POLI 213 Lecture 6: Conservative Dilemma
29 Nov 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
The basic issue is that, in order to be conservative, you have to be conservative relative to someone else. This basically means that you need people to push for change--that is, you need liberals--in order for you to push back and say that the status quo had some elements worth preserving (or was completely worth preserving). If nobody was pushing for change, after all, then you don"t ever need to argue for the conservation a belief or system--that system or belief is just accepted orthodoxy for everyone. To put it another way: conservatives, by definition, wouldn"t exist with out liberals to be opposed to. In that respect, conservatism as an ideology is kindapost hoc: liberalism can exist on its own terms, but conservatism requires another ideology to exist in order for its definition to actually have any meaning. Say that there was a society of cake lovers--the religion and politics of this society all revolved around how amazing cake is.
