OK, I want to return to this dangerous nonsense.

Van proposes that we are a bird with two wings—a common misperception.

Here's why he's wrong. https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1101193039832383488

I’ll set aside for now the lack of judgment it shows to appear at CPAC in the first place.

The real problem is, it reinforces a dominant misapprehension about the nature of conservatism and progressivism, and the nature of the current cultural struggle we're in.

Conservatism and progressivism are treated like naturally occurring identities—as if some people are just conservative, and others are just progressive.

But they aren't. These are ideologies.

SITUATIONAL ideologies.

Conservatism and progressivism exist on a spectrum, but to reduce them to a binary for simplicity’s sake, let's say they are two ways of interacting with an existing order.

Specifically, with whatever one currently exists.

Conservatism is, in its essence, an ideology that desires to keep things as they are, and to make slow and calculated adjustment, or no adjustments, to that underlying order.

Conservatism sits at the center of the spectrum.

It is only as good as the order upon which it sits.

Progressivism is, at its essence, an ideology that desires to change the existing order, sometimes dramatically.

Progressivism points in a direction out, away from the existing order.

It is only as good as that direction.

Fixing the thread (dang it). https://twitter.com/juliusgoat/status/1101478782358167552?s=21