Conservatism says “don’t be first, keep everything the same.” This is a fine, self-consistent stance.
A responsible moderate conservative says “Someone has to be first, and someone will be last. I personally want to be somewhere in the middle, but I applaud the early adopters for helping me understand new things.” This is also a fine, self-consistent stance.
Irresponsible moderate conservatism endorses “don’t be first, and don’t be last,” as a general rule, and denigrates those who don’t obey it. It has no answers for who ought to be first and last. But for there to be a middle, somebody has to be the early adopter, and someone has to be the last one to try.
I often hear irresponsible moderate conservatives resort to a claim that the world is full of idiotic, irresponsible people who’ll try anything, as long as it’s new. Although it’s unfortunate that these fools are behaving as they are, it has the side benefit of testing the new thing and ultimately allowing the moderate conservatives to adopt it.
This is an empirical claim, and true it may be, but it does not resolve the larger moral question. What if everybody was a moderate conservative? Then who would be the first to try new things?
If moderate conservatives who routinely denigrate and never applaud early adopters can’t articulate an answer to that question, then their rule of ‘don’t be first, don’t be last’ is hypocrisy, plain and simple.
Conservatism says “don’t be first, keep everything the same.” This is a fine, self-consistent stance.
A responsible moderate conservative says “Someone has to be first, and someone will be last. I personally want to be somewhere in the middle, but I applaud the early adopters for helping me understand new things.” This is also a fine, self-consistent stance.
Irresponsible moderate conservatism endorses “don’t be first, and don’t be last,” as a general rule, and denigrates those who don’t obey it. It has no answers for who ought to be first and last. But for there to be a middle, somebody has to be the early adopter, and someone has to be the last one to try.
I often hear irresponsible moderate conservatives resort to a claim that the world is full of idiotic, irresponsible people who’ll try anything, as long as it’s new. Although it’s unfortunate that these fools are behaving as they are, it has the side benefit of testing the new thing and ultimately allowing the moderate conservatives to adopt it.
This is an empirical claim, and true it may be, but it does not resolve the larger moral question. What if everybody was a moderate conservative? Then who would be the first to try new things?
If moderate conservatives who routinely denigrate and never applaud early adopters can’t articulate an answer to that question, then their rule of ‘don’t be first, don’t be last’ is hypocrisy, plain and simple.