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Comment by bjourne | Hacker News Reader

There might be some confounding variables at play... Such as counties voting in favor of prohibition could be more conservative which in turn could be caused by them having an older population. Older people are, generally, both more conservative and less inventive than younger people.

That said, all the best music was made in the 60's and 70's so maybe he's onto something. :)

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There are plenty of times in history when puritanical movements like prohibition are not driven by older, 'conservative' folks but by young radicals, so this correlation is probably pretty tenuous if it exists. Look at the Reformation in England in the 16th century for example or the rise of literal Puritanism in the following century.

Yes, and the "Woke" movement of today.

Is woke puritanical? That really doesn't match my understanding of it

Sure it is: thinking non-woke thoughts is punishable, just as the Puritans believed thinking non-Puritan thoughts was punishable.

I've seen that behavior in movements from veganism to pro-gun movements, are those movements puritanical?

I'm just actually curious, it's just a semantic difference and I'm curious how wide of a net you cast with this term.

> are those movements puritanical?

The entire movement might not be, but the people exhibiting the behavior are. With the woke movement pretty much everyone in it seems to exhibit the behavior. The vegan or pro-gun movements, not so much; most people I've seen who are vegans or pro-gun have no interest in punishing other people for anti-vegan or anti-gun thoughts, they just want to be able to put their own beliefs into practice in their own lives without interference.

Must be just different in experiences (or just how we define the woke movement) because I've found a lot of "woke" people to be fairly understanding but as I said that might just be the people I've met.

I'd put decent money that most of their interactions with wokeness have been though social media where a particular brand of ride or die wokeness comes out. Partially I think because when you're arguing online it's real hard to suss out where the person you're talking to lies and a lot of people make bad faith arguments where giving any ground gets taken much further by the other side of the debate.

It's much easier to hold a categorical black and white opinion than to try to defend and define a nuanced opinion, especially when you're likely going to wind up arguing with more than one person at once.

This is a bit of a tangent, but sometimes I get confused by the US definition of "conservative."

It seems to me that someone who is conservative would be against something like the prohibition both because it changes the status quo and because it results in regulation and a bigger government.

Has this always been the case in the US or has the word conservative changed meaning at some point in history? Did the people who vote for the Prohibition back at the turn of the 20th century identify themselves as conservative? Were they identified as conservative by others around them?

Conservative Politics are not necessarily conservative (i.e. keep it the same) and Progressive Politics are not necessarily progressive (i.e. make progress). Thats the beauty of American Politics. It literally starts with lies and only gets better from there... :/

It wasn’t a conservative movement.

I dunno, man - I agree with you that there are way too many variables at play, but the bit about innovation..

Technology as en enabler of things. Not all tech is easily accessible on day 1 though. Industrialization for example, was capital-intensive, so not everyone could play.

As for music - I'd say that, like software, as the barriers to access and entry were lowered, innovation took off (A-track / cassettes / radio etc..).

As for conservatism - that can come in many flavors. We really should appreciate the amount of innovation that takes place on a farm.

The premise of your question is flawed.

Prohibition was a social-progressive movement, driven by the same sort of people that advocate decriminalizing drugs these days.

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