what is contemporary conservatism? — Maw

It exists in many forms. There are neocons and paleocons at the poles and lots of variations in between, not to mention overlap with libertarians and reactionaries. What most conservatives share in common, in the US at least, is a commitment to the principles of the founding.

any idea as to where modern conservatism is moving intellectually? — Maw

This question is malformed according to a conservative sensibility. Conservatives value what is best in the past. You will, for this reason, not find it moving anywhere intellectually, except in the direction of a better understanding and articulation of its principles.

Also, I feel compelled to state that Trump is not a conservative, or not much of one.

Well, as long as he gets to appeal to authority, then I might as well, too. On the topic of white privilege, I would recommend the following excellent essay (written by someone center-left, no less): https://theamericanscholar.org/the-privilege-predicament/#.WrLEgegbOUk

but if you think that the intent of Mishra's article is to "refute" Peterson's own philosophy, you have severely misread it. — Maw

I haven't. The intent is clear: to smear him.

Well if you position yourself on the right of Peterson, I daresay you never will. — Maw

Meaning what? I've read critiques of him, but none of them has successfully refuted him, at least with respect to his practical advice and critique of the left. I myself have disagreements with him, but none give rise to the level of smug vitriol those like yourself proffer.

But I am at least comfortable (and not delusional) enough to acknowledge the fact that anti-natalism can overlap with virulent politics. — Maw

Yes, and the point is that such overlap does not constitute a refutation of the view in question. You're playing the part of historian at best, not philosopher, when you harp and carp on about these alleged "overlaps."

No one is "refuting" Peterson's ideas based on such casual observations, especially since Peterson's views can be easily refuted without such appeals. — Maw

I haven't ever seen such a refutation, curiously enough. Just variations of the guilt associating and courtier's replies witnessed above.

Let me appeal to your likely revulsion to hypocrisy. You're an antinatalist, if memory serves. In a recent video with David Benatar, Peterson committed the same fallacy you have employed when discussing him when he asserted that antinatalism overlaps with eugenicism, totalitarianism, and the genocidal impulse. He was careful to qualify his claim by excepting Benatar from being a genocidal maniac himself, just as you are careful not to label Peterson an outright fascist, but he nonetheless effectively averred that antinatalism was familially related to such things, just as you aver that Peterson's views are familially related to fascism. In both cases, the fallacy of guilt by association has been committed. Antinatalism as well as Peterson's ideas aren't refuted by such appeals.

You are misunderstanding entirely. — Maw

Ah yes, the courtier's reply, right on cue.

Neither Jung nor Campbell, both of whom are hugely influential for Peterson, were out-and-out Fascists, and yet Jung believed that Aryan's were a superior race, and Campbell, who also spoke disdainfully of academic Marxists who were "overtaking American universities", harbored a deep hatred of Blacks and Jews. — Maw

Genetic fallacy. Address the arguments on their own terms and merits or do not address them at all.

seriously...have you even read Peterson's work, or watched a single video? — Maw

More than you have, I suspect.

'Y' might overlap in several key conceptual ideas with "X", without being considered "X", outright. — Maw

Such as your own political ideas, I would be willing to bet.

However, as the author points out, they have also been used, historically, to bolster a Fascist volkgeist. — Maw

That's as thin a claim as saying that the occurrence of trains running on time has been used, historically, to bolster fascism. Yes, and? If there is no essential relation between the two things being compared, you're just poisoning the well.

I never said he was an "outright fascist". I said he is part of a intellectual lineage, and some of whom, within said lineage (e.g. Julius Evola) were highly influential fascists, and who leveraged national myths etc. to promote their fascism. — Maw

A distinction without a difference. If I told you that person X is "part of" a particular sporting lineage, some of whose members (e.g. Michael Jordan), were highly influential basketball players, then I am talking about a basketball player. What else is "part of" supposed to signify here? If Peterson isn't a fascist, then he isn't "part of" fascism. Everything shares at least something in common with something else, so again, you need to make an essential connection between the two.

But if you advocate a socio-political hierarchy that's based on social Darwinism, and criticize social activism in abstract, or believe that women's inherent psychological traits mean they are unsuitable to work with men, or take positions of political power, and conduct lectures criticizing "Identity Politics and The Marxist Lie of White Privilege", etc. etc. etc. — Maw

These are all hilariously uninformed caricatures.

Richard Spencer, by the way, while disagreeing with Peterson on a range of views, has nevertheless said that he and Peterson "share a lot of common ground and political starting points". — Maw

So? Slavoj Zizek finds things to admire in him, too. You're just peddling guilt by association. If it's true that Hitler was a vegetarian and came to his vegetarianism by means of the same rational and ethical starting points that I have, does that make me a Nazi or "part of" Nazism?

national myth, religious stories, and symbolic archetypes — Maw

There's nothing wrong with these things per se.

Nor is there anything wrong with masculinity or hierarchical based politics. Taken to extremes, they can can be wrong, of course, but there is no evidence that Peterson does so take them. It's funny to me that the left is busy painting Peterson as an alt-right reactionary, when the right views him, correctly, as a left of center Millian liberal with a fondness for Jung. If Peterson is, as you suggest, a right winger and even an "outright fascist" what the hell do you consider someone like myself, who is in fact to the right of Peterson? What of the people to the right of me? You have obliterated all meaning from political categories in your tinfoil capped frothings about Peterson. In your Overton window, virtually all of humanity must be consigned to the right.

Deirdre McCloskey argues that capitalism both requires and cultivates virtue. You might look into her ideas for another perspective.

I just watched a ridiculously biased 60 Minutes interview, wherein it was assumed that there was only one solution and that the Stoneman Douglas students interviewed represented all students. Absurd. And yet it is the media who are always vomiting platitudes about having "real conversations" about important issues. A conversation is not had when one excludes at the start those with whom one disagrees. What instead results is an echo chamber.

Some minds cannot comprehend disagreement on this issue as originating from anything other than apathy concerning the issue, callousness toward the victims, or an irrational love of guns. These ad hominems ought to be ignored if those presenting them refuse to engage with arguments.

Counter-anecdote: the older I get, the less enthused with Marxism I have become.

Is that what the creators of communism had in mind? — Purple Pond

No. They had in mind the following: a stateless, classless, moneyless world wherein human beings collectively own the means of production. That is the definition of communism.

What you have in mind are those societies that were governed by communists, not societies that were communistic. The USSR, China, etc were/are trying, at least on paper, to get to the state of being described above. Were they successful? Clearly not.

Herein also lies the fundamental defect of communism: it is unimplementable. Whatever else it is, it's an absurd utopian scheme that, whenever tried (in the sense of certain countries and individuals ideologically committed to bringing it about), has resulted in societal, economic, and moral implosion and degeneracy, or in a word, totalitarianism.

Frozen is a shitty movie in any event. I've never understood its mind-boggling popularity.

Yeah, totally.... :shade:

Knowing who owns Disney, that isn't a surprise.

If we honestly did believe God, say, would "make everything right", we might have far less motivation to do anything about torturous pain because the deity would redeem it in the end. — darthbarracuda

I don't see why. God is the highest good, so if God exists, then one surely has even more reason to pursue the good, not less.

the Platonic notion of the good was that it transcends Being — darthbarracuda

Well, I was speaking of the Platonic tradition generally speaking. Non-existence even for Plato would be a privation of the good.

How am I do understand the existence of torturous pain as a "good" thing, when by all accounts it seems to me to be a purely bad thing? — darthbarracuda

Again, pain on the Platonic account would be a privation of some good thing, like health. Pain is the lack of a good that otherwise would exist.

if's, and's, or but's — darthbarracuda

Dick comment, but you don't need the apostrophes here. :razz:

There is, has been and will be experiences of (physical) pain of such unimaginable torture that, prima facie, it seems as though they are irredeemable — darthbarracuda

Prima facie? Sure, but I'm not willing to go as far as to say that they are unredeemable. How could one possibly know that?

A world that depends on a history riddled with loose ends and unredeemed injustices cannot ever be a truly good world. — darthbarracuda

Good in what sense? I'm sure you're aware of the long Platonic tradition that equates being with goodness, so that inasmuch as something merely exists, it is good.

Yes.

In the New Testament, Satan is said to be the god, ruler, and prince of this world, and I am wont to agree, if not literally at present, then certainly metaphorically.

You know, the irony is that I have no problem with certain forms of socialism, like market socialism or socialism defined as the cooperative ownership of the enterprise.

He's gone to the great troll kingdom in the sky. He will not respond.

@jamalrob @Baden Mods, rejoice. I won't protest the banning of Dachshund the "Burkean conservative." :wink:

That entry was clearly written by a butthurt leftist. No doubt. :lol:

Yeah, not buying it. This is just bad trolling.

You're an odd one.

:brow:

Thanks for the projection.

Your ilk, smug left wingers who substitute sarcasm for reasoned debate, outnumbers everyone else by a large margin on this forum. You are typically blind to what is most evident.

I agree, as per Heller, that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to bear arms. However, I believe that there shouldn't be an individual right to bear arms. Therefore, I believe that the Second Amendment should be repealed. — Michael

There is actually a difference in meaning, perhaps subtle, between saying "there is an individual right to bear arms that is conferred by the Second Amendment" and "the Second Amendment confers an individual right to bear arms." This might have caused the confusion. The first statement I read as codifying or acknowledging an already existing right, whereas the second reads as though the right is created with the amendment itself.

I provided links to three articles that explained how much more dangerous a semi-automatic rifle is to a semi-automatic handgun. — Michael

I've looked at them and haven't been convinced, sorry.

For a study on the types of guns used in self-defence, see here, where of "justifiable homicides" ("the killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen") between 2006 and 2010, 77.7% were with a handgun, compared to 4.5% with a rifle. — Michael

I was already aware that rifles were used in the minority of cases. That doesn't affect my point, though.

I'm just weighing it against the number of lives that are lost and crimes that are committed due to the availability of such guns. — Michael

And here we swerve back around to another fundamental disagreement. I don't see the availability of these guns as the sole reason these crimes occur. There are other factors involved that can be addressed to help reduce the number of such shootings without banning the guns used, such as a reform and more consistent application of existing gun laws, better policing, better security of sensitive locations, better mental health screenings and infrastructure, and encouraging intact families and personal responsibility and accountability.

As an example, for every gun used in self-defense, six more are used to commit a crime — Michael

I would dispute those statistics. The CDC and other sources place the number of defensive gun uses conservatively at double the number of gun deaths.

You have said and shown nothing, I'm afraid.

never was such a thing from the beginning — Bitter Crank

This. We are a Republic, if we can keep it, as Franklin said. The founders didn't have nice things to say about democracy, and with good reason, in my opinion.

a. Its history of systematic discrimination, deliberate genocide, imperialism?
b. Low voter turn out and citizen apathy?
c. Republicans / Democrats subvert it?
d. Are Americans too stupid (well, poorly educated--that's kinder) to make intelligent political decisions?
e. The asymmetrical distribution of wealth?
f. Paralyzed political system?
g. The public has been hoodwinked, hornswaggled, and bamboozled by clever PR and advertising technicians?
h. Capitalism run amok; rampant corruption of politics? — Bitter Crank

None of these. It's because we were never designed as a democracy.

I don't know what fresh blather this is, Benkei. Do you not understand what I said that you quoted? And no, my position doesn't contradict Heller.

As a first control, would you agree that such weapons should be numbered at manufacture (likely all guns are), and sales recorded and reported, to the point that the weapon should at all times have an owner (unless reported lost, stolen, or destroyed, evidence of which provided) who would be responsible for it at all times, whether or not in his or her possession. By responsible I mean subject to possibly severe criminal and civil penalties for any use of the gun. — tim wood

Yeah, sounds fine.

As a second control, would you agree that any owner of such a weapon would only be released from his responsibilities as an owner if he complies with all laws concerning transfer of ownership, and not otherwise. — tim wood

Yeah.

Third, that prospective owners be required to meet certain criteria to become owners. (This could include age, competency, waiting, training, etc.) — tim wood

I'd have to know more specifics, but I'm not opposed in principle to such measures. The "waiting" is of some concern, however. People often acquire firearms because they believe they may be in some imminent danger. I don't think it should take overly long to acquire one. How long is the ideal? I have no idea.

Fourth, that possession or use of such a weapon without being the owner, or being authorized (by the owner), be a crime; and that the owner, depending on the circumstances, also be subject to prosecution. — tim wood

This is known as straw buying (or a species thereof), and there are already laws on the books to help prevent it, as far as I know.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The Second Amendment is a real amendment of the Constitution and is legally binding, so it's only right of me to accept it. Or do you mean something else by "legitimate"?

I wasn't trying to argue that we ought to ban them; just that banning them doesn't infringe the right to self defense. Therefore, the right to self defence cannot be used to oppose such an example of gun control. — Michael

The ever widening lines of argument in this thread are beginning to blur. By "legitimate," I meant that you agree that there is an individual right to bear arms as conferred by the Second Amendment. That surprises me, if true, as it was my understanding that you would be in favor of repealing the Second Amendment if possible. I'm pretty sure I've seen you say something like that. So which is it?

The right to self-defence is the right to use reasonable force, not necessarily the right to use the most effective means of force, so I don't see why I would need to do this. — Michael

But you made the claim that there are "less dangerous but sufficient alternatives" than semi-automatic rifles. There is a burden of proof on you here, but if you don't see why you should meet it, then it's pointless to continue this conversation.

But would you accept the above logic in the case of comparing handguns and rifles? If I can show that handguns can be just as effective as rifles then will you accept a ban on rifles? Because you've already made that case for me. — Michael

I made no such case. I said handguns can be just as effective at killing lots of people as rifles under certain circumstances, which is demonstrably true. There have been dozens of mass shootings by means of handguns. I asked you instead to show me that handguns can be just as effective as semi-automatic rifles, not even in all, but in the majority of cases where the latter are used defensively. You seem blissfully unaware or unconcerned that such a ban may remove weapons that might have otherwise been vital means to prevent crimes and save lives. If you can, then as I said, I could accept a ban on such rifles. As I also said, Heller, which I agree with, doesn't technically rule out such guns being banned.

As military-style weapons, that's their purpose, to kill outright, or functionally. — tim wood

You've delineated one purpose, which isn't the only one. As a means of target practice, its purpose is to hit a target. As a hunting rifle, its purpose is to kill game. As a means of self-defense, its purpose is to deter a potential crime (which, as I say, needn't and typically doesn't involve firing a bullet).

Would you agree, then, that AR-15s and similar weapons should be subject to controls that take into account their greater firepower and lethality? — tim wood

Of course.

You changed your position. Originally you claimed the right to self defence (self protection above) underlies protection from government tyranny and therefore implies a right to own guns. See, I was reading carefully. — Benkei

No, I didn't change my position. Here you're using "protection from government tyranny" as the premise that leads to the conclusion "there is a right to bear arms." That isn't the premise I used in the argument I provided you. You're attacking what you interpreted as an argument, but which in fact wasn't.

So we are now in agreement that the right to self defence says nothing about the right to keep guns. Thank you for gracefully admitting that point by pretending you never said the opposite. — Benkei

If this is your way of saying that you agree with this post, then yes, we agree. But the content of that post had already been admitted by me, which leads me to think that, no, you don't read, Benkei, despite your protestations to the contrary. The following exchange occurred on page 29:

tim wood: "But a natural right to a gun for that purpose? That's a different right, and by no means a natural one."

Me: "Right, it's a different right, but grounded in the natural right to self-defense."

If the word "grounded" caused the confusion, then refer to my linked post to understand what I mean by that.

Claiming that a ban on semi-automatic rifles "directly entails the abolition all guns" does this. — Michael

I have explained how your reason for banning semi-automatic weapons would apply equally as much to handguns, and any gun for that matter, that constituted the most commonly used firearm in a mass shooting. Banning semi-automatic weapons wouldn't be a "small" step either. They comprise most of the guns in circulation.

In Austria, and as far as I can see only used in Austria at that time. — Michael

Your agreement with me concerned the time, not the place.

13 years after the Second Amendment was written. — Michael

But it was developed at the time of the founding. I just gave this as an example to show that it was used by Americans in the manner in which modern semi-automatics are.

It seems to me that you're really stretching it to suggest that the Second Amendment defends the right to use semi-automatic weapons. — Michael

Please notice that this is different from claiming that we should ban semi-automatic weapons because they are most often used in mass shootings. You're on much firmer and more convincing ground by pressing the claim I quote of you above, which seems to be, if you'll allow me to fill it in, that we ought to ban semi-automatic weapons on the grounds that 1) they are more dangerous than their single-shot counterparts and 2) that doing so wouldn't violate the Second Amendment (which you oddly appear to assume the legitimacy of) and the individual right to bear arms that it confers. Is that right?

But I can't go along with this for the follow reason, which you didn't address:

"Regardless, a semi-automatic is clearly a more effective means of self-defense than a single shot weapon. It's also still more reasonable than a bazooka or a tank, being of similar dimensions and portability as single shot rifles and handguns, which means the slippery slope you and Agustino have raised against my position doesn't go through."

It is true that Heller did not rule on whether semi-automatics can be made illegal, but neither did it rule that they can't be legal. If you can successfully show why the reason I have provided above for why they ought to remain legal isn't good enough, then I will side with you and no longer object to a ban on semi-automatic weapons. In other words, you need to show that single-shot weapons can be just as effective as semi-automatic weapons in the majority of cases in which the latter are used defensively.

If I have to use a gun to defend my life, then I have a right to kill you? — tim wood

I disagree.

I might add here that very few cases of defensive gun use involve the firearm being discharged, or if it is, it'sdischarged as a warning shot. In other words, the gun is used to deter a potential crime from taking place. If something like this happens, for example, there is no legitimate appeal to self-defense. The gun owner has committed wrongdoing.

4) Nope. Not proved. At best, 4a) I have a derivative and provisional right to the use of a gun for defense of my life if a) I am attacked, and b) the gun is necessary to accomplish that defense.

Do you agree to these changes and the conclusion? — tim wood

Yes. That's was precisely my intent.