The ‘Conservative Mind’

[yetineti]

I am interested in some reference points regarding the, generalized, ‘Conservative Mind.’

Not specific criticisms, observations, opinions, etc.

General pointers to things such as: typical Spiral Dynamics stage(s), typical 9 Stages of Ego development stage(s), common thought patterns, use of rational, etc. Good and Bad things.

Background: I am from the U.S. and am referring, mainly, to American Conservatism; I am open to international examples still.

Lastly, I have heard Leo and others mention this ‘Conservative Mind’ before. The idea of it doesn’t seem too far fetched - there’s ’liberal mind’ too and, while I can always learn more, I am more familiar with it having grown up around it. I am trying to gather more patterns of Conservatism/better understand it.
 

Currently the only patterns I have gathered, briefly described, are: Tendency towards conspiracy theories and Stage blue/Stage Orange SD.

 

Thank you! Feel free to post links, memes, suggestions, etc. Whatever you think genuinely embodies conservatism for better or worse.

 

[LordFall]

Conservatives generally lack empathy and value things like conformity and tradition over it. 

[PurpleTree]

In a way nothing stays the same and most things can't be conserved for a very long time probably and we can't really go back to the past so strict conservatives are mostly on a losing post

 

I think it's weird that conservatives generally aren't really fighting for a better environment, because preserving/conserving a better environment/nature should be a very high priority if you want to be conservative about your country. 

For Western Europe the demographics in some countries changed very fast in the past few decades and still are. Imo probably too fast and I don't know if it's sustainable in the long run, maybe it is though. So i can understand why conservatives want to slow down immigration etc. in some places. Even if it stems from fear.

In a glorious future there are no borders and it will be great but we're not there yet and won't for quite a long time.

Don't know about SD and that's what came to mind

[Rolo]

conservative mind is a very closed mind, they dont leave much space for new things to come in, but what they do value and put on a pedestal, so to speak has a certain quality to it that is symbolic of their tradition, its like a cultivated beauty of human achievements, but what comes in is mainly built on the framework of their conservative ideology.

[No Self]

Conservatives are often regarded as happier with their lives and the world.

This can be viewed positively in that they inadvertently accept what is, in Eckhart's words. This also relates to spiritual teachings that encourage trust in a higher good, a bigger picture of assured outcomes, or those that state that the world is a perfect device so long as the devils of fear don't tempt us to view it with condemnation.

Or this syndrome can be viewed more harshly as a product of a conservative just world bias where we assume that less fortunate beings deserve what they get, hence eliminating all need for respect, care, sympathy or empathy. (And effectively putting people who can't afford health care, disenfranchised ethnic minorities, animals whose forests get bulldozed, species going extinct, etc. all in the same vast category of 'ha-ha, not my problem'.)

[No Self]

26 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

I think it's weird that conservatives generally aren't really fighting for a better environment, because preserving/conserving a better environment/nature should be a very high priority if you want to be conservative about your country. 

It has been said that if environmentalism is pitched to conservatives as restoring the ecology of the past, they are more likely to tolerate it.

But many factors work in the opposite direction, like a simple-minded opposition to needing to feel any personal responsibility for a catastrophic scientific consensus on the environment versus believing in Santa-Jesus fixing everything and sending all the liberals to hell. Or the fact that there's a sense of safety in numbers with their own conveniently self-serving world view, even if the enemy they are temporarily defeating is reality itself.

[Opo]

35 minutes ago, No Self said:

Conservatives are often regarded as happier with their lives and the world.

Dude that is such bullshit. 

I live in the conservative place and people here are delusional about their states of mind. 

If they have just miserable lives and someone asks them if they are happy almost all of them will say they are. 

It is the same as stupid people who think they are smart because they are too stupid to see all the holes in their knowledge. 

They can't deal with problems head on so they just repress them and present themselves as they think they should. 

I'm not buying it until a brain scan can tell you how happy a person is, or something like that. 

[No Self]

@Opo  Maybe the studies are flawed by relying on self-reporting. But from anecdotes I have seen, many conservatives are wealthier on average and are not burdened by any sense of empathy for the suffering in the world. Traditionalism is an effective formula for stable relationships, and everything is going their way in the world.

The claim was that they are 'happier', not 'happy'. Big difference.

[tuckerwphotography]

1 hour ago, Opo said:

Dude that is such bullshit. 

I live in the conservative place and people here are delusional about their states of mind. 

If they have just miserable lives and someone asks them if they are happy almost all of them will say they are. 

It is the same as stupid people who think they are smart because they are too stupid to see all the holes in their knowledge. 

They can't deal with problems head on so they just repress them and present themselves as they think they should. 

I'm not buying it until a brain scan can tell you how happy a person is, or something like that. 

@Opo Many very traditional, religious and conservative communities like the Amish have some of the highest rates of happiness in the US. Why? They have community, meaning, purpose, connection to nation, traditions, culture. So many of the very things that many liberals living in urban areas lack. I recommend reading the book Tribe by Sebastian Junger. 

https://www.amazon.com/Tribe-Homecoming-Belonging-Sebastian-Junger/dp/1455566381

[Opo]

47 minutes ago, No Self said:

@Opo  many conservatives are wealthier on average and are not burdened by any sense of empathy for the suffering in the world. Traditionalism is an effective formula for stable relationships, and everything is going their way in the world.

1 hour ago, No Self said:

@Opo  

 

If you don't get any negative effects from the outside world you also don't get any positive effects. Which makes your life poorer on the inside. 

There is something positive to that traditional life, but I wouldn't call it happiness. 

1 hour ago, No Self said:

@Opo  The claim was that they are 'happier', not 'happy'. Big difference.

Yea. I explain that with bias. 

If someone asked me to rank my happiness I wouldn't say it's 10/10.

But if you asked some dum dum to rank it they would say it's 10/10 because being happy is good. Even tho I am happier than him. 

[Opo]

51 minutes ago, tuckerwphotography said:

@Opo Many very traditional, religious and conservative communities like the Amish have some of the highest rates of happiness in the US. Why? They have community, meaning, purpose, connection to nation, traditions, culture. So many of the very things that many liberals living in urban areas lack. I recommend reading the book Tribe by Sebastian Junger. 

https://www.amazon.com/Tribe-Homecoming-Belonging-Sebastian-Junger/dp/1455566381

It's possible. 

Even tho it's self reported and I don't know any Amish people. 

But with these conservatives that I know, a lot of them are not very happy people and when you ask them they just lie. 

The worst part is that they already lied to themselves so when they tell you that, they are kinda telling the truth. 

I wish I could directly experience Amish people and see for myself.

I've heard from a person with a direct experience that people from tribes are a lot happier than us. So these conservatives are probably lacking that community. 

[tuckerwphotography]

@Opo Yeah, "conservaties" are not one group of people as I'm sure you know. They are millions of people all over the country who live vastly diverse lifestyles ranging from Amish to Wall Street to trailer parks to suburbia. It's tricky business to generalize. 

[DLH]

13 hours ago, mw711 said:

‘Conservative Mind.’

To understand the “Conservative Mind” we must first agree to a basic concept of what the “Human Mind” is.  Let’s use the following thoughts and beliefs for the moment and say that the Human Mind is also an EGO Consciousness that contains a limited and focused amount of knowledge and consciousness that projects your individual thoughts, ideas, expectations, beliefs, and emotions from formless dream state into the materialised physical dream state and collective dream state.  (let’s just keep this simple and agree to this statement for the moment to propose the following thoughts and ideas…..)

Now let’s go back 20 thousand years or so, and hypothesize that the human Ego had limited knowledge and consciousness and was only capable of focusing on the subjective and objective reality within the tribes psychological and physical boundaries.  The Human Ego back then did not need to deal with world wars, technology, billions of people living in huge cities, traffic on major highways, complex relations around the world, complex laws and rules, politics, social media, space travel, etc.  Back then, they only need to think about basic survival.  You get the idea...

It took the Human Ego 20 thousand years of evolution to expand its formless boundaries out enough to contain, hold, focus and discriminate all the knowledge, thoughts, ideas, beliefs that are available to us in the present moment.  The Ego Consciousness back then was on individual survival, and was only able to view reality and the world around it, from its limited individual perspective and focal point. 

The evolution and development of the individual and collective Ego Consciousness "NOW" is directly related to how open and expanded the Ego consciousness is to accepting broader, more diverse and comprehensive concepts of thoughts, ideas, beliefs that are beyond basic survival, and beyond the limited perspective of the self in the physical and formless dream states. 

There are no two individual Ego’s that have the same thoughts, ideas, expectations, beliefs, feelings and emotion. There are no two individual Ego’s that are evolved, expanded or open to the same amount of conscious knowledge that is available to all Beings (Thank God).   Spiral dynamics is a very limited, but a useful model that highlights some aspects of Human Ego conscious evolution.  

So, what is a Conservative mind?  Well, If you believe in religion, me-me-me, I need to be important, I need approval, I need to compare, I need status, I need fame, I need lots and lots of money to feel secure, I need lots of likes on facebook, I need lots of people to agree with my view points on this forum, I need to put my two cents in every conversation of this forum to be seen, I need to attack the people that don’t agree with me on this forum, I need to name call people that don’t agree with me or judge me, then you "May" have some Conservative Minded Ego Consciousness tendencies..

Here are a few selections from google on definition of Conservative: a person who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes, typically in relation to politics, religion (and science).  Apposed to rapid changes, and supports keeping traditions in society.

Anyone from Red to Turquoise on the Spiral Dynamics can have some of these Conservative minded, Ego Conscious, self survival, limited perspective, closed minded behaviours.  Me included!

Just sharing a few thoughts, ideas and beliefs!

Edited October 14, 2020 by DLH

[Yog]

I was "quite" conservative about 7-8 years ago and right now I got few close people around me that are conservative.

Here are a few observations:

- There is no lack of empathy, empathy is just focused on the in-group, whatever it is (Christian, Black, White, American, Muslim).

-There is an expansive and almost mystical/surreal and nostalgic feeling about the land and its people.

-My job is to take care and love my people, your job is to take care and love yours.

-Maintaining the cohesiveness of your culture is a noble thing to do. (no questioning, no changes, no race mixing, no religious interpretations, it has to be the way it is)

-Deviation = Treason

- Obedience, discipline, ritualistic behavior.

- Control of emotions vs mastery of emotions.

- Honor, integrity and respect for elders.

- There is still no distinction between the actual world and the thought world. If I see it that way, it is that way.

- If close, or blended with stage Orange, can have respect for the difference of opinion.
  But will do it the sense of: I do not want my beliefs changed, nor challenged, they will remain as they are, I will respect yours and will not attempt to  change them, because I don't want you to try change mine.

-Beliefs are a key feature. Having beliefs makes you a worthy person.

-Certainty is a strength. Uncertainty is weakness.

-Beliefs and certainty go strictly hand in hand. It approaches beliefs in a locking way.

-Strong emphasis on culture driven morals.

-There is utility in dogma.

-Change.... is bad. If there is any, it will be done trough change of others and not us/me.

-Questioning your own beliefs is seen as weakness and self-sabotage. The point is to maintain what you have.

-There are limits and borders between everything. The few gray areas, the better. You need to reach a point of certainty.

-This "produced" certainty leads to extremely easy and quick decision making.

-Tendency for binary thinking, its 1 or 0. You cant have anything in between.

Edited October 14, 2020 by Yog

[yetineti]

@Yog Your response is much appreciated and articulated multiple points of which I could not have yet articulated but ‘hit the spot’ I was looking for in this topic.

Considering your mentioning of having been a conservative, I have some follow of questions if you do not mind.

What made you individually realize the limitations of your conservatism?

Lastly, I’m very interested in your response to:

When you were a conservative, how would you have liked to be treated/introduced to concepts the challenged your beliefs? 
 

Much thanks