Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
You keep trying to shoehorn me into a conservative box, when the answer to what drives me is right in the sentence you've cited: "anti." You should take me at my word. I'm confessing my essential psyche when I say that if I see an idea/concept/ethos/policy become venerated, and I think it's flawed, I want to dismantle it. It's an antisocial bent, I'll readily admit. But it's not conservative. How do I know that? Because I'm also anti-conservative.
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I will only put you halfway in the conservative box.
You and I may disagree about what makes someone conservative. To me, the fundamental thing that unifies conservatives is reaction to the mainstream/left. As you keep saying in different ways, you are viscerally irritated by progressives. You understand intellectually that people on the right do many of the same things that you say irritate you about progressives, but they don't bother you. You scorn them, but you don't really care. [eta: For example, you listed yourself as "anti-wokeism" but didn't say anything about anti-racism. I have no doubt that if you were asked, you would say you are anti-racist, but clearly racism doesn't push the same buttons that "wokeism" does for you. Likewise, you were just complaining about how progressives are largely performative, but you don't complain about performative conservatives. That doesn't mean you support them. It means you just don't care about them in the same way.]
The thing that keeps you from being truly conservative is that you have this conviction -- faith, let's call it -- that there is a center and that you are a part of it. This keeps you from feeling the sort of alienation and grievance that are so integral for conservatives. As much as you inflate the importance of the progressives you complain about, you don't think they are the mainstream.
Agree that Wilkerson's piece is longer than it needs to be -- that's what happens when journalists go on Substack and no longer have editors or need to worry about driving traffic.
