I post this article both on my blog and Freethinkers International. And I am sure my own blog more than aware readers have their opinion already formed. Yet, the ongoing debate on Freethinkers International has provoked me to write this piece.
We live in megacities, use electricity, have microchips, atomic bombs, high-speed trains, however, we do have a caveman mentality. Our evolutionary personality was formed in the African savannah, we have mating preferences, are highly territorial, compete for everything and even our religiosity is grounded in evolution.
Nearly all human behavior– and it is sad – can be explained by Darwinism. So can ideologies – not matter whether it is anarchism, communism, or conservatism. Things change, but ideologies do only sporadically (in their core).
Unlike old conservativism, modern conservatism isn’t based on xenophobia (which is an evolutionary adaptation of how to make our competing counterparts less able to mate – whether the individuals have different skin color, are ill (both physically and mentally) or LGBTQ+), it is still based on traditional family: “People (higher primates) are extremely selfish and help their family but not strangers (you don’t care (to do something) if someone is dying on the other side of the planet or if someone is in a really bad situation. The reason you help your family is that you share an extremely significant level of DNA with them and the selfish genes compete with who will program the robots they will continue to reproduce. Now you know why family exists.” (Arguments for atheism, Jan Bryxí 2023).
You should help and be related to every member of homo sapiens equally. Thus, neither traditionally family nor family should be promoted. The funniest thing is that it was capitalism so beloved by modern conservatives that had torn the traditional family apart. “In a case of need, the individuals (as the whole society) should help each other, in my humble opinion. And your family? It was brutal, unregulated 19th-century capitalism and its 20th-century aftermath that destroyed the institute of the traditional family.” (Jan Bryxí 2024)
The modern conservatism makes the “us/them” dichotomy which brought nothing, but gas chambers and wars.
Obsolete nation-states and language preservation (we should speak one language) are also characteristics of modern conservatism.
Limited government, fiscal conservatism, and individual liberty are good, but for the 1 %. If we want to be devoid of the stupid left/right spectrum (because it is multidimensional; further reading here) and want well-being for all, these aforementioned are not a good start.
Conservatism also puts away the notion we have no free will (since the world is either inter-deterministic or deterministic and your brain succumbs to it), and even if we have it, there are factors such as IQ (given in whole by nature vs. nature), talents and creativity derived from it, and personality traits (innate, acquired) – everything crucial to your socioeconomic achievements.
We should admit opinions are ever-changing and shouldn’t be grounded by either an ideology or philosophy (yes, even scientificism) which goes straight against their irrational traditionalism.
Analytic philosophy emphasizes that as opinions are debated, the single truth becomes apparent and all conservative things fly away.
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