Wednesday 29 August 2018

Conservatives find liberals deficient in some other stuff

CIP discusses Right and Wrong  and I felt moved to comment:

 
> Liberals find conservatives deficient in compassion and tolerance and conservatives find liberals deficient in some other stuff
You know, or can invent, the "liberal" position. But you are too deficient too know, or (it would appear) even to care, what "conservatives" think.

The conversation grew heated; CIP continued in The Conservative Position. I replied there:

 
We're getting fairly close to not being able to talk to each other, which would be a shame.
Recall that this started from your "Liberals find conservatives deficient in compassion and tolerance and conservatives find liberals deficient in some other stuff". I'm still trying to tell you that you're finding it hard to understand, or perhaps to care, what C's think about L's.
> Kirk... is fond of citing that old fascist, Plato
You mean like http://capitalistimperialis... ?
I'm not familiar with K. https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... contains no ref to P. P isn't particularly in favour of pederasty any more than was common back then. Slavery wasn't uncommon then and was supported by many other than P. P's major faults are elsewhere; principally as you now note, that he was a fascist.

And:

  
You'll have to wait for my take on Burke, but he's now on my list (available at https://constitution.org/eb..., it looks like).
> Plato himself was both bold and radical
Popper would I think disagree with you, and I feel inclined to follow him. He describes Plato as reactionary, not radical; and indeed that's a large point of TOSAIE part 1. I'd really recommend reading that if you haven't; it is very good. Recall that only slightly earlier you called Plato an old fascist. Of course fascists can be bold and radical, though B&R is usually used as a compliment. Would you call Mussolini B&R?
> most great advances in human history have stemmed from radical ideas
That's very close to a tautology.
> legally forbidden but ubiquitous
Worth dwelling on. Because it's part of the Paine/Burke dichotomy, as well as part of the Con/Lib one. You don't change a people instantly by changing their laws. Law is custom. That's what Kirk was trying to tell you.
Some time I will read Burke.

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