Words. Language. Meaning. I have always enjoyed considering them, especially clever turns of phrase. Communication, written or verbal, uses the clever and novel to make a point but most of it depends on familiar terms and expressions. It feels as though we all tend to use familiar words in such an instinctively reflexive way that we often don’t think about what they mean. We seem to settle on some vague agreement of what a term or expression means, often migrating away from the original definition of it in the process. One of those words, ironically enough, is conservative, a word that used to mean one thing but now seems used as a stand-in for something different.
Merriam Webster says that conservative is related to the philosophy of conservatism. It further defines conservatism as a philosophy based on tradition, social stability, stressing established institutions and preferring gradual development to abrupt change. The definition also notes a tendency to prefer existing or traditional situations to change. If relating to government, it means limited government, low taxes, individual responsibility and a strong national defense. Some who call themselves conservatives today have cherry-picked some of these traits but don’t have all. There are enough of other traits that I think calling them conservative is a misnomer. In fact, I believe reactionary is the better adjective.
A lot of self-identified conservatives do so loudly and proudly and proclaim to have “conservative values.” This list of values is not tacked on a door, a la Martin Luther, but generally tends to go on to refer to a few commonly identified things. They also make a point to decry alleged liberal decadence, often to rile supporters and subscribers to their views.
Freedom is one of the things they mention. Freedom is good and government is bad. Government that tells you what you can do, what you can own, how much to pay in taxes for the shared services it provides and how much you can pollute is really bad, tyranny even. Lost in this aversion to government is their failure to appreciate the contradiction: it is government that ensures and preserves freedom, by placing limits on individual actions to prevent the incursion of some on the rights of others. Freedom also seems like a universally cherished ideal that all appreciate, not just people who claim to be conservatives. The claim that liberals are against or hate freedom is also interesting, since the word liberal’s Latin root is liber, which means free.
The nation’s flag, standing for it, saluting it, flying it from a pole mounted on your truck, wearing clothes comprised of a patchwork quilt made out of it and getting misty-eyed while singing about it is another one. I’m all for respecting the flag but the religious fervor some hold around it, often vaunting its value above the nation and its people, is a strange obsession I don’t quite understand. The flag is a representation of the nation; not the actual nation, land and its people. The fervent worship of this representative fabric and the challenge to “out-patriot” one another in adoring it, is not the same as loving the nation and being willing to endure hardship and sacrifice for its well-being.
Freedom to express your positions, your opinions, religious beliefs and the lifestyle features you value, while harshly criticizing what you don’t like and don’t want to see is another. Anyone that voices a challenge to these views, or holds a different one, is generally unwelcome and openly sneered at, with that sneering often accompanied with nicknames and epithets meant to demean and belittle. If it is pointed out that their opponent has the right to disagree and voice their own opinion in response, the so-called conservative often claims that presentation of a challenging point of view is actually just a subversive attempt to infringe on their right to free expression. So, free speech for me but watch what you say for thee.
There are others but two final points I’ll name are the nuclear family, in the Leave it to Beaver mold and guns. Leave it to Beaver family mold meaning: working father, homemaker mother, children, all parties heterosexual and generally imagined as European descendants. Other color variants are begrudgingly allowed but the rest of the family construction has to be maintained, and that other family also must understand and accept that it inherently isn’t as valuable as the Euro-descended one, with some conservatives openly claiming that arriving families with more melanin make the country inherently “poorer and dirtier.”
Guns, well because it is argued that guns are freedom and their existence makes sure we have freedom. Yes, the second amendment of the Constitution establishes a right to bear arms, and this is feverishly defended with spittle-spraying ardor. Never mind that the same amendment mentions that armament in service to ensuring there is a well-regulated militia to be called to defend the nation. No, it is argued that the founding fathers meant to make sure you (and the “you” here is also understood to be euro-descended) have a sidearm strapped to your hip to ensure the family is safe going to the grocery store, or on those dangerous outings to get soft serve ice cream during the summer. Any restrictions in how a gun is obtained, what kind of gun you can own, how much ammunition is allowed and at what age you can own one, “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!” Gun ownership is usually defended exactly that way, strained neck cords and popping forehead veins included. This roid rage display, of course, helps to ease other’s minds knowing that this calm, even tempered and well-adjusted individual has immediate access to all kinds of firepower whenever they want it. Thank goodness.
Yet, things change, advances are made, society develops and not everything is the way it was. There was no perpetual standing army at the time the nation was founded. Now there is. Do we need average Joe’s with potbellies and guns to be called up to defend us from North Korea? Probably not. The country was originally sparsely settled, most lived in rural conditions, hunted practically all the meat they ate and lived in towns were there was little or no police presence. Is that the way our country looks now? Everywhere, including the smallest village, has its own police force. Some people still go hunting but do they rely on hunting for all of the animal protein they consume? Aren’t they joining the rest of us at the local grocery store and warehouse outlet to stock up on killed, butchered, portioned and cellophane-wrapped meat for most of their dinners? To insist that we need guns as much now, as we did in the 16, 17 and 1800’s doesn’t sound like a gradual development in progress. It sounds like clutching hysterically to a long-gone era.
The nation was founded with slavery and those in its bonds could not speak for themselves, have their own agency, vote, own property or earn their own living. Black people are no longer enslaved, now have the right to vote, can own property and not have children ripped from their mothers to be sold off to someone else to work them like a donkey. Women were not considered fully realized adults, were unable to own property, including their own bank accounts, could not vote and often needed men’s permission to do the simplest things. People who weren’t heterosexual weren’t allowed to express themselves in appearance or pursue those they were attracted to without punishment, either physically, legally, reputationally or a combination of all of the above. Now, women work, single parenthood exists, some people are heterosexual, some are not, some identify in traditional ways and some others don’t. If folks are choosing how they live their lives, that is their own choice to make. People making choices for their own lives sounds like individual freedom and the gradual development to incorporate those lives over the course of the nation’s over 200 years seems in keeping with the definition of conservative to me.
The country was moving, however gradually and slowly in some areas, to realize, accept, adapt, and protect means to handle new ways of expressing individual choice. Those who now call themselves conservatives argue that the rights and freedoms these groups have gained are wrong, immoral, decadent, libertine and hinder the nation. Although, they don’t want anyone to restrict the rights they enjoy, they are actively working, in some cases succeeding, to remove freedoms and rights that were gained for others. The right to reproductive autonomy gained by women in Rove v Wade? Gone. Voting rights protections to ensure that historically disenfranchised groups, particularly people of color, did not have their right to vote impacted? Severely weakened. Gay, trans, bi, queer, non-binary (forgive me if I forgot anyone) expressing themselves in public, or discussions of their existence in school were allowed. Now? Numerous states are enacting laws to restrict or remove their rights to be discussed or just plain be. The complete removal of a thing that people were allowed to do was not mentioned in any of the aspects in the definition of conservative.
Yet, none of these “threats” these claimed conservatives are obsessed with are killing anyone. Pollution kills people. Conservatives continue to work to weaken the ability of the government to protect the environment we all live in and impact our health as a result. Guns kill people. Yes, people kill people and when they do it, the first thing they usually grab to do the job is a gun. No one I have seen is calling for making all guns illegal or unobtainable. Proposals are for limitations on who can own one, how to legally get one, what age is appropriate to own one, how much ammunition one can store, and the restriction of assault style rifles that mimic the appearance and portability of weapons of war. The nation had restrictions on guns in the past, banning things like the Thompson, aka “Tommy”, submachine gun because it was used in so many organized crime shootouts. Why is it that banning or limiting the sale of something like the Bushmaster AR-15, the apparent weapon of choice for mass shooters, isn’t considered a traditional action?
The nation was founded in slavery. Its early governments decimated and confined the indigenous to miniscule settlements, it historically practiced oppression of minorities and had a history of exploiting and mistreating its immigrants, including the Irish, Italians and Chinese. This history was taught in schools and although ugly, was accepted as necessary for the nation to know itself, rise to improve and aspire to achieve the promises set out in its founding documents for all people, not just people who looked like Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Franklin. Now, those who claim to be conservatives want to make it illegal to teach or discuss unflattering history, in elementary, middle school, high school and in some cases state colleges. Why? We had a tradition of telling the truth about our nation and its history but now those who claim to be preserving tradition feel that particular one isn’t worth keeping. Teachers in school were free to prepare and present their lesson plans to students, so long as what was taught was established in fact. Now, they can’t. If it is deemed embarrassing, makes some sadly consider the wrongs that ancestors who looked like them committed, or doesn’t paint a sheen of infallible perfection over the nation, reactionaries say it cannot be taught. Is removal of facts from school instruction in the Merriam Webster definition of conservative listed above? Don’t bother to scroll back up to look. No, it isn’t.
These folks call themselves conservative but that description doesn’t square with their actions. They are not resistant to abrupt change, or government involvement in people’s lives. They are resistant to changes they don’t like, whether they happened overnight or over the course of decades. They are all for an abrupt change that immediately restricts something they don’t like or don’t want to see. They don’t dislike government restriction. They just don’t want government to restrict what they like. They rabidly support it limiting those who do things they don’t like, or don’t live their lives like they do. They are opportunistically for or against abrupt, gradual and longstanding changes, depending on if that change involves something that doesn’t fit their view of an ideal existence or not.
What do you call someone who isn’t just satisfied with keeping things the way they are but wants to go back to sometime in the past before other changes were made? That person is a reactionary, the clearest definition of which I think is the following one found on Wikipedia: a person who holds political views that favor a return to the status quo ante, the previous political state of society, which that person believes possessed positive characteristics absent from contemporary society. That underlined piece is the crux: status quo ante, or the way it was before. Others have noted that a strong element of fascism is there too, including Heather Cox Richardson here and Robert Reich here.
These folks aren’t only looking to stave off incoming changes, they are trying to force society back to a prior time that they believe was better. This is what the Make America Great Again (MAGA) crowd is anxious for; a time way back in the past where they thought this nation was better and better to live in. Better life? For whom? Lots of the past was worse for Blacks, Asians, indigenous, Latinos, some European immigrants, women, those in the LGBTQ+ communities and children. What was so great about slavery and the victimization after emancipation for Blacks? What was wonderful for a woman to be unable to pursue higher education, only allowed to marry, birth a “quiver full” of children, darn socks, churn butter, wash clothes and have to ask her husband for money, like a child asking parents for allowance? What was great about indigenous children being pulled out of their communities, forcibly enrolled in religiously affiliated schools and made to deny and forget the language, songs and worship rituals of their ancestors? Why is it better that “conservatives”, like Sarah Huckabee Sanders, are rolling back child work protections and making it easier for children to crawl into mines, under heavy machinery, up on roofs to install shingles, into slaughter houses before dawn and work dangerous rotating equipment. Are we all pining for the days of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle? Was that better, children working for pennies in a sweatshop instead of going to school?
Today’s “conservative” is not conservative at all. They are reactionaries with strains of fascism woven in. They want government to cow groups they don’t like, remove them, or submit them into making choices that the reactionary feels are the only ones that should be allowed. As much as this lot refers to freedom and individual rights, they only want the things they feel are correct to be done without oversight, while restricting the rights of anyone else they disagree with. Their design is to subjugate, intimidate, manipulate and limit people to the very narrow roles and rules they imagine are best but who are they to decide for you or me? Why should the rest of us be brought back in time? They are free to encase their own lives and homes in amber and pretend it is 1956 or 1856. The rest of us are in 2023 and we don’t need anyone conserving obsolete views, roles or limitations to force us to accept. The Declaration of Independence says we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those rights shall not be infringed either. No one living a different way is forcing these reactionaries to live in any way they disagree with. Leaving people to exist as they wish, is not the same as them forcing you to live the way they choose for themselves. These reactionaries can pursue happiness for themselves the way they want and leave the rest of us to pursue our own versions.
I’ll let Wynton Marsalis take us out with a piece called Free to Be. The name and energy live up to a title that is the sentiment of all homo sapiens sapiens.
I see you CJ. Nicely done. Thank you.
Wow. This is so wonderfully written. So logical and informative. Great work!