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Comment by 9dev | Hacker News Reader

I think a lot of this is rooted in the basic world view people have. Those with a conservative mindset will think of humans as fundamentally flawed, misguided creatures that need to be contained and steered so they don’t veer of the path, which they are naturally inclined to; while those with a liberal mindset consider humans to be inherently kind and only misguided by circumstances and their environment.

Most people can pretty clearly relate to one of these perspectives over the other, and it’s pretty clear what actions follow from that.

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I think that's a little simplistic, I have liberal (in the British English sense) views specifically because I think humanity is fundamentally flawed. If we are all flawed particularly when it comes to wielding power over others, it's self-evident in my opinion that governments should be limited and the total power any individual or institution can amass should have a hard ceiling. I see explicit anti-authoritarianism as a necessary counterweight to our flawed nature, every exercise of political power is potentially harmful but through the ideas developed in the Enlightenment it can at least be contained and controlled.

Humans are inherently flawed and they're inherently kind. We're evolutionarily primed for competition and cooperation. Antisocial behaviour can be both inherent and environmental. I feel you might be setting up a false dichotomy when the motivations for political beliefs are often pretty complex and varied.

That is at best simplistic, and at worst completely inaccurate.

It is common for "liberal" governments, as in the UK at the moment, who are inclined to pass censorship, surveillance and control (of people's lives) laws. It is also common for "conservative" governments to do the same.

What is very common is for people to think themselves and people like themselves to be naturally kind and people unlike themselves as fundamentally flawed.

You’re talking about parties, while I was referring to ideology. And in ideological terms, while a HN comment isn’t scientific, I think I represented the ideology of conservatism and liberalism correctly here, so call out the social sciences over that.

Parties are associated with ideologies and supported by people who share their ideologies.

> I think I represented the ideology of conservatism and liberalism correctly here, so call out the social sciences over that.

If you are saying that you there is a correct definition within the social sciences, can you cite an authoritative source for that?

In any case you were talking about "the world view people have" and I think your definition correlates very poorly with those of people one would normally describe as "liberal" or "conservative". I am not even sure which mindset you associate with the "monitor and control" mentality. I think you mean its a conservative mindset, but a lot of the people I know who most strongly oppose it are conservative or Conservative (as in members of the party that has the word in its name).

This might be a US vs UK difference, of course. These are not words that are really used very consistently within societies, let alone between them.

> so call out the social sciences over that.

Happy to do so if that is what they say!

> If you are saying that you there is a correct definition within the social sciences, can you cite an authoritative source for that?

You can start at Wikipedia, for example, which quotes Thomas Hobbes:

> the state of nature for humans was "poor, nasty, brutish, and short", requiring centralized authority with royal sovereignty to guarantee law and order.

And further:

> Conservatism has been called a "philosophy of human imperfection" by political scientist Noël O'Sullivan, reflecting among its adherents a negative view of human nature and pessimism of the potential to improve it through 'utopian' schemes.

I don’t mean to insinuate "conservatives are evil and want to spy on citizens", but merely that they are generally more inclined to believe people are inherently incapable of behaving well, so they need to be nudged towards the right thing. Really believing this makes it far more likely to view government monitoring as a plausible solution to the problem they see. And again, I’m saying this without implying any judgement.

That's absurd. “Conservatives think people are bad, liberals think people are good” is primary-school-level reductionism.

Conservatives generally see people as capable of self-direction and argue for minimal interference because virtue needs room to act.

Progressives also tend to see people as capable of good, but assume outcomes depend on systems, so they push for more state involvement to improve those conditions.

Neither thinks humans are irredeemable. Both generally believe humans are inherently kind. The difference is whether you trust individuals or bureaucracies to manage human weakness.

Again, you are treating these terms as equal to their contemporary meaning in bipartisan US politics, when they are pretty well-defined terms for describing political ideology in general. Part of that is one of the pillars of conservatism, that humans are imperfect beings and thus need institutions to guide them. So i would say you’ve pretty much got it backwards. I’m not making this up, you can go and read up on this for yourself.

This is an even more absurd reply.

> Again, you are treating these terms as equal to their contemporary meaning in bipartisan US politics, when they are pretty well-defined terms for describing political ideology in general.

I’m neither American nor using US partisan definitions. I’m using the terms as they’re broadly understood in political theory and history.

> Part of that is one of the pillars of conservatism, that humans are imperfect beings and thus need institutions to guide them.

That’s a paternalist or technocratic premise, not a conservative one. Classical conservatism accepts human fallibility but trusts evolved social norms not bureaucracy to contain it. The belief that people must be centrally guided is the antithesis of that tradition.

> So i would say you’ve pretty much got it backwards. I’m not making this up, you can go and read up on this for yourself.

You might try the same. Hobbes wasn’t a conservative - he was an absolutist. Quoting him to define conservatism is like citing Marx to define capitalism.

I feel the entire philosophical distinction is tainted to the point where it should be retired and no longer discussed. It was useful as a thought experiment but folks in general have shown they are completely unable to understand this and instead treat it as some tribal dogma to which they must choose allegiance. It's become harmful.

I say it should be kept in the university library under lock and key, something philosophy professors can sit and debate in their spare time behind closed doors. /s

> Part of that is one of the pillars of conservatism, that humans are imperfect beings and thus need institutions to guide them

Who made this definition, left wing scholars? I doubt many conservative persons would say this.

You could just as well say that this is the central pillar of communism, that people need to be controlled since they are too evil if they are free to form companies and structure themselves. Or that this is the central pillar of social democracy, that without big taxes and central institutions to spend peoples money on things that benefits them they will make bad choices and not get the things they need.

Every government is about taking control from the people, I don't get what you mean that conservatives would do this more than any other group.

> Those with a conservative mindset

I have.

> will think of humans as fundamentally flawed, misguided creatures

I do.

> that need to be contained and steered so they don’t veer of the path

No. When people are misguided that will even more apply to those in power and with weapons. The fact that I view everyone as likely misguided means nobody should have any say over the other.

The modern trend to frame conservatism and authoritarianism as "the same thing" is very bad and leads to the normalization of authoritarianism.

>Those with a conservative mindset will think of humans as fundamentally flawed, misguided creatures that need to be contained and steered so they don’t veer of the path, which they are naturally inclined to; while those with a liberal mindset consider humans to be inherently kind and only misguided by circumstances and their environment.

It is also this mindset of wanting to micromanage things/people in hope for better performance. Those are the usually the ones pushing for scanning people's private messages. People like Stalin and Mao would love stuff like that. The urge to micro-manage is a very band-aid type of solution and not dealing with complexity of the situation.

These are American boxes. Skewed by American culture. Simplistic to the absurd extent where it can mean the tail leads the dog i.e. people will adopt some viewpoint they're actually at odds with deep down. More tribalism than any fundamental ground truth.

Poe's law strikes again. This has to be satire, right?

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