Are conservative values close to Darwinism?

[malificent7]

Survival of the fittest. In an ideal world we would all be succesful in supporting ourselves and our families. Conservative values seek to encourage this independance which is good but it also supports a more ruthless aporoach to life which i cant get in board with. It simplistically seeks to claim that what you earn is in proportion to how hard you work.

I have to reject this as an ex teacher i worked incredibly hard but was paid a pittance.

I truly think that a measure of a great society is how we treat our most vulnerable. Aibu to think that we are not all destined to be super succesful and rich evem if we work hard.

I also believe that no man is an island and that we all need a supportive state to stem excessive greed and ruthlessness.

Private charitable initiatives are more efficient than state programs.

But sometimes you have to pray to their chosen god.

Or consider the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home.

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/03/mass-grave-of-babies-and-children-found-at-tuam-orphanage-in-ireland

Yes very true there are few atheist driven charities, although if memory serves Christopher Hitchins and Richard Dawkins set one up.

However I wouldn't entirely write off the social cohesion and mutual support those in faith based communities enjoy.

There are also a legion of feminist charities that do a colossal amount for people which I'd argue are pretty secular in nature.

Just look at all the hard work and funds raised for breast cancer. That's not a state funded program and is tremendously important.

There are plenty of models out there on how to succeed in these things. My main issue with socialism is that undoubtedly it appeals to those with a social conscience and compassion and sells them the lie that all you have to do is vote once every few years and the state will sort it out.

The problem it never does, and I know in Marx the idea is to have no state at all, but in every functional example where socialism is dominant in government the whole things goes to hell in a handbasket, and also likes to grow the power of the state. It doesn't happen sometimes, but literally Every. Single. Time. Yet no matter how much data accrues to point to that fact we never seem to learn the lesson.

You can point to the odd success story of a socialist policy. Like the NHS for example is tough to argue that it's not extremely successful, and without a doubt the people within it are paid nowhere near close the value they provide society.

However these sorts of things can only happen under the umbrella of sane economic policies.

Socialism/communism is great for small communities but it does not scale well at all.

I think you're confusing what Darwin said with what people say what Darwin said. His message was about adapting

I hope you don't teach English.

Can we stop having a go at the OP? We know what they meant and the tone of political debate is never going to improve in this country if we're constantly slinging muck at each other. I understand it's emotive, but these subjects are hardly simple and easy. If they were we'd have this shit cracked eons ago.

Helpimitchy, I don't think they were referring to the sick and disabled. I think they were referring to those individuals who gave up work because benefits simply paid more than working and this was rife during the last labour government.

You can't really blame the people doing it to an extent because why, if didn't have to, would you choose to earn less by working? The blame lies on the government for making these benefits too generous in the first place thus creating a "hand out" coulture.

Those in work have also been trapped by tax credits, again because they earn more in tax credits by doing under a certain amount of hours then they would if they worked more hours. The amount of people who could probably have progressed in their jobs or taken on more hours but don't see it worth while is awful. They are trapped in a state of they are better off doing less because to do more will not worth while financially.

I thought it wasn't Darwin who said "survival of the fittest" it was Spencer, or was it Wallace? Can't remember.

Anyway as Chaz said, "fittest" in this context is the the most fitting not the biggest/strongest/toughest richest.

Anyway, whatever.

People using evolution to justify treating people badly is no better than using the Bible, Koran etc. to justify treating people badly IMO

It's impossible to have a conversation, isn't it?

There are clearly parallels. Laissez Faire says leave the market alone. That's the same principle as leaving animals alone. Naturalists would say, don't save the poor, weak bunny from the fox because then the weak genes, which would be bred out, will be passed down.

'Fitness' in this context wouldn't be money or power, it would be advancement of us, humans. So the argument is that, for example, socialism stifles innovation.

I'm making no sense but I know what I mean

The thing is there is a belief that the state should be absolutely responsible for everything, somehow operating out of infinite resources.

I don't agree with that. When someone posts about 'I just saw a squirrel who's maternity leave has been cut short, AIBU to post something snotty about why haven't the government noticed this, fixed it and removed all squirrel related maternity inequalities?'

I think if you feel strongly about squirrels, what are you doing about it? Which charities are you supporting? What programmes do you volunteer at? Which organisations have you written to or fundraised for?

Instead of expecting to be spoonfed endless resources from a finite amount of money. I've sat at the local government meetings of people staring at the charts showing need compared to resources and tried to find ways to make it work. It doesn't. There will never be enough resources for the state to spoonfeed everyone. It necessitates some getting up off the bum and doing for others who can't do for themselves.

The Victorian age was one of massive philanthropy, huge charity movements, massive social reform, many of our modern systems have their roots in people with no welfare state at all who found ways to make things change without demanding it got done for them.

The Victorian era was a time of massive poverty, death and disease.

Obviously. Hence people like Dr Barnado etc. Who did things to change it.

It reminds me of A Christmas Carol. What's that quote about the 'surplus population'? Because no amount of beneficent charity is going to replace state support. Not least because people would rather support donkeys than people.

Barnardos didn't end it. State funded public health initiatives ended it

I'll see your Victorian England and raise you the USSR, Maoist China, and even modern day Venezuela. No system is fair, because life itself isn't fair.

If you see something in the world you don't like, round up fellow people who feel the same and raise awareness, fundraise and endeavour to tackle it.

Petitioning the state to point their guns at the rest of us who may either disagree with you or happen to care about different things from you and to use that threat of violence to force us to pay for the things you care about is a violation of the non aggression principle, so don't ever try to assume moral superiority by using the threat of violence to get what you want.

This is a quote from Thatcher, writing about her experiences of the 1930s, a decade which saw mass poverty, unemployment and a huge gulf between rich and poor. Essentially, her family's business thrived during that period, and she really did believe that it was hard work and personal qualities that led people to succeed (it doesn't hurt if you marry a millionaire of course.)

'A sympathetic insight into what I would later come to think of as 'capitalism' or the 'free enterprise system'. Whereas for my ... political contemporaries it was the alleged failure of that system in the Great Depression that convinced them that something better had to be found, for me the reality of business in our shop and the bustling centre of Grantham demonstrated the opposite ... what I learned in Grantham ensured that abstract criticisms I would hear of capitalism came up against the reality of my own experience: I was thus inoculated against the conventional economic wisdom of post-war Britain.'

So, her own experience against the experience of the Jarrow marchers, the homeless, the people living in slums... and the result was Thatcherism (probably a misnomer as there was a strand of anti Keynesian free market small state neoliberalism in the Conservative party from the 1940s onwards, it's just that it came to be central to Conservative thinking when she became party leader in 1975.)

Ok, I see it's utterly futile trying to have any kind of sensible discussion.

Cross post with two extremely sensible posts, sorry.

There aren't two options though; laissez faire or communism.

Since we're talking about the animal kingdom, there isn't just bees (all for the hive, interdependence, die for the cause) and polar bears (will kill the young, solitary). There's vampire bats. Reciprocal altruism plus a dose of memory to stop 'cheating'. They're really interesting!

Altruism. Cooperation.

That's how we got here.

*Altruism. Cooperation.

That's how we got here*

And that's how we will survive.

Contrary to all these supposedly intelligent people discussing some things on this thread.

Let's see Theresa May have a double amputation, her husband to have an affair with his secretary, her hedge fund to liquidise . Let's see all these so called intelligent people with all the answers survive without the support around them, those miracles we call human beings!

People! Look after the people and one another. The culture of conservative values that's fine and all well and good. But CONSERVATIVES suck.

MaidOfStars and one pithy response I could make is so has competition and conflict.

However I would be falling into the same trap. The entire sum of human development cannot be accurately distilled into a pair of words. The sum total of our staggering achievements and lowest points is a study of such colossal and incalculable a scope anyone who claimed to be an authority I would call a liar.

We are just stumbling about in the dark really trying to speak eruditely on it. Myself especially. I can really empathise with socialists, it packages up the totality and tries to make it fairer and kinder, and honestly who wouldnt want that?

Trouble is when the tyres hit the tarmac we end up shooting off into the precise opposite direction we are trying to get to. I have just decided to get out of the bus and make my own way there. I am happy to help anyone I come across whom have fallen by the wayside, but I cannot in good conscience get on the socialist bus that careens off away from the way it advertises it is going. Yes my feet hurt and it's tiring but I know getting on it takes me further away from where I want to go.