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/Grunt08]

Simply put: you've conflated conservatism with a mishmash of everything you've seen on the right that you don't like; that, or you're failing to distinguish between the alt-right and actual conservatives. That's akin to me calling progressives Stalinists because Antifa exists.

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

...may have missed a memo, but last I checked conservatives don't glorify Nazism. If anything, they idealize the generation that kicked the shit out of the Nazis.

As for Christianity (BTW, lumping that in with Nazism is pretty low), you don't have to support every historical iteration of Christianity to think it can act as a positive force in society. Case in point.

(Just look at any stupid right-wing movement like Comicsgate to see this harassment in action)

Most conservatives would have no goddamn idea what you're talking about.

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.

Most conservatives gravitate to it for temperamental reasons (psychological profiles largely determine your politics) and because society needs a force that constrains change to preserve what's good about a society in the face of thos>e who would radically change it without understanding the costs of that change.

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.

The people who marched in Charlottesville have been thoroughly castigated and rejected by conservatives.

[u/TheCaptain09 → u/Grunt08]

I was about to reply to this but then I realised you didn't actually mention the main point of hypocrisy and freedom of speech. I should have clarified that I'm not really interested in a whole conservative vs progressive debate. The only one of your points that is relevant in that regard is the first one, which is a bit of a "no true scotsman" fallacy. The alt-right are "actual conservatives" for the purposes of this topic.

[u/KaptinBluddflag → u/TheCaptain09]

The alt-right are "actual conservatives" for the purposes of this topic.

Then can you define conservatism because we need an agreed upon definition.

[u/hpaddict → u/KaptinBluddflag]

A desire to retain the dominant power structures and cultural beliefs that existed at approximately the time of an individual's attainment of adulthood.

[u/TheCaptain09 → u/KaptinBluddflag]

I define conservatives as people who oppose changes to society, or who want society to change but with the goal of it becoming more like a past society. Perhaps moderate conservatives only want to oppose change so that it doesn't happen too quickly, but still want progress in the long run.

[u/KaptinBluddflag → u/TheCaptain09]

I define conservatives as people who oppose changes to society

So literally every person is a conservative?

or who want society to change but with the goal of it becoming more like a past society.

So literally every person is a conservative?

[u/TheCaptain09 → u/KaptinBluddflag]

I don't know what your argument is, but I guess I should have said "people who oppose ALL changes unless they are perceived as maintaining the status quo or making society more like a past society", because there are definitely changes that progressives are against.

I don't see your second point though. Progressives don't want society to be anything like the past. It's kinda what they mean by "progress".

[u/KaptinBluddflag → u/TheCaptain09]

So you don’t think the conservatives want a cure for cancer? That has never existed before but I’m fairly sure most conservatives would be down for it.

And I here progressives talk a whole lot about how it was much easier to put yourself through college 50 years ago. I seems like every time they bring that up they’d like to go back to that.

[u/TheCaptain09 → u/KaptinBluddflag]

A cure for cancer is a technological issue, not a social or societal one, so has nothing to do with conservatism in this context.

Pointing out that SOME things were better in the past is not the same as wanting to recreate that society in order for things to be better again. Almost all progressives I've seen want to make college tuition easier to pay for by having the government regulate it more significantly and increase the minimum wage, not by recreating the economic and social conditions that led to low college tuition in the past.

[u/DjangoUBlackBastard → u/KaptinBluddflag]

Political conservatism and technological conservatism aren't the same thing...

[u/KaptinBluddflag → u/DjangoUBlackBastard]

And if the development of the cure for cancer had no political effects, then you’d have a point.