This is a question that really woke me up several years back.
People call "us" conservatives. But what are we supposed to be conserving?
I don't want to conserve much from modern society. I want to get rid of most of the trash that has accumulated in our culture. But I don't want to go back in time and try to recreate history.
What we see in history is a lot of bad ideas that didn't work. The good stuff sticks around despite modernity. Keep that stuff. Get rid of modernity.
What is modernity? It is the idea that men are components of a machine, fungible. One man on the front lines is as good as any other man. One man working in a factory is as good as any other man.
Modernity says that we should buy cheap things because we need to make money at all costs. OK, I'm fine with optimizing how I spend my money, but "at all costs"? There are some things I'm not willing to compromise on, some things I WANT to spend money on, some things that makes the entire concept of having money at all appealing.
I'll list a few things that I actually want:
* Cotton clothing
* Nice, hand-made high-protein, high-animal fat meals.
* Comfortable chairs
* Shoes that actually fit my feet and don't feel like their soles are made of styrofoam
* Time each day to walk my pasture and look at my animals
* Music and art that enlightens my soul
And I can go on and on with thing that actually matter.
But at the top of the list is the concept of family. Both the nuclear family, with a father and a mother and as many kids as is physically possible to procreate, as well as cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and everyone else.
The "new society" I envision looks something like this.
Adults are married. All of them. Adults who aren't married are a strange curiosity. Married adults have plenty of kids. Older married adults spend most of their time with their grandkids and helping out their adult kids. The primary form of recreation is spent in their family doing family activities, things like cookouts, campouts, hiking, sports, etc...
Young girls are trained from birth to be mothers. As they mature they are taught vital life skills such as how to manage a family, how to prepare wholesome foods, how to teach kids, etc... When they mature they are married.
Young boys are trained from birth to be fathers. They are taught how to fight, how to grow food, how to deal with the outside world, and valuable economic skills that keep food on the table and chores done. When they mature, as soon as they are able to start their own family (and men take longer to mature than women) they are married. They shouldn't have to go into debt to get property and build a house. The previous generation should make sure that young men are able to secure land and housing for their families.
No one has a "job". At least not in the modern sense of the word. Everyone owns things that make food and clothing and the wealth that the world means. While no one family can do everything, each family has something they are good at doing, and they pass those skills down to their kids.
Of all the skills, the most fundamental are not delegated as much. Everyone has a small farm, and everyone grows at least some of their own food. They all learn how to sew their own clothing, fix their own roofs, etc.. The reason for this is simple: survival and redundancy.
No one is a spectator, trying to be entertained. We entertain ourselves and we entertain each other. Sports, dancing, music, etc... are all activities where there are no bleachers and no cameras. "Going to a game" means you are going to participate in that game in some role.
The key concept of my vision of the future is simply getting rid of "modernity" and going back to a previous mentality where humans are the most important thing in the universe, and every human is distinct and individual and no one person can replace another. And in order to make that happen, we need to build millions of tiny communities called families where individuals are free to be individual but still responsible for their actions.
People call "us" conservatives. But what are we supposed to be conserving?
I don't want to conserve much from modern society. I want to get rid of most of the trash that has accumulated in our culture. But I don't want to go back in time and try to recreate history.
What we see in history is a lot of bad ideas that didn't work. The good stuff sticks around despite modernity. Keep that stuff. Get rid of modernity.
What is modernity? It is the idea that men are components of a machine, fungible. One man on the front lines is as good as any other man. One man working in a factory is as good as any other man.
Modernity says that we should buy cheap things because we need to make money at all costs. OK, I'm fine with optimizing how I spend my money, but "at all costs"? There are some things I'm not willing to compromise on, some things I WANT to spend money on, some things that makes the entire concept of having money at all appealing.
I'll list a few things that I actually want:
* Cotton clothing
* Nice, hand-made high-protein, high-animal fat meals.
* Comfortable chairs
* Shoes that actually fit my feet and don't feel like their soles are made of styrofoam
* Time each day to walk my pasture and look at my animals
* Music and art that enlightens my soul
And I can go on and on with thing that actually matter.
But at the top of the list is the concept of family. Both the nuclear family, with a father and a mother and as many kids as is physically possible to procreate, as well as cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and everyone else.
The "new society" I envision looks something like this.
Adults are married. All of them. Adults who aren't married are a strange curiosity. Married adults have plenty of kids. Older married adults spend most of their time with their grandkids and helping out their adult kids. The primary form of recreation is spent in their family doing family activities, things like cookouts, campouts, hiking, sports, etc...
Young girls are trained from birth to be mothers. As they mature they are taught vital life skills such as how to manage a family, how to prepare wholesome foods, how to teach kids, etc... When they mature they are married.
Young boys are trained from birth to be fathers. They are taught how to fight, how to grow food, how to deal with the outside world, and valuable economic skills that keep food on the table and chores done. When they mature, as soon as they are able to start their own family (and men take longer to mature than women) they are married. They shouldn't have to go into debt to get property and build a house. The previous generation should make sure that young men are able to secure land and housing for their families.
No one has a "job". At least not in the modern sense of the word. Everyone owns things that make food and clothing and the wealth that the world means. While no one family can do everything, each family has something they are good at doing, and they pass those skills down to their kids.
Of all the skills, the most fundamental are not delegated as much. Everyone has a small farm, and everyone grows at least some of their own food. They all learn how to sew their own clothing, fix their own roofs, etc.. The reason for this is simple: survival and redundancy.
No one is a spectator, trying to be entertained. We entertain ourselves and we entertain each other. Sports, dancing, music, etc... are all activities where there are no bleachers and no cameras. "Going to a game" means you are going to participate in that game in some role.
The key concept of my vision of the future is simply getting rid of "modernity" and going back to a previous mentality where humans are the most important thing in the universe, and every human is distinct and individual and no one person can replace another. And in order to make that happen, we need to build millions of tiny communities called families where individuals are free to be individual but still responsible for their actions.