I don’t have much of a problem either way as I don’t think I’ll be engaging in political discussion on this website past this post but it seems like any sort of non-left wing opinions or posts are immediately trashed on here. That’s fine. There’s clearly a more liberal audience here and that’s okay. I just don’t want Lemmy to become a echo chamber for any side and it seems to be that way when it comes to politics already.
Mostly making this post just to drum up discussion as I’m new here.
Edit: Thanks for the rational replies. I was expecting to get lit up for even mentioning this topic lol.
I think you’re seeing backlash against being involuntarily exposed to (and often pushed to see) unbridled and deranged hatred and fear on traditional socmedia.
A conservative opinion like “I’m not sure communism is practical” is something that can be engaged with pretty cordially, “I think that education should focus on marketable skills” is an opinion I think is pretty misinformed but it’s not something that exhausts me.
Unfortunately a lot of online conservatism is stuff like “I think there’s a conspiracy by $minority to mind control us with vaccines” or “Should we be trying to make queer people afraid?” which aren’t positions you can engage with.
Modern conservative politics and “polite discussion” are like oil and water.
I hope you’re enjoying the discussion, and I hope you are understanding a lot of the excellent points made here, because I have not seen you engaging with anyone so far, at least not in the Hot replies. I was hoping to see that engagement. I don’t have much to add that has not already been added. It’s hard to unwrap the hate and bigotry from conservative ideology nowadays. Even so-called mainstream conservative ideas like “tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy will create more money and prosperity for everyone” rings pretty hollow after over 40 years of that sort of ideology having been very thoroughly put into practice with very little benefit one could name. It’s hard to engage when you can just sort of gesture to the current state of things and the lives of people who have grown up in the last 4 decades as being self-evident of the failure of that idea.
Basically, I ask, what does conservatism have to offer, really? I am completely open-minded and would listen, but you would have to do better than just repeating the same tired things I have heard my whole life, having grown up in a conservative catholic household and over 43 years slowly but surely drifting to the socialist atheist person I am now. Better believe I’ve heard a lot and am well-read. And there are a lot of people out there just like me.
It’s hard to unwrap the hate and bigotry from conservative ideology nowadays.
This is the trouble I have with conservative thinking now. Even here in the UK, where our Conservatives aren’t as bad as the Republicans in the US (yet), I’m at a place where I can no longer offer the benefit of the doubt to rightwing policies, because now they only seem to exist to make life hard for marginalised people. I can’t point at a single member of our government who supports what they’re doing because it’s what they genuinely believe to be the right thing to do. They’re all interested in how it can enrich them, and they’ll worry about the morality later.
I mean, say what you like about Margaret Thatcher (and believe me, I do), at least she seemed to actually believe in the policies she pushed through. She had an ideology, and was given room to try it out. And it worked. For her and her rich buddies.
But these days it just seems to be hatred and fear for the sake of riling up the proles because it keeps them in power. The power is the goal, not the governance.
My personal line is crossed if that user has a hateful stance that actively harms other users. I joined this instance for the hardline rules against hate and I do not think it is unfair to say that conservatives havent done themselves any favours in that regard. The general impression is that conservatives want people like me to not exist so it will always make me cautious.
As far as I know Beehaw is not explicitly political. On the other hand I personally think common practices of some parties which can include spreading miss-information, fabrication, denialism, intimidation, trolling, and generally planning to disruptive are out of bounds. Just saying that can be considered as being unwelcoming to some people that call themselves conservatives.
I’m not sure why “I don’t want to see a space become an echo chamber” is always what gets said. Everywhere else IS a right wing echo chamber for the most part? Conservatives aren’t the ones chased from reddit and twitter?
What probably isnt welcome is questioning people’s right to exist, right to live unmolested because of someone else’s beliefs (and real molested, not "i saw a minority existed), and the right to make your own medical choices for yourself and your kids. Considering means testing has been proven a waste and the right opposes taxing fair share, i wouldn’t even argue that actual financial conservation is even a point the party makes.
So it’s really hard to see what need this space has for those talking points. Unless it’s actually about being open to real discussion, which frankly facts aren’t often on the side of the right, what good to this community do these ideas offer?
What should be asked is what place does the Right/Conservative philosophy as a whole have in the Lemmy ethos? Is it in and of itself could be argued to be an antithesis to the whole structure and philosophy. Can authoritarian ideals thrive where they cannot take power?
Tumblr i the only other real leftist space I think. You could maybe put baseline social media is somewhat leftist, tik tok, instagram, snapchat, most of those have a leftist lean, primarily because they trend younger. Your general use social media is going to have a left/right lean based on age demographics. That’s just the lean those general social medias are going to have.
Oh yeah tumblr. They pride themselves on being extreme i think in some of the spheres, where as i think nost people in this space are sharing deeply held beliefs. Most of the extreme stuff i see from there seems to be teens/outrage bait.
I forget the ages but i think beehaw/lemmy skews a tad older?
It basically has to skew older, probably 25 to 30+ The vast majority of those younger are going to be on tiktok, sc, insta, or something like discord. Lemmy will be considered more “left” overall than even reddit was. There will be of course bad instances, but i think pressure to defederate from them overall will be strong, especially when the “free speech” instances start having difficult legal questions thrown at them when their users inevitably start saying the quiet part out loud.
God i hate discords and what they have done with gaming documentation. I am completely turned off by any indie dev who requires you join their discord.
But im here, clearly i like forums. The fact that discord is basically backwards adding in forums with their threads thing is proof forums are still useful!
If your “conservative / right wing opinion” is that austerity measures are a good thing, then the most generous interpretation of that is that you’re just a moron. As it turns out, though, today’s “conservative / right wing opinions” are way worse than that. Things like “trans people aren’t people”. Or “we should do a treason”. Or “bribing supreme court justices is totally fine”. If you hold any of those opinions, the most generous interpretation of that is that you’re evil. And probably also stupid. That is the MOST generous interpretation, mind.
I think we need to have better conservative content. All of what your describing sounds like negative characterizations of conservatives made by far left individuals.
Yes, there are some absolute morons in the world. Probably a lot of them. But not all conservatives are morons, despite what many left leaning people would like to believe due to the polarization brought about by social media echo chambers.
I have yet to see a modern conservative position that is more backed by real world evidence than whatever more progressive position it opposes.
Climate change? Denying overwhelming scientific consensus. Gun control? “It doesn’t work”, even though it works in every other western country. Healthcare? “But the death panels will decide if you get to live”, they don’t exist, and are used as pretense to ignore all those people who die because they can’t afford treatment. Car infrastructure? It’s literally better for drivers if more people are using transit or cycling. Student loans? I don’t even know what the argument is here except “I had to pay them so everyone else should too”. The money certainly isn’t going towards the teachers.
Some of these are US specific, but the sentiment is the same everywhere. The list goes on and on. If someone refuses to listen to any reason or evidence and instead bases their worldview on only their own, limited lived experience, why shouldn’t they be characterized as a moron? And if they understand that their view isn’t based in reality and they hold it anyways, why not call that actively malicious?
I’ve always loved the irony of the argument that if the government pays for healthcare, there will be “death panels” that decide who gets treatment and who doesn’t. Because those already exist under and directly because of a system of private healthcare funding where if you don’t have enough money, you’re refused treatment. Meanwhile under a system of public healthcare funding, people get treatment based on who’s most in need of the resources available, and that’s only if the system is already over capacity.
You are essentially using a “no true Scotsman” defense here, which is wild given the public stances of America’s Conservative Party, the GOP.
You act like they are talking about outliers but the whole GOP is in lockstep with those awful stances and decisions. You say we need better conservative content? I say you need better conservative leadership because the majority of conservatives follow what they are fed of fox, oann, and whatever other sources of disinfo
Come back to us when the official party line isn’t supporting the big lie, or attacking climate change or attacking science and vaccines and masking, or that trans people shouldn’t exist, or that students should not be given the forgiveness that those with money get (PPP vs student loan forgiveness), or that Russia and Putin are not our allies nor role models, I could go on and on and on.
You want a better conservative image? You need better conservatives first. Talk about putting the cart before the horse
You say what we mention is mischaracterizations made by the left. Please, point out which are untrue
due to the polarization brought about by social media echo chambers.
Due to the actions of recent right wing political parties whe gaining any power.
That’s a bit like saying
"How dare you call us all arsehole. Because we keep voting for arseholes to lead our parties. "
Unless you and others are prepared to form a right wing that opposes these ideas. Then that is the reputation the right deserves.
For the record, I would not consider myself right wing. But I do oppose many leftist ideologies. Grievance studies (Critical race theory, queer theory, and other ideologies based in post modern belief systems), for instance, are eroding many useful and productive enlightenment ideas. Color blindness is a legitimate way to reduce racism. Instead, leftists believe they should elevate group identity at all costs, thereby expanding and heightening racism. Queer theory denies human physiology, elevating the idea that everything is socially constructed. This framework is a grave distortion of the reality.
I agree that conservatives need to do a better job with their policies. Trump was a stain, and the few (okay maybe more than a few) loud idiots in the party make conservatism look bad. But if left wingers only get their information about right wingers from hyper left sources, we are going to have a lot of distorted views.
On social media, people are served more and more radical content. Much of that content includes great distortions of the “other side,” which pushes people further into an untenable and undesirable belief system.
We need more debate and we also need people to stop simply calling the other side morons.
To be absolutely clear to anyone who runs across this, this person has been banned from our instance, you don’t need to report it again. The only reason this reply is still up, is for others to see all the ways in which this person is wrong and the whole they dug themselves when they did reply to someone and were rightfully reported and ejected from our instance.
Grievance studies (Critical race theory, queer theory, and other ideologies based in post modern belief systems), for instance, are eroding many useful and productive enlightenment ideas.
Have you studied any of these yourself? Or are you relying on characterizations of them you heard in media?
Color blindness is a legitimate way to reduce racism.
In theory, sure. But in practice it often gets used as a rug to sweep racism under.
Instead, leftists believe they should elevate group identity at all costs, thereby expanding and heightening racism.
Keep on mind this is a society where certain groups have been marginalized and terrorized for decades or even centuries. “Elevating” them is only a reaction to that long-entrenched bigotry. But (what’s that quote?..) when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Attempting to bring historically marginalized groups into equal footing with mainstream groups probably will look like they’re being “elevated” to the people who enjoy the privilege of being accepted broadly by default.
Yes, I have a Ph.D., you will encounter grievance studies and post modern ideologies when you pursue this path. I have indeed studied the philosophical foundations of these ideologies. I don’t agree with post modern ideologies, nor do I agree that you can state that something is purely constructed by a culture. An individual is defined both by their physiology and their societal structure. It’s physiology and culture. Post modernism denies objective truth. I believe in objective truth. I also believe in intentionality, which post modernism denies. We could go on. Stop using the “have you actually studied this” argument and actually engage in productive debate. An appeal to academic authority is really not useful here.
It seems some forget, for instance, that the native population of America benefitted greatly from their encounters with colonial people from France and Britain. They sold and traded items. They learned knew technologies. Hell, many native tribes fought alongside the Americans during the American revolution. They also fought alongside France. The whole situation of the American colonies is really messy. Anyway, colonialism is not a black and white issue.
It seems some forget, for instance, that the native population of America benefitted greatly from their encounters with colonial people from France and Britain.
ah, yes, the minimum of 30 million people killed just in the Americas really benefited. get out of here with this settler colonialist apologia, my dude. you are a textbook case of why nobody is interested in hearing out conservative “thought”, which appears to be impossibly tied to being pro-genocide.
Queer theory denies human physiology, elevating the idea that everything is socially constructed
You’re already getting pushback on your other points, so I thought I would weigh in here. Biologically speaking, sex is multifaceted, variable, and somewhat malleable. Even anatomically or physiologically scientists say that gender and sex are not as simple or clean cut as you are making it out to be. Additionally, gender diverse people can be found across all cultures and throughout history - transgender people are not an invention of the post-modern era.
I don’t think that acknowledging the reality that human experience is complex and multi-faceted is a left wing value. It is evident to anyone who honestly engages with scientific consensus and with the lived experiences of LGBTQ folks that those people exist. They’re not going anywhere, and I don’t think it’s especially “left wing” to say we ought to make space for them in society to just live their lives as they are.
The issue is the party overwealming supports these ideas, we are not debating what color school busses should be or how we should ensure we have clean water into the future, we are instead debating should X group be allowed to live. An option that involves taking rights from others based on misinformation isn’t an opinion.
Yes, this is true, many conservative people are smart - they worked out that in order to get money and power they can exploit conservative talking points easily because they don’t have to be truthful, thoughtful, or in any way care about other people
Saying that austerity is always bad is pretty dumb too. Economic policy is hard. It’s not a simple as shoving one lever in one direction as far as possible forever.
For example, “austerity” could mean ending corporate subsidies, taxing the wealthy, auditing the wealthy, reducing the military budget, canceling freeway expansions, etc. Too much public debt can absolutely be a bad thing and needs to be controlled.
I concede that you’ve got a point that austerity isn’t an all or nothing proposition. But your examples are laughable. No country that has implemented “austerity measures” has ever interpreted that as “ending corporate subsidies”, or “taxing the wealthy”, or in any way fucking with the wealthy or military’s purse. It just doesn’t happen. I agree, that would be an amazing thing. But it just doesn’t exist in human history. What ends up happening instead is that they cut the educational budget. Or they cut social programs, like housing subsidies or food subsidies. Because governments aren’t run by the lowest common denominator, who actually benefits from those programs. They’re run by the wealthy. So no government is going to fuck over its supporters by cutting their benefits.
