Conservatism's Role in Intellectual and Societal Developments

Conservative/reactionary intellectual and political opinion is a vital component of the game of humanity.

1. It acts as protection against intellectual/academic sophistry. Pruning.

2. It moderates societal flux, helping to protect humanity from potential threats to physical survival change may bring.

3. Progressive politics/thinking derives its meaning from its very opposition to the anchor of conservatism.

4. Moral achievement can be derived from brave but judicious battle against conservatism/consensus ideas, especially where there is physical, financial or societal risk.

Chaz Bono's transsexualism publicity drive and some Americans' negative reaction to it can illustrate something else. While hateful reactions probably come from emotional derangement in some individuals' grappling with the mystery of human sexuality that confronts us all, I actually think there are reasonable, decent people out there that shouldn't be slammed for their antipathy. I don't dismiss religious people or the moral implications they believe should be drawn from their religion. And I think belief in the reality of transsexualism in any case hinges on other beliefs in relation to metaphysics, physiology, gender, psychology, etc. For instance, the "born into the wrong body" line in most cases requires a belief in non-physical "mind". Doctors can validly call "disease" like they used to with homosexuality without transgressing any obvious hard-philosophical prohibitions I can think of. For me though it just comes down to respecting others' conceptions of their own identity as more important than other considerations, so I just accept transsexualism as currently conceptualised and propounded by the people it affects the most.

I reckon most opinion can ultimately only be regressed to more or less distant propositions that are beyond the probing of rationality. Ie whether you like it or not, you have faith in a bunch of stuff that you can never prove with reason. So people shouldn't be attacked for holding hick-type positions. And anyway, even if reason could reach everywhere, meaning that your opinion can have more intellectual weight (for want of a better analogy - I don't want to talk about strict truth here) than others', well, it's just not cool for smart people to laugh at or vilify dumb people.

So be nice to conservatives - in my personal experience it seems that when you are, it feels like, no matter how angry they may be about some issue, deep down they're actually emotionally reaching out to you to help them churn their thoughts. They're vulnerable little critters and it's kind of sweet even when they are defensive.