That’s certainly a fashionable idea now. I wouldn’t necessarily call it “liberal” though. That line or something close to it was in the US Constitution, right? Ironically, I doubt the writers of the US Constitution would’ve agreed with you in the context of slavery.
I’m not trying to make any value judgments about whether social liberalism is better or worse than social conservatism. I’m just trying to say it’s problematic trying to judge it on a time scale, because it’s a fundamentally biased concept in that context.
Actually I strongly disagree. That train of thought was “liberal” during the formation of the United States: when only male landowners of a specific race and certain religions were considered worthy of having liberty. Conservatives fought against freedom for slaves and women. It’s not propaganda: it’s the truth. The issues were argued when the colonial states fought against English, and then again when they decided to pool their resources together as a single nation. Those who wrote the Constitution and Declaration did so with a liberal flare… the conservatives in the convention argued and complained about it… A LOT. We’ve got dozens of autobiographies and political memoirs that prove it.
People knew what true liberty was and was not. No intellectual person of sound mind is ignorant when they’re oppressing or forcing their will upon another. We all know what control is. The documents were written in the spirit of true liberty (as evident in the words themselves) - but the law practiced was not (as evident in history).
It’s not problematic at all. Conservatism is not inherently evil: it’s just seen as archaic and oppressive through the lens of time, when it applies to something modernization and expanded intellect now evaluates. Just as radical liberalism is seen as chaotic and neurotic.
Conservatism looks bad because time has proven those values were wrong. And there’s nothing wrong with conservatism, when it fights to protect something that’s right: not murdering someone in cold blood, has been considered a valuable human tradition for thousands of years. I see nothing wrong with conservatism… just what conservatism is attempting to preserve. Just like I don’t support total liberalism… because that’s a road straight to chaos. Passing a law that allowed people to kill other people (individual right), because might makes right (equality of opportunity), would a move towards insane liberalism – individual freedom as more important that social conformity and tradition, taken to the extreme.
The two arguments were philosophical thinking long before we got Republicans and Democrats using it for their own agenda.
That’s basically what I’m trying to get at. We’re picking and choosing the issues for analysis based on our preconceived judgment (based on modern societal standards) of what conservatism and liberalism is. In essence, the analysis is inherently biased by our modern upbringing and hindsight. We don’t usually consider the idea of murder being a crime “conservative.” It’s just the way it is. If history never disputed it (i.e., it never changed), there’s no reason to deem it conservative or liberal. From that warped looking glass, history always appears to evolve in a “liberal” fashion.
But it’s true, we don’t really have any other method of looking at the issue beyond that warped looking glass. It’s like looking at fixed sections of tissue under an electron microscope. The fixation process itself alters the tissue, but you can’t observe the tissue without fixing it. You can try alternate fixation techniques that alter the tissue more or less or in different ways (i.e., look at the issue from different angles), but however you fix the tissue you’re altering it in some way merely by attempting to view and make sense of it.
I’m in disagreement with you on that: there is no picking and choosing. It’s black and white. The fault isn’t history or prospective; it’s human nature (predominantly the desire to excel and retain excellence) and philosophical reasoning. Adding politics into it: Conservatives want to keep things the same to maintain personal gain/prosperity. Liberals want to alter tradition or status quo for personal gain/prosperity. The two conflict.
Historically conservatism sounds evil. Well there’s a reason for that: think of an example in US history, where liberalism was oppressive or recessive to the prosperity of society, which we feel shameful and wish never happened. I can actually name about four or five off the top of my head… but a lot of people can’t even name one. This is just the nature of things - and more importantly, of humanity. Conservatism is oppressive. Liberalism is chaotic. That’s what they are when negative. It’s easy to notice oppression… yet you can also notice when there’s too much freedom - it’s just supporters of those freedom don’t see it that way or want to admit it.
Now getting back to the root of the argument: As far as the modern western influenced world is concerned, liberalism slowly erodes at conservatism - and what was once liberal centuries ago, can now be considered conservative today. Philosophically there will inevitably come a time when liberalism reaches a point, where the whittling of conservatism will inevitably cause anarchy. That is to say: there’s a limit to how much freedom individual people can have, before its impossible for society (that we all prosperously coexist together without harming each other) to exist with such freedoms granted.
Hmmm… can’t say I see it that way.
The argument conservatives make each generation, is that “breaking point” is always now. Liberals always argue that the breaking point isn’t here yet… that more freedom can be granted without destroying society. And history has proven that such a breaking point can come without expectation or warning: hence anarchy and the change/overthrow of governments. While we consider free speech to be a no brainer, in some countries free speech would totally destroy their way of life as they know it. Thus the need for their brand of conservatism to prevent change.
The thing we must be aware of: democracy and equality DOES destroy civilizations (or rather; the society as it existed before the introduction of it). For good or ill? Naturally history will be the judge: from the continued improvement/stagnation/degradation of human accomplishment. But as far as I’m concerned? Democracy is a helluva lot better than most of the other alternatives… and so is removal of certain (not all) conservative values.
Actually that line is from something I forget: but it wasn’t from a classroom. I keep thinking Star Trek… probably is…
Took me awhile to locate what I wanted to your comment, but you’re wrong about the Founding Fathers. Many of the Northern representatives (no surprise there) argued against Slavery for days on end (and accused of being too liberal): they just lost the argument because there would have never been a United States if they kept pushing the issue. However George Mason (ironically enough from Virginia) said it best:
“Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a country. As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, providence punishes national sins by national calamities.”
He was right. The end of slavery and universal freedom was inevitable. We ended up call it the American Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, and Women’s Suffrage.
Thomas Jefferson also fought against slavery. Of course he also owned slaves… which is one of the most fascinating contradictions to read about (because he also fell in love with one): “Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, or morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both.”
James Madison penned the Constitution… he was against slavery. As he stated in his State of the Union: American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity and in defiance of those of their own country. The same just and benevolent motives which produced interdiction in force against this criminal conduct will doubtless be felt by Congress in devising further means of suppressing the evil.
Like Jefferson however, he owned slaves because of his family, peer pressure, and political ambitions (none of the Southern States would go for a president without slaves). We’d call them hypocrites of course. In any case… this isn’t an argument of if they were saints… it’s just to point out that they were against slavery. The times and reality, obviously weren’t so great for 'em in actually keeping to those words. But that’s another demon and philosophical argument that could take pages to discuss.
I just did a web search on this issue. To my surprise, I couldn’t find anyone arguing your viewpoint (that society inevitably becomes more liberal over time), OR my viewpoint (that discussing generalized liberal/conservative shifts over time is basically meaningless). But the scholarly discussions of conservatism / liberalism looking back at history seem to always frame conservatism / liberalism issues in the context of their time somehow before comparing across time; i.e., looking for liberal bias in newspapers by comparing their viewpoints against the viewpoints of the median Congressman. If you can find any scholorly discussion supporting your viewpoint (that are making your full argument and not just talking about one issue like women’s rights), I’d be interested to see the link. Otherwise I’m inclined to think we’re arguing in a bubble.
No surprise. That’s because all discussion on these topics, are centralized around politics and economics: hence the reason conservatism and liberalism are always connected to them sooner or later.
Laozi - who founded Taoism. Read a translation of Tao Te Ching. To summarize his ultimate philosophy as he put it himself, “the people should be left to their own devices.” He stresses that individual happiness in living life without harming others, not adherence to tradition, is what leads to stability and prosperity in a society.
Another is Charles de Secondat, who defined the idea of “separation of power” as modern democracies follow them, allowing liberalism to become an establishment to conservatism without destroying it. I’ll admit his writings are rather boring, because they focus more on the actual running of a government, than incorporation of liberal ideology: however in his time monarchies were the norm, so using that as context, you can read between the lines and glean quite a lot from it.
I can also heartily point you in the direction of John Locke, in particular his Two Treatises of Government. He is a founder to the modern view to liberalism, and repeatedly dictates his points against conservative thinking and the conservative agenda.
Niccolo Machiavelli. Stop laughing. I’m serious. “The ends justify the means.” His writings are about how an individual is able to do whatever they desire, whenever they desire. Obviously at the expense of others, but it is liberty without restriction - if you’re the Prince - which makes interesting reading. It’s using liberal ideology to create a conservative power base that keeps you in power: hence a perfect example of how liberalism works in a conservative system. Like I said… not all liberalism is for the greater good or positive for everyone. Remember that Machiavelli’s work was also designed to challenge the power of the Church, which at that time was the ruling power (not to mention Conservative as hell). There’s a reason why the Pope banned it as heretical teaching. Basically it’s about tearing down tradition and the established system, to make your own. Immoral. Self serving. Disruptive to the common good. Everything the Republican Party claims about liberals.
John Stuart Mill. That he helped invent empirical science is awesome. He loved Utilitarianism and wrote the book On Liberty. What does it teach? “People can do anything they like as long as it does not harm others.” He also coined the phrase, “tyranny of the majority.” Fuck yea. He’s my biggest hero. Fun fact: his wife was a feminist. Like papillon said, they’re not all evil. 8)
Finally there’s [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson]Ralph Waldo Emerson[/url]. I suggest reading [u]Self-Reliance[/u] and [u]The Nominalist and the Realist[/u]. He wrote other books, but these deal directly with liberalism. Civil War era stuff, so it makes a good prospective on Slavery as well.
If I recall more who are worth mentioning, I’ll add it to this list. I need to go through my closet and find what was great reading. All of these authors explain how society must inevitably become liberal, or it will face destruction from conservatism. Of course Machiavelli also explains how you can slow the advance of liberty and use politics to your own needs in keeping the masses ignorant about what’s really going on (liberty is a carrot), thus keeping things conservative. But hey… he was a bastard.
I also think we derailed this topic like no other topic has been derailed this week. :lol:
EDIT
Oh yes… how could I forget Karl Marx. That’s right: Communism. Yea, yea… Boo! Hiss! Now I’m not supporter of communism, but it does serve as a WONDERFUL example when liberalism goes totally wrong - both in real life and philosophical theory. Everyone is equal. There is no leader. The Revolution of the People is inevitable. Sounds beautiful… until human self interest and ambition obviously makes it impossible. Ants, bees, and termites seem to love it though… of course the females are totally dominant, so that makes them feminist communist.
No, i define it as an individual’s ability to make their own decisions in life. Yea, there are blips, like this discussion is talking about. About the only other thing that could be considered a removal of rights is the right to consensual sexual (or sometimes even platonic) relationship between an adult and an adolescent (most societies have generally always frowned upon relationships between adults and very young children…though the ages varied, mostly anyone 8 or younger has been universally accepted as being inapprorpiate historically and more generally historically anyone who was no where near the age of puberty).
Righteo, so now that we’re banning non-human heroines (Ever17, Symphonic Rain, Sense Off, Sayonara wo Oshiete, Moshimo Ashita ga Hare Naraba, Saihate no Ima, Eien no Aselia) and pregnancy (Clannad, G-Senjou no Maou, Ever17 (again), Eien no Aselia (again) and countless others), what next?
Just cut the crap and ban VNs altogether, I think. (with, I dunno, a new EOCS guideline saying ‘you can’t make anything’) Make the whole damn medium a strictly doujin affair or something. Sometimes the only way to get the industry back on track is to destroy it and try again.
I suppose the only worse ban would be one on school settings/students, which might be proposed at some stage. That would take out at least 95% percent of the remaining ‘acceptable’ titles after all the currently proposed regulations have been applied. (The only bright side that would have, is that it would force every eroge company into action to fight against the restrictions :P).
Oh no, it’s totally their fault. Not feminists in general, just Equality Now.
The argument that they might not have seen it snowballing into this is sort of invalid here, because everyone else saw it happening =P
That said, it probably would have happened anyway! Besides, laying the blame on a lone, unimportant feminist group ignores the real issue - that all of this is a symptom of a deep-seated flaw in the moral values of ‘modern society’.
Well, if we list ‘unintended consequences’ then the blame would clearly go to the media who wrote the articles that inflamed Equality Now to begin with, or the idiot who tried to sell Rapelay on Amazon that the media seized on to write the articles that inflamed Equality Now that caused them to write the letters that upset the politicians that upset the shops that demanded the change in rules that blah blah blah.
But yeah. Society needs a serious slap in the face and the ability to tell the difference between facts and emotions, and governments need to learn that if the media runs with scare stories, bowing to those scares generally doesn’t reassure people, it makes them more worried.
Many countries are having problems with a rise in anti-immigrant racism, frex. In England the situation is complex because of EU membership, meaning a lot of non-Brits have every right to come to our country and work/settle. Rather than apply more resources to dealing with the needs of a complex and changing society (if a whole bunch of EU people who don’t speak the language suddenly show up, you do need new systems to deal with them), the government makes big public pronouncements about ‘cracking down’ on immigration and spending MILLIONS to completely revamp the immigration system - which only applies to NON EU people. Making them scapegoats and pushing them to jump through even more hoops to get into the country, when they were never the source of the unrest to begin with… Which, if the latest election results are anything to go by, is only making the populace MORE RACIST! Because now they hear the government talking about cracking down on those immigrants all the time, but Them Foreigners are still flooding our shores, so clearly we need to get tougher!
Not to sound like a broken record, but like I keep telling people: Protect even the things you don’t like, because they’ll go after the things you do like, sooner or later.
Those who keep saying, “well I don’t care for rape and lolicon anyways,” will suddenly find themselves alone when they go after everything else.
I think I mentioned this before, but just in case: the European rape comic book company, Dofantasy, has been putting disclaimers in all their newest issues.
See for yourself… they’re explaining how no comic book characters were actually raped. :roll:
I thought this was pretty funny. I guess they’re referring in a very poorly worded manner to the Handley case?
(Pst, you know, the FBI actually doesn’t make or interpret law. Just a heads up.)
Um, what? Why? I’m sorry, but this is something I can’t trust a secondhand source on. Zombies ok, furry ok, but elves? I have to see a direct translation of a primary source to believe that one. Who the hell would be offended by sex with fantasy elves?
If liberalism is freedom of thought and expression, then communism is the complete antithesis of liberalism. That makes communists uber-conservatives then?
@Nargrakhan: Interesting links. I’d still argue that these writings are largely motivational rather than observational, however. They’re not telling things as they are, they’re telling things as they ought to be (in the opinion of the writer). But I suppose our debate is far too philosophical to warrant any kind of real attention from anyone that matters.
But as in this case we derailed an inflammatory political topic, we should get praise from Lamuness, right?
Norn’s mail magazine said that “Currently, regulations are in negotiations, but there is a chance in the future that shops won’t sell games featuring the keywords/elements ‘nonhuman heroine’, ‘producing kids’ and ‘impregnation’. However, even if that were to happen, all the staff at Norn will strive to bring you our works with whatever methods possible.” In context, I believe the latter two refer to games where the main goal is to impregnate the other characters.
"They came first for the lolicons,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a lolicon.
Then they came for the rape fetishists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a rape fetishist.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
And yeah I know what this is derived from, and here’s a derived thing from another source (G.K. Chesterton):
I could never see why a man who is not free to open his (eyes) to (look at hentai) should be free to open (them) to (see). (Seeing leads to) far more direct harm to other people. The village suffers less directly from the (eroge fan) than it might from the (voyeur), or the (stalker), or the (mugger who looks for the best victims). These and (many) other types of evil are done simply by (seeing); it is certain that a vast amount of evil would be prevented if we all wore (blindfolds). And the answer is not to deny that (voyeaurism is an invasion of privacy), or (mugging a crime). The answer is that, unless a man is allowed to (see), he might as well be a (mole) who is only able to (dig through dirt). In other words, if a man loses the responsibility for these rudimentary functions and forms of freedom, he loses not only his citizenship, but his manhood.
That’s because all discussion on these topics, are centralized around politics and economics: hence the reason conservatism and liberalism are always connected to them sooner or later.