Some people basically accept the modern world at least as far as technology goes, keep their religious beliefs, but modify the, how to put, aesthethics of it to fit the modern world (but values, politics often not, creating strange mixes) and basically you get the kind of American Protestant churches that have TV screens with preaching recordings going in it or Chick comics for some to me strange reason nobody says “But wait, we are conservatives, we are not supposed to like all these modern things like screens and comics, we should try to keep things old!” This is a strange mix, because it is aesthethically and technologically modern yet the content of beliefs and values/politics can be unmodern and it can come accross as a shock. I cannot predict what will happen with them because this is a mindset very different to me, I always keep my aesthethics and conent in synch. If I want to preach liberalism, I won’t wear a medieval robe. Conversely, I cannot imagine preaching 19th century sexual mores without wearing 19th century clothing and so on. I simply cannot predict how minds like this function.
Some other people are more like, conservative is conservative. This is more amongst aging European Catholic populations: they try to reject the modern world in a more coherent way, they watch little TV, they go to really old looking churches, they read old poetry, watch operas, go to stage plays not cinemas, wear bow ties, really try to keep things old and shut out modernity. They are not Amish, so they will use technology at work, but kinda need to be dragged into it. These people are at least understandable to me, their worldview is coherent. I used to think this will become extinct, as modernity offers so many advantages. However it seems people don’t use those well. People have a smartphone in their pocket they could use to learn things from Wikipedia yet they use it to like jokes on Facebook while they ride the subway. The old-fashioned religious conservative who decides to rather read a book of old poetry on the subway is not actually worse off. As long as they use tech at work or OK with being healed modern ways, they are not much worse of practically and this could survive, as a subculture, pose, atittude, the Retro People. And it is a fitting match with religiosity.
This is a strange mix, because it is aesthethically and technologically modern yet the content of beliefs and values/politics can be unmodern and it can come accross as a shock.
You seem to be assuming that beliefs, values, and politics progress in the same way that technology does, that saying e.g. “Renaissance values” implies a step forward from e.g. “medieval values” in the absence of some catastrophe. Conservatives of this type don’t believe that. That’s why they’re conservative.
Not everybody believes in technological progress also being a step forward, towards something better either. Luddite atittudes exist and not every elderly grandma is approving of young people being on their smartphones all the time. (Interestingly, the great historian Johan Huizinga wrote in The Twilight of The Middle Ages precisely about this: that, apparently, back then there was not much enthusiasm but more of a mood of a things breaking down.)
At any rate, my point is something a bit different. It is closer to fashion than progress. Current technology is fashionable. As an attire. Just like fashionable clothes. It is holding up a sing “I love that it is 2015!”. While the idea of religious conservatism should be more like “I want it to be 1900!” and this is why I don’t understand how can it wear technology as an attire or accept any other current fashions, like, what I have recently heard about, the “beat mass”, doing Catholic Mass as beat music, early rock, like The Beatles. How does this work in people’s minds to combine two things from two very different dates. Why don’t they hate everything modern.
A fashion model is IMO more reasonable, and closer to what I believe, but I don’t see any particular reason for ethical fashions to track closely with aesthetic ones, or for retro taste in one to necessarily align with retro taste in the other.
I’m rather fond of Migration Period knotwork designs, for example, but I’m not about to raid my neighbors for cattle.
But that knotwork is just decoration, icing on the cake.
Aesthethics, for me, is a much more deeper concept—everything you viscerally like, as a terminal value, everything that presses your ’Aww yiss!” buttons.
Today I see two general and opposite strategies.
Some people basically accept the modern world at least as far as technology goes, keep their religious beliefs, but modify the, how to put, aesthethics of it to fit the modern world (but values, politics often not, creating strange mixes) and basically you get the kind of American Protestant churches that have TV screens with preaching recordings going in it or Chick comics for some to me strange reason nobody says “But wait, we are conservatives, we are not supposed to like all these modern things like screens and comics, we should try to keep things old!” This is a strange mix, because it is aesthethically and technologically modern yet the content of beliefs and values/politics can be unmodern and it can come accross as a shock. I cannot predict what will happen with them because this is a mindset very different to me, I always keep my aesthethics and conent in synch. If I want to preach liberalism, I won’t wear a medieval robe. Conversely, I cannot imagine preaching 19th century sexual mores without wearing 19th century clothing and so on. I simply cannot predict how minds like this function.
Some other people are more like, conservative is conservative. This is more amongst aging European Catholic populations: they try to reject the modern world in a more coherent way, they watch little TV, they go to really old looking churches, they read old poetry, watch operas, go to stage plays not cinemas, wear bow ties, really try to keep things old and shut out modernity. They are not Amish, so they will use technology at work, but kinda need to be dragged into it. These people are at least understandable to me, their worldview is coherent. I used to think this will become extinct, as modernity offers so many advantages. However it seems people don’t use those well. People have a smartphone in their pocket they could use to learn things from Wikipedia yet they use it to like jokes on Facebook while they ride the subway. The old-fashioned religious conservative who decides to rather read a book of old poetry on the subway is not actually worse off. As long as they use tech at work or OK with being healed modern ways, they are not much worse of practically and this could survive, as a subculture, pose, atittude, the Retro People. And it is a fitting match with religiosity.
You seem to be assuming that beliefs, values, and politics progress in the same way that technology does, that saying e.g. “Renaissance values” implies a step forward from e.g. “medieval values” in the absence of some catastrophe. Conservatives of this type don’t believe that. That’s why they’re conservative.
Not everybody believes in technological progress also being a step forward, towards something better either. Luddite atittudes exist and not every elderly grandma is approving of young people being on their smartphones all the time. (Interestingly, the great historian Johan Huizinga wrote in The Twilight of The Middle Ages precisely about this: that, apparently, back then there was not much enthusiasm but more of a mood of a things breaking down.)
At any rate, my point is something a bit different. It is closer to fashion than progress. Current technology is fashionable. As an attire. Just like fashionable clothes. It is holding up a sing “I love that it is 2015!”. While the idea of religious conservatism should be more like “I want it to be 1900!” and this is why I don’t understand how can it wear technology as an attire or accept any other current fashions, like, what I have recently heard about, the “beat mass”, doing Catholic Mass as beat music, early rock, like The Beatles. How does this work in people’s minds to combine two things from two very different dates. Why don’t they hate everything modern.
A fashion model is IMO more reasonable, and closer to what I believe, but I don’t see any particular reason for ethical fashions to track closely with aesthetic ones, or for retro taste in one to necessarily align with retro taste in the other.
I’m rather fond of Migration Period knotwork designs, for example, but I’m not about to raid my neighbors for cattle.
But that knotwork is just decoration, icing on the cake.
Aesthethics, for me, is a much more deeper concept—everything you viscerally like, as a terminal value, everything that presses your ’Aww yiss!” buttons.
Do you find the aesthethics of a Migration Period warrior also appealing? Helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ift85e38H3M