• VoxAliorum@lemmy.ml
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    24 hours ago

    I hate how these terms are used colloquially. Here are wikipedia’s definitions:

    Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values.

    Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property, and equality before the law.

    So no. The definitions are very different. Now you can say that liberals and conservatives are similar in your country or that you live in liberalism and therefore trying to keep it is conservatism, but there is no necessary overlap afaik.

    • culprit@lemmy.ml
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      20 hours ago

      Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values.

      Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property, and equality before the law.

      These are just different ways of describing support for the status quo with different flavor modifiers. The core of both is the protection of Capital from any threats from the left (aka socialism, the democracy of the workers, removing power from the owners of capital).

      This is why from a leftist perspective, they are essentially the same in that they both are against any actual emancipation of the working class if it threatens the existing power structures of capital owners.

    • Lunar@lemmy.ml
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      20 hours ago

      since we’re unironically using wikipedia as a source for some reason, you’re conflating liberalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism) with social liberalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism).

      you are the one using the terms colloquially. americans might use the terms conservative and liberal to represent republican voters and democrat voters respectively, but both of those ideologies are different flavors of liberalism as the rest of the world understands it.

    • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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      24 hours ago

      Conservatism can easily be a form of liberalism, and can even be considered progressive. It sounds contradictory but conservatism of progressive traditions, customs, and values is a component of many liberal societies. That’s your Teddy Roosevelts, the Southern New Deal Democrats, and the Blue Dog coalition.

      there is no necessary overlap afaik.

      As long as it is recognized that overlap isn’t a necessity, I think this is fine. The important thing to remember is that none of these terms are wholly exclusive to each other. Discussion just needs to agree to the context of used terms.

      Plenty of (big C) Conservatives want to conserve the social institutions of racial segregation or other regressive concepts. But you can also legitimately say Xi Xinping is a conservative in the context of the PRC. So there’s a wide field for the context of the terms to get stretched around and (mis)used and (mis)interpreted.

      Liberalism too. It is a concept that has existed and been applied to right wing monarchies and left wing republics. The entire French Revolution is exemplary in how these terms have no strict limit and so a baseline of agreed context is what is necessary.