- Anything Else -

What ever you choose to define him as

Posted by: Nikhil Jaikumar ( PCC, MA, USA ) on June 01, 1999 at 12:42:20:

In Reply to: What's a conservative? posted by Stuart Gort on May 28, 1999 at 07:56:34:


: Are these the same wingers you describe as "The right stands for things like hierarchy, exploitation, and oppression, which i think are horrible."???

: In light of the above expressed definition, it rather attenuates your own argument to selectively apply the anecodotal example of Bhutan, amalgamate our respective ideals, and label it all right wing or conservative, to argue this point while holding me accountable for my definition of left wing.

In fact I did not say that Bhutan was right wing. i said that in some ways, they were conservative. Conservative has a definite meaning; rather than connoting any particular social or economic ideology, it connotes a deep respect and adherence to tradition. You can have conservative communists (in Russia, for example) or conservative polygamists (ign Africa) although in America both of these pratices are the province of the "left."

Right wing is a convenient term to group together a certain group of pro-capitalist, pro-American-hegemony, anti-communist, anti-welfare-state viewpoints. From there we have a division into the libertarians and the Protestant fundamentalists. if this classification is unfair, I plead guilty. It's just taht many people, including most American politicians and business leaders, seem to hold tehse views, and I need soem term to refer to this ideology in general.

Back to Bhutan. My point was precsiely that Bhutan is NOT right wing, nor is it left wing. Bhutan doesn't fit well into our dichotomy- although it is environmentally consciosu, it is also highly traditional, so oit doesn't amke sense to say that claims against human superioirty are the exclsuive province of the left.




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