Squeers,

Conservatism (preserving society with responsibility)shouldn't be a dirty word. Have you ever heard of progressive conservatism, ie. Classic Liberalism? That is what I'm into. All the leftie idealisms have failed.

DavidG,

That's why medieval times were more humane than it is today where we have become slaves to the corporates. Making us work our asses off with the Protestant work ethic, and deterring us from being creative. This is what J. R. R. Tolkien was on about.

There is a great book called "How to be Free" by Tom Hodgkinson who greatly admires the medieval period in Europe.

"Humans are capable, given the right nurturing, of living many different ways. History is replete with information about different civilizations and tribal groups." Is demonstrably true, David G…

There also seems to be something, consistently true in all such permutations – ever since one of our ancestors thought he didn't get his fair share of the mammoth his clan had just killed – which is an innate human propensity to acquire and maintain power over and superiority to others in our tribe.

Since prehistory this has been expressed physically, emotionally, materially, religiously, intellectually, financially and in every other possible way and combination.

This doesn't even have to be intrinsically bad – you don't have to be a tyrant or a dictator to think you're protecting the weak – but it does involve knowing and feeling, as well as having the capacity to enforce, your superiority of power over others.

All that changes in civilisations and tribal groups throughout history is the manner in which this is shared or expressed or lasts – tribes in New Guinea in the Amazon still have chiefs, feuds, wars and those who do the drudgery.

No one ever died wishing they'd spent more time at the office – or hunting bush meat with a bow and arrow or digging up root vegetables and grubs with a sharpened stick.

David. G,

Perhaps you'd like to get a hold of this book by Lewis Hyde - I'm sure you'd find it worthwhile. (I have it around here somewhere, and this discussion has spurred me into hunting it down and having another read)

http://www.lewishyde.com/publications/the-gift

(Btw, Squeers, I've enjoyed reading your thoughts on this thread :)

Constance,
I would love to be a conservative, and i think I am by nature, in fact we all are. But what do you mean by "preserving society with responsibility"?
If our society was sustainable/renewable and ethically defensible, I would want to preserve it. But my whole point is that it's nothing of the kind; it's profligate, destructive and morally bankrupt, such that the conservative Matthew Arnold wanted none of it, even at that early stage in its development.
In any case, classic liberalism has been hijacked by economic fundamentalism.
Edmund Burke was a classic liberal and condemned democratic liberalism?

Can you clarify any of this?

Thanks Poirot.

160 comments now and what more has been achieved?

What has Eisenstein's book brought to the table?

Does the world need radical change?

Are we poised on the edge of nuclear extinction?

Is capitalism a destructive system, one that brings human behaviour down to the LCD?

Is war something that is part of the human DNA or merely a brutal tactic employed by the insatiably greedy and powerful?

Could humans become peaceful and caring like most Buddhists are or will psychopaths and warmongers always lead us?

If humans became extinct, would it really matter?

Is indoctrination, once it's established, impossible to reduce or neutralize?

Do humans have an unconscious death wish?

Do humans really think or do they simply think that they think (surely our chaotic world demonstrates a total lack of real thought as well as a complete lack of maturity - surely the fact that we have reached the stage where we can completely destroy our planet tells us what manner of deranged and destructive creatures most humans are)?

Have a nice day!