This strikes me as mostly crap. I get pegged as a conservative often enough, probably because I think government should live within its means, not within mine, and I think practically anything the government undertakes — from delivering the mail to selling liquor — can be done better by almost anyone else. But I also think everybody should leave everybody else the hell alone. I lose patience with people who seem concerned over what God thinks of other people. I worry about what God thinks of me.
Anyway, I'll bet I'm at least as open to experience as Mr. Wilkinson. I almost certainly am more familiar with the drug culture than he is — though the familarity was formed during my wild years and I'd rather not elaborate. As for country music, he seems to have missed how much of it is humorous, and how accurately it reflects how a good many people live their lives. I've known some of those people and not one ever struck me as not being open to experience. "But why would you want your kids to grow up with the same way of life as you and your grandparents?" Why the hell not? If you thought you'd had a good life, you would naturally want your kids to have the same.
Jim comments: I Have Been Paged…
(Post bumped.)
"There's a big difference in how you choose to conduct your life and coercing others into conducting their lives according to your 'values'."
ReplyDeleteI agree with that. And that's exactly what I hate about the Orwelian doublespeak that frequently arises from the far right, where rhetoric about "religious liberty" should be exactly described as fascist in intent. In other words, no place in their world for anyone who disagrees.
Because, bluntly, MOST of the people I talk to in daily life, or in the media, who DO try to tell me how to my life according to THEIR values are on the right, not the left. Most progressives I know are live-and-let-live, until they feel it necessary to speak up about something the view as unjust. Witness the "Recall Walker" grass roots action in my state of Wisconsin—which BTW is a genuinely grass-roots activity, and with which many conservative friends in my small town support.
I love hearing conservatives (not referring to you, Frank, or my friends in my small town, but referring to pundits and media whores) complain about how they're being somehow oppressed by the progressive left. It would be more laughable if it weren't pathetic. What frequently gets overlooked is that by definition the values of the left are diversity, and tolerance for disagreement.
Are there idiots who claim to be on the left who are just as intolerant of disagreement as idiots on the right? Absolutely. Nonetheless, in these days of polarized politics, you rarely, RARELY hear folks on the right standing up for diversity, including gay rights, women's rights, etc.—the headlines this week underline this. No, far more often you hear them stand up for veiled bigotry, oblique intolerance.
So while there's a lot to doubt about Wilkinson's article, having spent the past month in small-town Western and Southwestern towns, while on a roadtrip, there's a lot there that isn't crap, but true.
Not that I require anyone to agree with me. My values don't require that.
Well, Art, you'll have to move back east. The people who are always telling me how I should think are self-described progressives. There are social conservatives who do want to use the power of the state on behalf of their values, but their numbers, while not inconsiderable, are exaggerated, as is their influence. A lot of people like me — social libertarians who favor fiscal responsibility and oppose the nanny state — get tagged as conservative, but I think that is a misnomer. As for standing up for gay rights, what about Glenn Reynolds, who has said "I’d be delighted to live in a country where happily married gay couples had closets full of assault weapons"?
ReplyDeleteRod Dreher on differences between him and his sister reflected in their attitudes to "Conservative Culture & Country Music":
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/2012/03/08/conservative-culture-of-country-music/