Understanding The Conservative Mind
By Leo Gura - December 9, 2022 | 6 Comments
A deep exploration of the characteristics of the conservative worldview, its merits, and its emotional appeal
Max Gron says: Convincing people of hell, it’s as simple as everyone needing to behave themselves. As for tradition, to which modern man doesn’t listen, the way things currently are doesn’t work, we don’t and never did need religion telling us how to live our lives. As for gay sex, it’s a perversion in itself, they will tell you to shut up if you talk like a poofter. Things are absolutely disgusting the way things go on, I go by tradition, I don’t go by putting figs and brie on a pizza, or pears in pasta, or tofu in a quiche, I say no, it’s carrots perhaps or any vegetables for a vegetarian quiche, which is acceptable, but you don’t put artichokes on a quiche, even though I came up with pickles on a pizza, it’s good for pickle freaks like you who eat pickles. As for Leo I don’t know what he eats, he’s certainly not presenting gourmet cooking. This and don’t argue, use of vegetable oil is actually good for the heart, and even if it sounds wrong you should be eating tuna and deriving the oil from eating it. You should eat your ancient grains, you should eat greens, and you should go healthy with a ham and cheese quiche or preferably a vegetarian quiche, vegetarian food certainly isn’t proper to a meat dish, but it’s got yummy vegetables, you certainly can’t get an audience without presentation of delicious vegetable dishes, commercialising vegetarianism is the reason it’s becoming the norm, I’m sure in my traditionalist Madison Avenue mindset prescribing tradition, that doesn’t make it any less showy. I don’t do justice as such, and I don’t abide by strict rules, but somehow I manage to get away with it when I’m a breach of the rules, more sneaky with my approach. With my “conservative” mindset I’m certainly not going to clobber you, I don’t scare people with right and wrong, my morality is different, it’s not everyone’s lousy rules, just indistinct morality which is simple: follow the silver rule, don’t be proud, follow the ten commandments, don’t boast about today on the day of distress, be good and don’t be evil, that sort of thing, it’s that simple but your misbehaviour’s out of line. It’s not that you can choose to do everything you always wanted, you should have a partial freedom, partial liberty, not the whim of doing all that you want. You should wash dishes, clean cups, take a shower and scrub the floors, not the other way around, that’s why I’m for conservatism 100%.
DragonflySparrow says: I’ll start out with saying that I am a Millennial female and I’m a registered Independent who leans toward Libertarian-Conservatism. I am a Constitutionalist at heart. Both of my parents are conservatives and I go to church with conservatives. I have several close gay friends, two trans friends, liberal friends, and a liberal sister. I hear their perspective ALL the time from them – AND also from the media all around me. However, since I’ve basically marinated in conservatism since I was in the womb, I know what I’m talking about – and I don’t think the person giving this talk in the video has a grasp on the Conservative mind AT ALL.
He says, “The conservative mind lives to have a strict set of rules to survive” and he goes on to say conservatives primarily “use that aspect of the mind that says ‘we have to follow the rules'”…. This is NOT what runs the engine of the conservative mind, whatsoever.
The conservative mind runs on INDEPENDENCE. Period. Full stop. Conservatives don’t want to be put in a box, they want to keep their hard-earned money by not giving it away to the government, they want to be free of government intrusion, and they want to make their own decisions about their own lives. Conservatives see liberalism as a threat to that independence, because most liberals don’t mind giving their money and independence to the government. Fundamentally, liberals see big government oversite as helpful, whereas conservatives see big government oversite as a hinderance of independence. THIS is the key difference between both sides.
Most conservatives I know are (especially in this era of Pres. Biden and other Socialist Democrats) currently BUCKING the system AND the status quo — Conservatives are currently the rebels.
To be a conservative in this day and age – is to be outside of the social norm, whereas, in the recent past, liberals use to espouse those qualities. This is why we currently have “Classical Liberals” being classified as conservative: The liberals have moved SO entirely far to the left that even President John F. Kennedy’s politics — were he still alive, would be considered a Republican in this day and age. People on the left have moved SO far left, and people on the right have pretty much stayed the same or moved to center, that to liberals, even moderate and classical democrats seem conservative.
The truth is, the conservative mind works like this: We wish to preserve the things that work, preserve the things that aren’t broken, and conserve the things that don’t trample on our rights or interfere with what the US Constitution originally promised ALL the people of this nation. We want what our grandparents had, which was freedom, independence, the ability to afford a house and pay it off within their lifetime, and to do this on one income, with a family intact. This use to be called the “American Dream”.
That American Dream cannot be accomplished if everyone lives in a city and pays all their money to taxes to support a big government. Since conservatives don’t believe big government has our best interests at heart, we are against taxes without representation, just as the people at the Boston Tea Party were against it. We strive to maintain autonomy over our OWN lives, and wish for everyone else to do the same, and not shove it in our face or try to change our minds. However, liberals believe big government has citizens best interests at heart. They don’t want tolerance, they want total acceptance and agreement from every person. They want EVERYONE to tow the line and they feel hurt or offended or violated when someone doesn’t capitulate.
Conservatives see the liberal mentality as trying to reinvent the wheel. Conservative Americans desire to preserve the Constitution – because we believe the founders, regardless of their many faults, had the general foresight to think about future generations. They created the ONLY government in the WORLD where a country’s PEOPLE are able to rule themselves without a tyrant telling them they know what’s best for them. (Even Europe, with thousands of years of monarchy rule, saw what Americans had created and decided that aristocracy should be a thing of the past.) To conservatives, we are all unique individuals with the rights to decide for ourselves what is best. We don’t want a king, a president, a governor, or a blue-haired relative telling us how to live, what to say, or what to think.
Conservatives only fight back – or feel the need to speak out – when you are violating those fundamental principals of what makes us tick. Don’t mess with our children, our families, or our individual freedoms, or we will fight back, that’s just how it is.
This is another distinction: liberals don’t seem to mind giving up their freedoms or individuality, as long as it benefits what they see as the greater good. Conservatives see giving up individuality as a direct blow to the soul of who we are. We don’t like being put in a cage, we like our right to privacy, we like keeping our hard earned money (don’t like it going to too many taxes), and conservative citizens don’t like being on display. Liberals don’t seem to mind all those things, as long as it either benefits the common good or, at least, seems to.
This is why you saw so many conservatives shunning the masks and shots during the COVID pandemic, because they saw between the lines, they saw what was – and wasn’t – happening with their COVID-infected selves, families, and neighbors, and they came to their own conclusions and made up their own minds, despite the narrative. Conservatives questioned authority and questioned the narrative because it was proving to be false or “shifty” in their perspective, whereas, the liberals went along with the mandates and blindly believed “the science” — because they truly believed they were doing what was best for their community, even if it trampled the Constitution — even if it trampled their neighbor’s rights. LIBERALS were being the RULE FOLLOWERS because it went along with their world view.
We see this ‘rule following’ behavior in liberals when it comes to pronouns as well. As a conservative, and as with every single conservative I personally know, conservatives will ABSOLUTELY use your preferred pronouns face-to-face, as long as you’re polite and nice. If you’re an a-hole, conservatives will usually treat you as such, and they’ll have no problem disrespecting your pronouns to your face. On the other hand, liberals will ALWAYS respect your pronouns, no matter what, even when you’re an a-hole, and liberals will even apologize profusely, in public even, especially if you happen to get offended for them not saying your proper pronouns. But that’s just when they happen to agree with your politics.
If you happen to be a conservative, even a moderate one, you will not be given the same amount of leeway, because you’ve violated the thing that makes them tick: lock-step conformity. It is getting more and more difficult to have a civil debate with a liberal because their positions keep going radical, MOVING TO THE LEFT, farther and farther, so much so that the people who USE TO BE left of center in the early 2000s are now considered CONSERVATIVES (like Bill Maher, Robert Kennedy Jr., Jordan Peterson, Dave Rubin, and more).
—– Long story short ——
CONSERVATIVES:
— Hate big government oversite,
— Love having individual freedoms
– Desire to preserve the US Constitution
— Desire to have the freedom to pursue the American Dream as promised by the founders of our country, regardless of their politics, race, gender, religion or creed, and they want the same for others
— Don’t want their government OR their neighbors / teachers to tell them how to live their lives or how to manage their families.
— And ABOVE ALL, conservatives value Individuality and autonomy within a rule of civil laws that are reasonable and don’t trample said promised Constitutional rights.
Rob says: The conservative mind is the unawakened dualistic mental ego severed from Self/Soul, Nature, the Divine, and others. Republicanism is nothing but codified and politicized narcissism. The whole purpose of conservative ideology is to keep primal repression at bay. The ego in a conservative never completed its developmental tasks and the last thing it wants is an awakened spiritual consiousness. For instance, today’s so called conservatives support criminality and violence. They all own multiple guns because they are deeply fear based and insecure. They fear their own Higher Self, which would floor them and crush them in an authentic awakening process. Conservativism is regressive and exclusive. It excludes minorities, the poor, the elderly, and anyone who does not conform to their 2nd hand cookie cutter self image. The Universe and the Divine include All without exception. The conservative is not aligned with this basic truth. Many conservatives claim to be Christians but they don’t have a clue and do not practice what Jesus taught. Jesus embraced sinners, prostitutes and the marginalized. The conservative forsakes these people and takes away their social security. Conservative’s ego sit atop a lifetime of repressed instincts, emotions, feelings, and complexes. They fear the abyss that sits unconsciously beneath their undeveloped egos. They support the wealthy elite and the corporations that destroyed G-d’s Earth with fossil fuel pollution. They failed as stewards of the Earth and paid no regard to G-d’s command to care for the Earth and all that dwell here. They love making war and suffering. This gives them a false sense of empowerment. The heart is closed and blackened in a conservative. They simply cannot feel. They are not capable of it. They therefore lack empathy and compassion. They lie constantly and put a vile liar and lifetime criminal in the presidency. They continue to prop up the Anti Christ. Jesus warned about these types. They pay him lip service but their hearts are far from Him. Conservatism is a cancer and not an authentic ideology. It is a cancer that is dying. Conservatives are losing people and losing political power and now they resort to desperate measures like lying, cheating, killing, and other vile crimes. Soon they will pay the ultimate price as abrupt climate change unfolds rapidly and renders perfect Justice on Earth.
Max Gron says: Kierkegaardian is pessimistic therefore if I kept changing my pessimism, I was always a pessimist, it’s as simple as that, along with one science (lepidopterology), I’m under the authority of Leo to change my philosophy, my religion (any religion that works for my mother), my happiness, and also my wisdom, I know that if I had it any other way I would be a fool, as for the conservative mind, understanding it is simple: it’s the conserving of a belief or tradition, e.g. I chose at two points to be a Cavalier, or rather, a pseudo-Cavalier, when at first I was an anti-Puritan as a reaction against cutting my hair, all the beliefs I hold are but a reaction to bad conditions, I thus have a reason to rebel, and very good reasons. What I’m rebelling against is the strictness of a false Christianity, and enjoying instead the Puritan sect of Charles I, as his reaction of disagreement with the Puritans, following the Arminian faith as his defense, to which I do follow now the Arminian faith (not the Arminian faith as plain old Arminianism, to a tee, but through Cavalier, similarly to the anti-Puritanism of Charles I), but I didn’t before, that is, a sect of the Arminian faith, more like Charles I, really and truly, but not to the king’s extremes, I’m also rebelling against the cutting of my hair, trimming/cutting/shaving of my beard, and I’m keeping the moustache, this Charles religion isn’t an ideology, but an attitude and the Lord’s prayer, and usually being on my horse, because it’s supposed to mean “horseman”, that literally means I can go talking fancy, in honour, as a well-born and well-bred gentleman, being relaxed and cool in superior way, although I don’t think I’m superior, loving the king with a moral code, bold attitude and loyalty in my heart, that means I should keep on believing this, and to be loyal to my behaviour/attitude, without the negativity, I’m also rebelling against the change any further of my character, the reason for it, since I have no reason to change again, and have no reason to change again my life, beliefs, or to twice change my wardrobe, I should be an ordinary guy, by which I mean, a normal (usual, regular, typical), usual, customary (usual), and regular guy, as I’m certain Cavalier is thus a conservative belief, this’ll be understanding the conservative mind. As I changed my beliefs, and changed my pessimism, again, I’m now a lepidopterist, pessimist, and Cavalier, if I’m the same as that forever it’s only a matter of time.
Max the shithead says: Maybe I should think for myself, maybe I shouldn’t, I think people have done a good job over centuries never thinking for themselves. Those “individuals” don’t have original thinking, believing the lies that they believe, I think the truth is you can get in big trouble, as I seemed to get funny with the police, nobody liked my thinking which was thinking for myself, I don’t recall being a bad guy, the reality is you can break the law without knowing it and police don’t give a shit about me, as people like to think I’m playing mind games of saying what I’m thinking, they were hating the way I talked, assuming I was pushing my opinions on other people, wake up, it’s not normative what I was doing, I think I should think my way and you should think your way, as for what’s not different, not reinventing the wheel, I was never a real conservative or a real traditionalist, I thought things should be new, that tradition is irrational, and that people are irrational themselves, since logic seems to be useless, reality’s subjective, it’s not based on the object from popular beliefs.
Max the shithead says: I observed that monkey-like mind of mine, most of what I do is subconscious, I have to consciously brush my teeth, when I take the tablets I asked for, I don’t know that was my own tablets I requested, I’m not conscious of it, as I know very little, I know I don’t know, I’m not conscious, people feel the need to tell me because I’m so ignorant, it’s like a monkey eating stuff and not knowing what it is.