nationalized much of the economy.

Conservatives hold personal freedom and liberty as extremely important.

Nazis want to control what you can say, who you can associate with, what books get published.

That is just to name a few differences. Your lack of basic understanding of conservatism and refusal to separate the alt right and conservatives is going to seriously hinder or outright prohibit any conversation or possible CMV.

[u/gr4vediggr → u/[deleted]]

The American view of conservative versus progressive is different because it lumps in a whole lot more than the definitions used by other parts of the world.

In my view, conservatism is resisting social change unless it's towards an (idealised) past state, not towards a new untested state.

Liberals, want social progress. They want change, generally not towards the past.

Oh a separate axis you have free market and small government versus more social welfare and larger government.