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[Music] thank you [Music] understanding the conservative mind this is going to be a two-part series part two will be called understanding the liberal mind this two-part series will explore the foundations of conservativism and liberalism we're beginning with the conservative mind but this is going to be a very even-handed approach and then next week we'll look at the liberal mind the goal of this series is not to Advocate any kind of political positions or to teach you any kind of ideology but it's to get you the deepest possible most genuine sense of the opposite of whatever your worldview is so if you're a liberal this is the episode for you because as a liberal you do not understand the conservative mind and if you're Conservative then next week's episode will be the one for you because you don't understand the liberal mind our aim in this series is epistemological it is not political I will not be advocating for any ideology or any worldview here I will not be telling you which one is better than the other one that's just not what we're interested in here this is going to be a spiral Dynamics kind of tier 2 perspective this will be non-partisan and I'm going to try to make it as non-judgmental as possible I will be presenting the most charitable and steel manned position for both worldviews this is what is missing right now I feel like in our political discussions is that what we have is we have both sides straw Manning each other to death and neither one really understanding what the other worldview entails and what's appealing about it it's almost laughable to tell a conservative that there's something appealing about liberalism and to tell a liberal that there's something appealing about conservativism but of course obviously there must be something appealing about both of them otherwise people wouldn't be so ideological and so passionate about their World Views so the goal of this series is to show you the value of both World Views now a couple of warnings are in order here if you're a liberal or a progressive you do not understand the conservative worldview you have a straw man of it you don't understand the emotional appeal of conservativism you don't really understand why people subscribe to it you just dismiss them as stupid or ideological or as grifters or whatever kind of excuses and justifications you have for not really going deep in and studying the conservative mind and of course vice versa if you're conservative now it's arbitrary which we're going to talk about first I just chose to talk about conservatism first because most of my audience is pretty liberal so I feel like this is a good way to start off this series but I could have started the other way around so if you only watch one of these episodes you're going to get a skewed perspective of what I think about politics because you're going to say oh Leo you're being so biased I'm not being biased it's just I have to cover them in a linear order and we have to start with one of them right so you got to watch both of them to see uh the balance that will take place here I'm gonna really try my best to be balanced and to not inject any of my own personal biases into these descriptions the way that I've done in the past when I talk about politics the key here is to understand that both of these World Views are not logical even though they masquerade as being the most logical one they're emotionally held at the core they function emotionally and so we have to look at what's the emotional appeal of these World Views what makes them juicy because they are juicy people get lost in them people turn these World Views into a kind of religion so let's get started on that now a couple of notes Here I'm going to be saying conservative a lot and I'm going to be saying liberal a lot what do I mean by these terms I'm using them in a very broad sense by conservative I simply mean anyone who's right of Center the far right the alt-right neocons Republicans Libertarians classical liberals ethnonationalists nationalists Nazis fascists religious fundamentalists theocrats anarcho-capitalists paleoconservatives and the like and by liberal I simply mean anyone left of center including neoliberals Democrats progressives socialists marxists communists Democratic socialists social Democrats hippies tankies greens social justice Warriors postmodernists anarchists utopians and the like so very very general here uh we're just kind of drawing the distinction between the liberal and the conservative mind and what does that really entail and why does the Mind bifurcate in this manner you might wonder like is there a Common Thread between all of the different strands of conservativism that exist around the world because there's so many different countries there's there's China there's Japan there's Russia there's Iran you know there's Brazil and there's conservativism in all these different countries which is different from the specific flavor of conservatism that exists in America so this makes you wonder like why is that what's the common thread there because if you just Define conservativism in a sort of American narrow sense of like um you know being pro-gun and being uh anti-abortion and some of these sort of like policy positions that are just specific to America or specific to this era or Century that we're living in this doesn't get you a deep enough understanding of the conservative mind because the conservative mind as a sort of a theme as an attitude goes back thousands of years it's not something that's modern and likewise for the liberal mind there were liberals who existed thousands of years ago and there were conservatives too and so what distinguished them because it wasn't issues like gun rights or abortion obviously it was something broader and deeper than that that's what we're going to be looking at uh a lot of the political discussions that we're having today on YouTube and on social media they're so narrow they're so short-sighted um they're focused on like you know what's the what's the hot outrageous thing that was said yesterday and we lose sight of of the deeper foundations of what's really going on with uh politics uh also we should note that political ideologies and parties are fluid relative and they evolve over time which was why narrow characterizations of liberal conservative are problematic because they're going to change throughout your lifetime uh political realignments happen every 50 years or so and we're sort of going through a political realignment right now especially in America with conservativism that's what's been happening over the last five or ten years so make a distinction between narrow and Broad formulations of right and left here we're interested in the broadest possible formulation not any specific policy proposal not any specific party or flavor of the of the year or of the decade uh we're interested in transcending country era and party and today's conservativism is really giving people a distorted idea of what conservativism is American conservativism this Maga movement that is been happening over the last six or seven years or so um a lot of it is hardly even conservative that's what's so Twisted about it it's just disconnected from many traditional conservative tenets for example that the defense of traditional institutions a lot of the Maga movement is actually anti that it's anti-establishment it's um anti many institutions and on the other hand it's Pro other institutions so it's a very kind of a mixed schizophrenic bag of stuff and it's really not an intelligent formulation of conservativism and this is a problem because you you listen to this and either you subscribe to it or you're looking at it from the sidelines and wondering like how can these these people have lost their minds it's so unintelligent and then you start to think that all conservativism is equally unintelligent and that's just not true I think that's been lost in the last 10 years or so of what's been happening with American conservative politics is that it's just like like the conservativism that has been so popular in the last decade has been so grossly unintelligent that it makes genuine conservatives feel and look bad I don't envy these genuine conservatives I mean I'm not one but if I was one I would be ashamed and embarrassed for what has happened to conservativism over the last 10 years so just keep that in mind be careful here um how did I reach this point in my thinking about politics well basically as a liberal and Progressive myself that's kind of like what I naturally skew towards that's the kind of uh family that I grew up in uh we were mostly pretty Progressive and pretty liberal uh you know one day I just sat down and I simply asked myself why do people subscribe to conservativism I wanted to genuinely understand conservatives how does anyone find this appealing I mean because obviously people find it appealing but like why that's the question we're really interested in here and we're going to be asking the same question in the next episode about liberals as well you know why does anyone find liberalism appealing for many conservatives this doesn't make sense well it all starts with wanting to genuinely understand the answer to this question so let me ask you do you actually want to know do you this is where we get the real answers this is where we get genuine understanding from because most people in the political sphere most political commentators they don't genuinely want to understand why anyone finds liberalism or conservativism appealing they're just spouting ideology at you and they're just engaging in basically a partisan food fight but this doesn't lead to genuine understanding so my question to you is do you genuinely want to know and if you do then you have to set aside easy answers such as at all well people they're just stupid people find appealing because they're just stupid no that's that's not a serious inquiry that's not a serious answer half of the world's population does not subscribe to this worldview simply because they're stupid or because they're grifters or because someone's paying them money or because they just been have been brainwashed into it there's something much deeper going on but you have to want to understand it and the reason people don't want to understand it is because if you actually open your mind to what I'll be teaching you here to this genuine inquiry what you'll discover is that your ideas about liberals and conservatives are very wrong what you have is you have brainwashing group think and you have ideology even if you're a progressive and you're very advanced in in your Consciousness and in your thinking you still have a lot of political ideology that's running you running your mind preventing you from really understanding half of the world's population when it comes to politics but there's no way to go beyond this unless you genuinely want to understand most political actors would rather stick to their ideology then genuinely understand the other side and from this basically all of our political problems stem and if you don't want to genuinely understand this then how can we move forward how can we have a healthy politics when you don't understand half the country or half the world so the key to making some progress here as a liberal or a progressive is to realize that there exists an intelligent formulation of conservativism the question is what is that formulation if you're telling yourself that there doesn't exist an intelligent formulation of conservativism that's how you know you're fooling yourself so I'll be presenting that formulation to you right now to get us going I have a few quotations quote number one quote to be conservative is to prefer the familiar to the unknown to prefer the tried to the untried fact to mystery the actual to the possible the limited to the unbounded the near to the distant the sufficient to the super abundant the convenient to the perfect present laughter to utopian Bliss end quote that's by Michael okay shot and the second quote is quote people Embrace political conservativism at least in part because it serves to reduce fear anxiety and uncertainty to avoid change disruption and ambiguity and to explain order and justify inequality among groups and individuals end quote that's from the University of Virginia website now I'm going to go through a very long list of features of the conservative worldview and attitude I sat down for several weeks and brainstormed this list of features I studied various conservative thinkers to really get to the to the bottom of what's what's fueling their mind why are they subscribing to this worldview here's what I came up with it's going to be a very very long list uh it's it's surprisingly deep and comprehensive so number one is the conservative mind is more sensitive to fear and threat than the liberal mind it reacts more strongly to risk and danger this is not merely an attitudinal thing this is actually there's been scientific research that has been done on this there's actually Neuroscience that shows that the conservative brain structures the actual structures and Neurology of the brain is different in the conservative mind than the liberal mind centers of the brain that react to fear like the amygdala are enlarged or interconnected in deeper ways than they are in the liberal mind that's pretty amazing to consider so this goes way deeper than merely some ideology or some set of narrow political positions like on abortion or gun rights or freedom of speech or whatever this has to do fundamentally with how your brain is wired if you're more sensitive to fear and threat for example some brains are wired in such a way that they're more sensitive to loud noises now if you're one of these types of brains and Minds that's more sensitive to loud noises then think about how you're going to be reacting to loud environments and noises for the rest of your life you're going to behave differently when it comes to going to loud parties and nightclubs and bars you're going to behave differently when your neighbor and their children are making a bunch of noise you're going to react differently and your friends around you may not understand why you're reacting in the ways that you're reacting they might think that you're overreacting that you're nuts constantly complaining about the noise because to them their brain is literally desensitized they don't have as good hearing or as good processing of that signal of the noise you see it sure helps to know that about people to understand how they're reacting well this similar situation is happening with conservatives and liberals the conservative mind also grew up generally speaking now again these are going to be generalizations right we're generalizing so all these points that I'm going to be going at there's going to be like 100 different points on this list um not every single one of them is going to apply to every conservative there's going to be exceptions of course but generally speaking the conservative mind grew up in a harsher stricter environment than the liberal mind more rural less developed areas of the world or the country generally poorer less resources available or the Mind grew up in one of these harsh survival environments but it benefited from the status quo right so imagine for example growing up in Nigeria very difficult survival situation for most people in Nigeria or in Iran or even in Russia these countries it's a lot harder to survive in these countries than it is in America or Western democracies so there's a lot more survival pressures put upon the mind in those environments it's a harsher more brutal area to survive in and now imagine you grew up in one of these environments but you happen to be born just by luck into a wealthy family because every country has wealthy families even the poorest countries have wealthy families you just got lucky and you roll the dice and you were born into a wealthy family in Nigeria that wealthy family is benefiting from the status quo because if we equalized all the wealth in Nigeria that wealthy family would lose its benefits and in the harsh survival conditions that it's growing you know up in uh it needs those benefits those benefits are not just always luxury a lot of times it's a matter of life and death it's a matter of sending your children to school or not sending them to University or not giving them opportunities to leave the country in the future or not and these are tend to be limited opportunities not everybody in the country can benefit from this if it's a underdeveloped country especially but you know what even in America there are still limited resources there's still limited opportunities not every child in America is going to go to the best schools there's not enough good schools not enough good teachers not all of them are going to get to the best universities not all of them are going to get you know uh all the video games they want and all the best healthiest food and the best clothing and so forth so we're dealing with limited resources here fundamentally any country it's just you know there's relative degrees of it um but even in the wealthiest countries this is a problem so if you're benefiting from the status quo there's a survival interest your mind is going to be biased of course towards justifying the status quo liking the status quo how much you like the status quo very much just depends very simply on how much it benefits you if it doesn't benefit you then you're going to be against it you're going to want change and if it does benefit you then you're probably going to be for it and you're going to justify it that's how the mind works that's self-biased go see my episode called Self Bias that explains that so this is generally what's happening with the conservative mind now of course this doesn't mean that the liberal mind doesn't also do these things right so again be careful in this episode I'm only focusing on the conservative attitude in worldview there's a lot of the same dynamics that also apply to the liberal mind and we'll cover those in the next episode so I promise you this is going to be very balanced as balances I can make it the conservative worldview also correlates with conscientiousness and closeness these are two of the five Big Five personality traits so the traits are conscientiousness openness versus closeness neuroticism and there's a few other ones I'll have an episode about the Big Five personality um traits in the future Jordan Peterson talks about it a lot it's it's a popular model within psychology that explains lots of different differences in human behavior so um the only traits oh introversion extroversion is also one of those traits so like for example introversion extroversion does not correlate with liberal or conservative there's not a good correlation there but when it comes to conscientiousness and closeness or openness which is just the opposite of closeness um there is a strong correlation there so Liberals are more open-minded conservatives are more closed-minded this is not a bias of mine there's actually been scientific studies on this you can go find right this is not just an opinion that I have as a liberal um this is a core feature of what explains the conservative attitude is closeness and be careful closeness is not even though you know I talk about radical but mine is a lot and I talk about it as a very positive trait and generally it is especially when it comes to the spiritual work that I talk about and the philosophy that I do but closeness by itself is not not just a pure negative there are positive aspects to closeness there are negative aspects to open-mindedness which we'll discuss in the next episode when it comes to liberals um and then conscientiousness is basically a measure of well let me explain what what is the the measure of openness versus closeness this is a measure of how open your mind is to new ideas basically and the measure of conscientiousness is basically um how dutiful is your mind and your personality type are you a sort of a rebel and you like breaking rules and norms and being an iconoclast and contrarian or do you like to fit in and to follow the rules and the norms because you genuinely value them so conscientiousness is that aspect of the mind that likes to follow the rules and then the Liberals are more like the rule Breakers they're more transgressive uh another aspect of conservative worldview is in general the conservative mind takes life more seriously it's more anal so you can think of it as sort of like lacks versus anal anal retentive they call it in psychoanalytic tradition the sort of Freudian tradition um think about it like this if you grow up in a harsh environment where survival is difficult you don't have a lot of leeway to live life willy-nilly any way you want there's a very specific way you have to live life in order to survive the attitude there is that life is not just a fun game life is a matter of life and death and if you don't live it properly according to the proper principles and rules you're going to die again if you look at third world countries this becomes more Stark it's a little bit less obvious in places like America but still a factor in America you could still live a miserable life and die very easily in America if you don't live life according certain principles and rules and if you just treat Life as a silly game so the conservative mind tends to be stricter with itself it has to work in a strict way in order to survive that's its survival strategy the conservative mind is grounded in pragmatic versus idealistic it has a strong need for order consistency and stability in life imagine that you lack the order and consistency and stability in your life such that you just feel uncomfortable you feel anxious and scared you don't know what to do that's how life is for many conservatives if they're missing that order and consistency that rules and institutions provide to them these rules can come from family they can come from government they can come from a boss they can come from various kinds of leaders maybe in the army or in your sports team they can come from teachers and mentors they can come from religious leaders and authorities the pope or the priest the rabbi the Imam the spiritual Guru and so forth so just think about it as a progressive or as a liberal think about the difference of living life just like a sort of a free spirit where you don't listen to anybody you just do whatever you want right you just kind of like live there's no rules you don't have to go to work you don't have to pay your bills just kind of like willy-nilly go you know do whatever you want you wake up in the morning there's no routine there's no schedule just go and do whatever you want for you as a liberal and Progressive this might sound like the ideal life you might be like Leo tell me how to create this life this sounds like heaven for you that sounds like heaven but for many conservatives understand that this is actually hell and you yourself might not properly understand your own mind you might think that this is heaven but that's just because you've never actually lived this way for a long time you know it's nice to have that kind of infinite freedom for a week or for a month you know like you remember going to school and you'd get the summer vacation it would be so amazing after all the rigors of school especially if you studied hard at school you would get the summer off you'd get like two or three months off in summer and it would be so amazing there's there was like no rules no homework do whatever you want wake up whenever you want go to sleep whenever you want you know if assuming your parents were very permissive the way that mine were like literally my parents were so permissive I could do anything I wanted um like during the summer breaks especially and that that felt so amazing right but uh maybe you felt this is that like by the end of that summer you're starting to get all sloppy you've been eating terribly you've been going to bed at weird times and it like your your life is just sort of like it's um it's going from this well-structured machine to this this floppy like slug that's like slug that's just been gorging on food right and it's just like laying there like Jabba the Hutt lifestyle um and then you actually start to hate yourself you don't feel good about yourself you stop going to the gym you stop doing your homework you stop brushing your teeth you stop um organizing and cleaning your room you stop washing your clothes you've had moments like this in your life where you just kind of like let everything go and it can feel it can feel very good when you do that from a place where you know you've been very ordered and strict with yourself but if you live that way for too long it can get really problematic it can lead to addiction you get addicted to porn to food to drugs to sex to masturbation um and eventually you become depressed you lose all your motivation for life life becomes meaningless for you and then eventually it can lead to suicide so be careful assuming that just having infinite freedom is actually the highest good there needs to be a balance between the freedom in your life and also some structure order and consistency waking up on time having a morning routine going to the gym eating healthy these kinds of things this is what genuine conservatism is about it's not about gun rights and freedom of speech and some Mega nonsense right it's really about this this is what the foundation of conservativism boils down to the conservative mind finds comfort in order and routine I was actually just listening to an audio version of the history of Russia the entire history of Russia from um from like Ivan the Terrible all the way to to Gorbachev so I was listening to this and uh um it's interesting because in Russian history there's this very interesting sort of like schizophrenic movement between um utopian liberalism on the one hand and then like strict authoritarianism on the other hand and so there's there's this one story of Tsar Nicholas the first um there were there were there was like a line of Russian tsars some of them were very LAX like Peter the Great he was very uh Cosmopolitan he traveled to Europe he imported a lot of European culture into Russia he tried to modernize Russia and make it more European so in this sense he was like very Progressive even though he was still you know an authoritarian Tsar um that was uh Peter the Great and then um there was there was a line of various SARS that were as liberal as him and as Progressive as him as Cosmopolitan and open-minded as him but then there were other tsars because you know people in the in the royal family were born with different temperaments different personalities their brains were wired differently so Tsar Nicholas who was a much later tsar of of that Royal Line um he was very much the opposite of this he was closed he was very orderly very consistent he would wake up on at the same time he would um he would have all the servants arrange everything around him to like to perfectly match the order that he wanted everything to be in you know the room the the military dress when he would go um to inspect the Russian military every Soldier had to wear the uniform that he designed he would design the milk so he was so anal that he would sit and he would spend hours and months designing military uniforms for every Soldier and he would take great pride in the uniforms he designed and then he himself would wear these uniforms he had you know a bunch of different uniforms for all these different occasions he would go on parades this was like his favorite part of being um a Tsar is working with the military and organizing the military and just like you know being very very like micromanaging meticulous about it and he found um he found peace in that structure and Order and that's actually why a lot of people find the military appealing you know to many progressives and liberals to us the military doesn't seem very appealing because it's so regimented it's so strict like there's no room for improvisation and creativity and Artistry and poetry in the military right like you got to do everything by the numbers and somebody's giving you all the orders but what you have to understand is a progressive is that for many people for probably half the world population they actually enjoy that regimentation because honestly you can find peace in that you can find stability in that um and Tsar Nicholas the first um he was a tar during the later stages of the uh Russian Empire which then you know collapsed um it was basically collapsing under his watch and all the chaos that was happening with the collapse of serfdom the freeing of the serfs um in the in the late 1800s that was happening in Russia and the early rise of of marxists communist and socialist thought that was happening right around that time which ultimately led to the um to the Bolshevik Revolution and to the overthrow of the tsar and um the end of the monarchy basically and then you know the the beginning of the whole Soviet communist era um he was dealing with that transition it was a very very chaotic transition many people were killed many people were jailed and imprisoned and so forth and he was trying to keep a lid on that whole you know powder cake to keep the whole country from just exploding into chaos and so for him dealing with assassination attempts and all these you know saboteurs and marxists that were trying to take down the the the tsard at the time at the time the monarchy um he was dealing with all this and just think about how stressful that was for him from his point of view imagine you're him dealing with all that chaos what's the antidote to chaos his order it's routine it's structure and that's what he found appealing so think about examples in your own life where this happens to you think about maybe some of your friends who are just kind of like very sloppy in the way they live life they don't have a routine they don't wake up on time they don't go to the gym they can't maintain a habit they eat garbage you go to their house and there's pizza boxes all around their house it smells there's dirty laundry that's two months old they haven't made their bed in a month this kind of stuff think about these kinds of friends that you might have think about when you enter a room like that that's just disorganized there's pizza boxes everywhere think about how that makes you feel about the person and yourself do you want to be in that environment what's your tolerance for Chaos versus order in your own life for example how long can you go without cleaning your house can you go six months can you go a year how does that make you feel on the other hand how does it make you feel when you organize everything your closet is organized your office space is organized it's not an accident that Jordan Peterson tells you to clean your room that's literally how a conservative mind thinks everything is about order and structure and that can be powerful for some people just starting to clean their room that can be a baby step that leads you to then putting the structures in place in your life you know you clean your room you start there then you go from that to start going to the gym lifting some weights then you go from that to cleaning your car then you go from that to getting your your business finances in order you know doing your taxes and all that kind of stuff and then you just kind of build on that and build on that and build on that and 10 20 years later you have an amazing life you're a millionaire from doing that that's possible other features of the conservative mind the conservative mind is more safety oriented rather than adventurous the liberal mind wants to go out there on an adventure the conservative mind doesn't want that he wants Safety and Security it values that more than interesting experiences and fun adventures because Adventures can be dangerous and risky you know has a friend of yours ever told you that to do something like just kind of like on a lark on a whim like hey let's go to Colombia I had a friend of mine a pickup buddy of mine who's like hey Leah let's just go to Columbia and like spend a month there banging women and I'm just like Colombia like that's kind of dangerous um but he actually did that he went he lived in Columbia for several months just having sex with women in Colombia you know that's adventure and it's dangerous Colombia can be dangerous there's reports nowadays of westerners being you know kidnapped in Colombia held for ransom who knows what will happen there but hey I'm sure it was fun too right I missed out on that Adventure if I went to Columbia for six months and just had sex with a bunch of women that would be like that would probably be like one of the most memorable experiences in my entire life that would be one of the most adventurous things I've ever done I didn't do that I was I was conservative in that moment I was safety oriented I'm like I don't know I don't know it sounds kind of sketchy number one number two you know I got I got like actualized I don't work to work on if I go to Columbia that's going to distract from my business that's going to distract from my personal development work other work that I'm doing you know my meditation and so forth whatever uh the conservative mind has a lower tolerance for exploration how much do you value exploration or are you the type of person that just eats the same food and goes to the same places talks to the same people and you don't like change for example are you able to eat the same food for a month straight every day and not get bored of it or do you need more variety see this is a this is a feature of your personality this is wired into your how your personality works this is not something you choose about yourself this is just how you're how you're wired the conservative mind values confidence certainty convention and sureness in one's beliefs the conservative mind does not like having its beliefs undermined questioned it doesn't want uncertainty he wants confidence which connects with that kind of closeness the mind is closed when it's closed it's confident in its sense of reality it's certain about what it knows now of course there's huge downsides to that but there's also upsides to that if you're always doubting yourself it's hard to make any progress in your life if you're constantly doubting yourself it's hard to run a business successfully it's hard to begin a project and to stick with that project because you're going to begin a project and you're going to doubt yourself and then you're going to quit and a lot of progressives and liberals have this problem people who are overly adventurous overly um thrill seeking need lots of variety uh they love Artistry and so forth you know for many artists and I struggle with my myself as an artist is that it's hard to just begin an art project and then to finish it to see it through to completion and so what you have in your life is just a string of of art projects that you began and never completed anything and then you have nothing to show for it and also you're broke because you can't deliver and sell a project to somebody or a piece of art to somebody that isn't finished isn't polished but the problem with some of these art projects that they can take a long time it can take you a year to finish an art project whether it's writing a book or making a video game or making a piece of music or whatever can take you a year or more to do that making a film for example um but then you get bored with it halfway through you don't like the grind of it you don't like the discipline it takes to actually make a film making a film on the one hand is a very artistic endeavor but on the other hand making a film is a very technical Endeavor you have to wake up on time you have to work really hard you know people in the film industry work long hours on these film shoots under grueling conditions in order to make films same thing with making video games so there is value in being able to discipline yourself and to be strict with yourself and to be consistent and to follow through on something that you plan for yourself and if you're not able to do that you're just not going to be successful in life which explains why a lot of the most successful people are conservatives not progressives because progressives tend to be so idealistic chasing adventure and Artistry and just open-mindedness and philosophy and this kind of stuff that um they don't have what it takes to just do the work necessary to produce a finished product that can be sold for money that will actually benefit somebody you know all of your poetry and your philosophy and um your fancy you know art projects and all this what does it amount to does it actually help somebody in the world so in this sense the conservative is more pragmatic and there's value in that for the conservative mind its sense of identity is deeply tied to Family Heritage tradition culture subculture tribe nation and fitting in so imagine actually experiencing Joy from fitting in to these larger systems and structures that are already pre-made for you when you're born in society some of us love to challenge all these norms and systems but imagine that you get a kick out of fitting in rather than being a contrarian and your whole sense of identity is actually tied up with that tied up with your bloodline with your race with your ethnicity with the cuisine that your culture has invented with traditions and then you try to honor all of those and to execute them as good as as well as you can rather than inventing your own right see for the for the progressive we want to invent our own traditions and experiment with all sorts of different ways of living and odd subcultures invent our own cultures and this kind of stuff for the conservative it's the opposite they get the joy in fitting in with all that stuff the conservative mind has its roots in the past and seeks permanence the conservative mind has higher levels of dogmatism Conformity and less openness to new experience and uncertainty the conservative mind is Traditions is Traditional Values oriented the conservative mind experiences anxiety and intimidation from situations of uncertainty and ambiguity that's a very deep point all elaborate upon a little bit later in this episode the conservative mind has a smaller sphere of compassion it's less empathetic again this is not me demonizing the conservative mind it might sound like this is a negative thing don't look at it that way this is actually a rather objective metric you can measure the extent of one's empathy by measuring the circle of compassion I call it the sphere of compassion the circle of compassion that one has who do you apply your empathy and compassion to for example do you apply it to animals do you apply to only cats and dogs or do you apply it to Insects too do you apply it to um what races of people do you apply to white people black people Asian people too um do you apply to people who are in the opposite of your political party so do you apply empathy to conservatives if you're a liberal and to liberals if you're conservative do you apply it to um to criminals do you apply to Nazis so how large is your circle of compassion so for the conservative relative to the liberal it's smaller it's tighter it's more constrained there's a stronger Dynamic of in-group versus out-group My Tribe versus the others out there the core potentially dangerous and must be uh defended against and look sometimes other tribes out there will kill you sometimes they are dangerous and sometimes you do have to protect your tribe against you know the Nazi tribe next door so it's not just all paranoia um don't classify the conservative worldview as just paranoid it can be paranoid in its extremes but you have to understand that there's healthy and unhealthy formulations of both the conservative and the liberal or Progressive worldview right so being very sensitive to threat this is a problem when you're in a safe environment it's dysfunctional but if you're in a dangerous environment if you're in a war zone if you're dealing with a dangerous deadly virus if you're dealing with Nazis compassion and empathy can get you killed you understand that because you're going to have compassion for the Nazi but the Nazi won't have compassion for you he'll send you and your family to the gas Chambers so you have to be careful about that because the conservative mind grows up in a tougher harsher survival environment life is just more difficult and therefore there's less room for compassion if you are a cheetah on the African Savannah you need to hunt gazelles and rabbits or whatever to stay alive there's no other option there's no option to have empathy for the gazelle you have to go hunt it and kill it and rip its guts out and eat it that's how you survive now as a as a liberal you might look at that you might say oh my God that's so awful what an awful way to live what about that poor little gazelle you know that poor baby gazelle limping along and then some cheetah comes and eats it you know isn't that cheetah being an [ __ ] yeah that's Survival see he doesn't have the luxury of what you have what you have as a progressive and as a liberal is you have your survival taken care of that's the only reason that you're able to have the compassion you do is because your life is not in danger appreciate that the way the conservative mind thinks is like this I grew up in a very harsh environment it was very difficult for me a lot of people could have killed me abused me exploited me and so forth I had to fend for myself so now you know now that I've succeeded in that why should I have a bunch of empathy for others who are looking for handouts they have to go through the same difficult survival Journey that I went through they have to discipline themselves create structure in their life work really hard and overcome all those challenges that's how you Master life that's how you succeed in life not by asking others to feel pity for you and to give you handouts and to give you money and go begging for quarters you know um and for for sympathy from others so why should I have empathy for people who are lazy and don't want to discipline themselves don't want to work hard why should I have empathy for them why should I give them things when nobody gave me anything when I was growing up nobody helped me I had to help myself I had to pull myself up by by my bootstraps so that's just how life works and if you start giving people handouts and stuff they're going to become soft and you're not actually going to build the character you need to succeed in life you see it's not just that I went through a very difficult life and dealt with all this [ __ ] and didn't get didn't get any empathy or handouts is that not only did that happen that actually made me who I am that built my character that tempered me like steel that made me strong and if we just give everybody everything if the government just has this amazing welfare system where uh kids don't even have to worry about getting good grades in school because they know that when they graduate you know there's going to be free college and they don't even have to worry about getting into college because it's just like everyone can get in anywhere there's no rigorous standards you know if you want you can go to any college you want it's going to be all free for you you don't have to think very hard about what your major is going to be you don't have to be very careful about your money and so forth then you're going to grow up very sloppy and you're not going to have the skills it takes to be good at anything that's the argument that's the argument I'm not saying that this is true I'm saying this is this is a world view there's alternative World Views alternative perspectives which we'll cover in the next episode but you have to admit that there is some truth to this worldview think about situations in your life where going through difficult ordeals survival situations has toughened you and has grown your character and you wouldn't trade that for anything in retrospect you know at the time maybe it was difficult and nobody gave you any handouts or empathy but you somehow you you made it through that you worked through it you pulled Yourself by your bootstraps remember how good that feels and also how that grew you and how that made you who you are and now you're able to do things you wouldn't have otherwise been able to do think about how it works in the military you know in the military there's not much room for empathy if your gun jams in the military nobody's gonna help you out the enemy is going to shoot you in the head so you're responsible for fixing your own gun Jam in the military in the military nobody's going to come and give you food or assistance when you're you know Behind Enemy Lines you got to figure all that out for yourself you got to be self-reliant you got to be very disciplined and strict with yourself in the military you can't just wake up anytime you want you got to wake up when you gotta wake up because the enemy is coming to kill you if it's in the middle of the night it's in the middle of the night you can't just be like hitting the snooze button on your alarm in the military for obvious reasons because if it worked that way you'd be dead all the people in the military who behave that way they were killed or they were expelled and all the all the countries who had sloppy militaries they were all conquered by the countries that have very strict militaries so this circle of concern is smaller for the conservative mind which leads us to the next point which is that the conservative mind has a lower capacity for unconditional love and acceptance again this might sound like a negative thing if you're a progressive or a liberal listening to this you might say well Leo that that just proves my point that conservativism is bad and wrong because isn't the whole point of life unconditional love and acceptance isn't that what you teach therefore conservativism is objectively wrong not not so fast you see um because um there's actually nothing in the universe that tells you that you should be unconditionally loving sometimes I speak of it that way when I do spiritual topics but actually there's no reason to be unconditionally loving versus conditionally loving and in fact survival demands that you that your love is limited and conditional not unconditional so you have to really distinguish here between the spiritual stuff that I talk about and then the survival stuff in politics when we're talking about politics we're talking about survival we're not talking about God realization and Awakening and infinite love and all it no politics is about survival how are you going to survive there's a very good reason why most human beings are not very loving at all it's because survival is much much more difficult when you're unconditionally loving in fact maybe it's impossible consider the possibility that if you're initially loving you'd be dead so which are you going to choose the conservative mind chooses survival over unconditional love the the liberal mind might might um choose unconditional love over survival but again of course most liberals don't do that I'm talking about like the most extreme extreme radical form of of liberal open-mindedness most humans are so closed-minded and so unaccepting and so judgmental and so conditionally loving that they cannot even understand that something like Nazism is a form of love they can't understand that the conservative mind can't understand that even though Nazis are conservative but you see what you have to understand is that conservative and liberal these are not just a binary there's many degrees of conservative and Main degrees of liberal it's a spectrum and what even the most liberal and Progressive people today subscribe to is still such low levels of acceptance and open-mindedness and um and Consciousness and conditional love that the things that I talk about the very damn spiritual stuff that I talk about is so far out there that it's like it's transhuman it's not even practical for a human to believe these things or to think about these things because they're so antithetical to human survival even for the most Progressive of humans never mind the conservative ones see so I want you to understand no matter how you identify whether conservative or very Progressive um even as a very Progressive person you still draw lines there are still areas in your life where you're behaving in a conservative manner for example I could tell you that Nazism is love right and you as a progressive would say no Leo that's wrong in that instance you're being conservative relative to me you're being conservative see relative to what's possible so just understand that okay moving on um the conservative mind is more moralistic it has a stronger sense of absolute Good and Evil it tends to be very judgmental and have an objective morality there's clear Rights and Wrongs things you should and shouldn't do also because it's more moralistic it's more self-righteous look if I'm gonna adhere to a strict moral code which most conservatives like to do and I'm gonna actually not be a hypocrite but do all of the work necessary to adhere to the code I'm not going to cheat I'm not going to steal I'm not going to kill I'm not gonna lie I'm not gonna do all the Ten Commandments stuff that you're not supposed to do and I'm going to work really hard to be in Integrity with that if I see somebody who's violating my moral code I'm going to get very self-righteous about it I'm going to get very judgmental of them very critical of them and I'm going to hold myself as above them because that's the whole sort of motivation that I had to stick to the moral code in the first place is because I want to be good and for the conservative being good means sticking to an objective moral code for the progressive this doesn't make a lot of sense in certain ways um but um again life can be a lot easier when you just have a simple moral code to follow see you might say well Leo isn't morality all a gray area isn't all kind of subjective what is good what is evil sure we've talked about that in the past um but think about how much more difficult it is to live life in this morally ambiguous uncertain way remember the conservative mind wants order and structure and Clarity and certainty there's a certain comfort that you get from knowing that uh uh murder is evil and wrong and therefore you should never do it theft is evil and wrong and you should never do it abortion is evil and wrong you should never do it and so on and that if you do any of those things you're going to hell it's very easy in that case to just follow the rules right think about how hard it is to be a moral relativist or a nihilist where you're living in this morally ambiguous world where everything is kind of gray there's no black and white everything is gray and you don't know whether you should do this or do that you know you're at work should you steal some paper clips uh who's it gonna hurt right but then you start to doubt yourself you know where do you draw the line if I'm allowed to steal some paper clips at work am I allowed to you know steal some software steal some video games am I allowed to you know steal some porn you know where do you draw the line and then it's difficult because then you have to draw the lines yourself whereas for the conservative the lines are already pre-drawn for them it's like the difference between drawing freehand and painting inside the lines or by the Numbers it's a lot easier to paint by the numbers and you get enough much nicer image in the end unless you're extremely skilled you know you're extremely skilled at Artistry and and drawing and painting then you can just do a free hand drawing and it'll look nice but for most people they're not good at drawing and the best drawing that they can come up with is painting by numbers and that's easy it simplifies your life conservativism simplifies life that's why it's so appealing I told you it's appealing um now if you're a true artist you know you don't like painting my numbers you look at that and you're like painting by numbers that that defeats the whole purpose of life and art the whole point of art is that I can come up with whatever I want I don't have to paint within the lines well there's trade-offs there trade-offs the conservative mind has an absolutist metaphysics epistemology and morality there is a fixed objective way that reality is and humans can come to know that reality through a fixed certain epistemology and also they can live in alignment with that reality through a fixed moral system morality is not black and white I mean morality Is Not Great morality is black and white and therefore all you have to do is just live by those rules and you'll be good you'll be in alignment with god with truth with love and everything else the conservative mind believes in moral order and moral Authority moral order means an intimate hierarchy of just authority figures I'm sorry not an intimate an innate an innate hierarchy of just authority figures and moral Authority means that moral Authority exists and is itself just moral and beneficial so ask yourself this do you believe in moral order and moral Authority do you believe that there's a certain way that humans can act that leads to Justice do you believe that certain human beings have authority over other human beings because of superior character because they live their life according to certain codes of morality and justice this will determine whether you're liberal or conservative the conservative mind believes in objective dualities and binary opposites it likes clear distinctions clearly demarcated order versus disorder so I have a three-part series called understanding duality part one part two part three where we talk about hundreds of different dualities such as Man versus machine child versus adult life versus death mind versus matter self worship versus World humans versus animals Man versus God and so on so for the conservative mind these are fixed static clearly black and white distinctions and for the liberal mind these distinctions are blurry they're gray they're fluid and they're ambiguous this is a huge fundamental distinction between the conservative and the liberal mind the more you start to blur these distinctions the more liberal your mind's going to get the more open your mind is going to get and the more static these distinctions become for you the more you objectify and reify these distinctions for example the distinction between man and God if you believe that this is a fixed objective static distinction and if there's no way that a man could ever become God you have a very closed conservative mind also think about how this applies to for example gender the whole trans debate um conservatives don't like trans for a very simple reason because it's blurring these boundaries and um it's not really about who you're having sex with and so forth It's it goes fundamentally to the core of your world view and your metaphysics is your metaphysics such that all these boundaries are just blurrable and changeable willy-nilly or is your world view that these boundaries are fixed rigid and that to play with these boundaries is very dangerous for the conservative mind playing with these boundaries even if they can be played with is very dangerous playing with the boundary between man and woman is a very dangerous game that could cause a lot of harm and the conservative is going to err on the side of caution when it comes to playing with those boundaries whereas the liberal is going to say oh well what's what can go wrong I want to I want to change my gender to whatever I want I want to be a man or a woman or I want to invent my own gender or I want to be an alien or I want to be an animal I want to do whatever right today I want to be this way and then tomorrow I'm going to change my mind and be somebody else again for the conservative this is [ __ ] Madness this is madness this is dangerous this is going to hurt um and it's going to lead to confusion and ambiguity in society not just for the individual but for Society for children for adults for everybody it's going to blur distinctions within seconds it's gonna it's gonna transgress sexual norms and then who knows what comes next homosexuality bestiality pedophilia who knows right now as a liberal you might say oh Leo well there's no danger of pedophilia there's no danger of bestiality these are these are these are just ways of demonizing trans people you're not understanding the death of this problem the reality is that the conservative is actually right if you truly open your mind radically radically probably beyond the levels that uh that the typical Progressive has opened their minds to if you radically open your mind then actually you will start to blur distinctions between for example having sex with adults and having sex with kids after all what is a kid and what is an adult you're going to blur that blur that line um you will even even blur the line between having sex with with humans and animals uh for example like think about like this let's say aliens come and make contact with humans so here's a question for you let's say that they're anatomically humanoid um and we're sexually compatible in a certain sense is it is it okay for a human to have sex with one of these aliens I mean you know this is going to be an issue in the next you know thousand years this is going to be an issue it's going to be a huge controversy there's going to be half the population that says this is disgusting evil and wrong and morally abhorrent and also dangerous and then half the population is going to say that hey man relax it's going to be cool you know free love and all that and they're going to go have sex with with these aliens um but remember sex is a dangerous thing having sex with children can be very dangerous can be very harmful to Children um having sex with animals can create diseases and viruses there's a theory that the AIDS virus was actually um created by people having sex with monkeys I don't know if that's true or not it's kind of a maybe an urban legend I don't know but um but I mean we know that like just from from covid we know and from other viruses that many of the deadliest viruses come from um humans either eating animals or having inappropriate contact with animals in an unsanitary way right um and AIDS was more prevalent amongst the gay community than it was in the heterosexual community right so um it actually is true that homosexuality is more dangerous than heterosexuality given that aids is much more prevalent and transmits much more easily through anal sex than it does through vaginal sex right so um again be careful not to dismiss the conservative perspective as just paranoid it's not simply paranoid it can be paranoid now do conservatives overplay the dangers yes they do um but um those fears and insecurities do have certain you know legitimate um factors to them for example having sex with aliens you don't know what kind of dangers this will lead to it might create a new virus it might create some sort of animosity between the aliens and the humans you know what happens when a human and an alien fall in love and then they break up maybe it'll start a you know a new world war who knows right um what happens if if a human impregnates an alien what kind of baby is gonna happen is it gonna be some sort of distorted um you know uh Mutant baby that's going to be in pain and suffering you don't know these are all legitimate concerns that a conservative would have and you yourself if you're not a bit squeamish or you know apprehensive about having sex with an alien well you're rather foolish because you don't know what's gonna what's gonna come of that because anytime you're entering into unknown territory it's potentially very dangerous and that's fundamentally what the conservative mind is about it's about um stressing and emphasizing the dangers of the unknown whereas the liberal mind is about um saying you know to hell with it throw caution to the wind it'll probably be okay let's go have an adventure let's go exploring the unknown it'll be cool it'll be fun well a lot of times it's fun but sometimes it's dangerous sometimes it could cost you your life you know curiosity killed the cat as they say that's what the conservative would tell you so for um you know um for the conservative mind the belief that human nature the belief is that human nature is fixed it's not fluid it's not flexible it's not subjective it's not relative think about for example what will be happening in the next Thousand Years with you with Humanity when we start mixing human and animal DNA through genetic engineering and also man machine interfaces through neuralink and stuff like this uh we're entering into potentially very very dangerous territory with cloning with genetic engineering with um uh computer augmentations what's going to happen again if you're not worried about the potential risks and dangers of that you're not thinking straight you're being a fool um which was why when it comes to genetic engineering being very conservative is the best approach when it comes to modifying human DNA you want to be very very conservative on that front see when it comes to implanting microchips into your brain you want to be very conservative too because what's going to happen to humans if we implant Twitter and Facebook at Instagram directly into our brains maybe that'll be the end of mankind so the conservative would say you know don't mess with things that already work don't mess with the natural order of things so conservatives have a strong sense of the natural Order of Things for them that's not just a construction that's that's god-given for the conservative mind the idea of natural law and god-given rights is very strong they don't see these things as just willy-nilly inventions of man whereas liberals tend to just see these things as just oh just arbitrary inventions of man you know we invented culture this way we could invent it that way tomorrow but you have to be careful about your inventions even if something is an invention that doesn't mean you can just uninvent it easily or just change it willy-nilly social constructions have a power and a life to them of Their Own they become as though nature as though god-given for the conservative mind the highest good is Duty in the name of Good by conforming to the ideals of the status quo so there's a list of Ten Commandments or moral principles by which one should live and then the highest good is to understand study and subscribe dutifully to this list and to obey it and to make sure that everybody around you does the same thing in the conservative's mind this is how we construct a good healthy Society we don't do it by everybody just willy-nilly doing whatever they want whatever they come up with it's not just all relative there's right and wrong ways of doing things if you want to make a good pizza there's a right way and a wrong way of making a good pizza if you just take a a pound of sugar and dump it on the pizza that's not going to make for a good pizza and if what you care about is making the best pizza then you become a stickler about following the recipe of a good pizza that's what the conservative will say you know the conservative will say don't go Reinventing the pizza the pizza is already great it doesn't need a bunch of Innovations whereas the liberal will say ah but you know what about making some cool exotic new pizza let's make some alien Pizza let's make some pizza with ostrich meat and with you know exotic fruits we found in the Amazon jungle why don't we make that kind of pizza the conservative would say that's only going to make the pizza worse classic pepperoni cheese pizza you know New York style that's the best pizza you don't want an ostrich meat pizza that's not going to taste good crocodile Pizza what kind of what kind of nonsense is this but to the cons to the liberal mind this is actually appealing the liberal mind wants to go and explore different kinds of pizzas with exotic ingredients now the risk is that you're going to make some sort of awful Pizza and in fact that's usually what you're going to get when you start just innovating and throwing stuff into a pizza you're going to make it worse not better but what the conservative is missing is that you might discover that ostrich pizza or crocodile Pizza is even better than pepperoni pizza but there's risk there's risk in exploring that so for the conservative following these rules is how you be good and defeating evil doers and those in your out group those that are not in your tribe that's also how you be good because those who are not part of your tribe they don't subscribe to your moral list of how to be good that means by definition they're being bad right like because if if other people were good they would be following your list of principles and rules but since there and then they would be part of your tribe because part of what determines whether someone's in your tribe or not is whether they subscribe to your moral principles rules cultures customs and institutions and if they don't then by definition they're bad that's the logic the conservative mind is more faith-based more ideological more fundamentalist more religious spirituality for the conservative mind is more Orthodox religion than it is being a new age free spirit believing in whatever you want practicing however you want for the conservative mind there's no problem mixing church and state they should be mixed because after all if you have the one true religion and your religion has the best moral code and everybody then should be following this moral code it only naturally makes sense that the government should be a state sponsor of this moral code it should be promoted in schools at the workplace um in government holidays in government um law in the courtroom and elsewhere because this this is the way how you be good and what we want as conservatives and as all people as we want to create a good Society see both conservatives and liberals want to create a good Society uh it's just that they they have different ways of going about it so the conservative likes to mix church and state and from the conservatives point of view if you don't mix church and state that means that your state is going to be Godless and your state is not going to be forced to subscribe to the rules and moral code that makes anyone or anything good and therefore your state is going to be evil so obviously you don't want an evil state and the conservative will say that any time in human history where um the state has gotten too separated from morality it has become evil and so that's just not just paranoia these these can be legitimate concerns you know look at Soviet Soviet communist Russia look at Nazi Germany look at maoist China and so forth many of these states were sort of Godless atheistic or had their own like weird Pagan like for example um some people say well you know Chris Hitler wasn't an atheist Hitler wasn't an atheist but Nazism was like paganism basically and what the Conservative Christian would say is that the reason Nazism happened is because um you know paganism is dangerous that's what happens when you allow people to invent their own spiritual traditions and religions and just kind of like pick and choose whatever they want in the way that Hitler did you know Hitler picked some stuff from from Hindu spirituality and from from Viking um spirituality and from sort of like Germanic Pagan spirituality kind of like mixed and matched whatever he wanted and came up with his own like hodgepodge of of thing and it was a travesty it had no moral Center to it that's what a Conservative Christian would say now of course there's counter arguments to this I'm not going to get into all these counter arguments because it would just take too long we have to keep moving so I'm not I'm not presenting a fully balanced picture here if you're conservative I know you want to you want to like debate and debunk each one of these points that I'm making just try to resist that urge and just kind of take it in take in the conservative world you without immediately judging it and trying to debunk it this is not serving you if you want to debunk it you can do that later after you spend a long time deeply understanding it and feeling its appeal anyways moving on the conservative mind wants personal religious values beliefs and ideals to be directly codified into law it seeks to increase religion in public life but of course not all religion just their religion the the conservative mind tends to be less well-traveled less worldly and more isolated less educated Less open to science and objective rationality again you might say well Leo this proves that in the conservative worldview is deficient or worse than the liberal one um no not strictly speaking it's not worse it's just different you could even say less developed but be careful not to confuse less developed with worse or with bad or with wrong or with objectively false right um less developed is a nuanced notion when I say something is less developed I'm not demonizing it for example when I say that a first grader is less developed than a fifth grader I'm not demonizing the first grader right you have to be very careful about that it doesn't make the first grade or wrong and this development is is relativistic so just because something is less developed now it'll develop over time and then just because something is more developed now relatively it's still less developed than something that comes after it right but generally speaking it's true that conservative folk are less educated they're less well-traveled they're less worldly and because um they tend to be religious I mean of course there's some conservatives who are not religious at all there's atheists who are conservatives um you can find those exceptions but um generally speaking the conservative mind is going to be less open to science and objective rationality because actually science requires quite a lot of open-mindedness to do well and one of the problems within science which I've talked about elsewhere is if the sun if the scientific mind gets closed down into some Paradigm gets locked in then it turns into bad science um so to really be able to do high quality rationality and science you have to be extremely open-minded which it's a problem for conservatives the conservative mind cares about national identity symbolism and patriotism it cares more about defending the status quo because the status quo is a source of security and safety to the conservative mind questioning the status quo can feel like betrayal or disloyalty and conservatives value loyalty very highly so this is one of the big differences between conservatives and liberals liberals love questioning trashing and shitty on the status quo only seeing the bad parts of the status quo ignoring all the good parts whereas the conservative tends to do the opposite ignore the bad parts and emphasize the good parts and those who trash the status quo they seem like Heretics um or they seem like they're betraying something good for example when I speak about the problems within science the epistemic metaphysical foundations of science there's problems there I've talked about that in the past uh people who are really subscribed to materialist science when they listen to that to me criticizing science they perceive that as me being anti-science and being uh disloyal and betraying science whereas when I do that I see myself as being pro-science and actually trying to improve science by removing its Corruptions right see so the progressive thinks that by trashing the status quo he is improving it by pointing out its laws whereas the conservative thinks that by criticizing the status quo too harshly for example some people think that Leo the way you criticize and trash science is actually very dangerous and bad because it makes it seem as though nobody should be studying science that science is bad and horrible and irredeemable of course that's not my position I don't say that science is irredeemable and horrible it's important and necessary but it's got problems this is exactly what's happening when it comes to government in various kinds of institutions is that conservatives see the good in the institutions and progressives only Tennessee the bad because they care about reforming it and changing it the conservative mind defends culture it has a strong identity with its culture the more you identify with your culture or subculture the more conservative you're going to be because a threat to your culture is a threat to your survival by extension to the conservative mind the greatest threat is deterioration of moral of the moral fabric of society therefore the conservative mind is worried about social decadence and going soft the conservative mind is easily threatened by the decay of society and simply new habits routines Lifestyles new types of art new types of dress new types of music new types of sex drugs pornography these things are seen as threatening uncivilized crude corrupting foolish frivolous ungrounded and even evil the conservative mind fears that without strict adherence to rules order and tradition Society will fall apart and people will turn into degenerates and Savages the conservative mind believes that people need strong external structures and constraints to behave well sometimes as a Progressive or a liberal you look at a conservative and you think like well do you really need some commandment from God to tell you not to rape people I mean isn't this just kind of obvious can't you can't you derive not raping people from your own inner moral compass rather than having to listen to some Pope tell you that it's wrong uh and the conservatives response is yeah if you're a good decent human being you can but most people are sheep most people just do what everybody else is doing and if there are not these structures that teach people that rape is wrong then we're going to have a bunch of rampant rape as a progresses you might think well no that's crazy that's not going to happen there's no risk of that but then go to a country like India where gang rape is a very common problem and in general rewind the clock a few thousand years and rape was very very common it still is common but compared to what it was a few thousand years ago so what you need to understand as a progressive is that the idea that rape is wrong that it should be outlawed this is a human invention humans had to invent that idea because in the animal kingdom there is no laws against rape humans had to invent that not only did they have to invent it they had to cultivate the Norms that it's wrong right see it's not enough to just invent the law that rape is illegal and punishable by whatever penalties you then have to spread to millions of people in your community that it's wrong and you have to judge it morally condemn it make people feel ashamed of doing it make feel people feel bad about it convince people that they're going to go to hell for doing it and then you can get a handle on rape to an extent I mean it's still going to happen but for the majority of people they'll be convinced through this process right but what you're not appreciating as a progressive or liberal is that that's something that had to be developed over thousands of years Society had to develop that to the point where today if you rape somebody you're going to feel ashamed of it you know most people will um uh but um that's not quote unquote natural there's no no such thing as you know some natural law um that makes you feel ashamed for being a rapist no like humans had to invent that and then they had to enforce it and the way the way they enforced it is through stuff like the Ten Commandments the stuff that conservatives defend because if they didn't defend it humans would be Savages and the reality is that humans are savages go look at what's happening in the war in Ukraine rampant rape by Russian soldiers why is that because when survival gets tough humans turn into savages the conservative understands that the progressive is actually pretty naive about that the progressive thinks that just empathy alone will keep people from being Savages but of course human history has shown that that's not the case empathy alone is not enough you need institutions you need police you need judges you need courts you need religious systems you need the Pope practically that's what humans needed now in the future maybe we won't need that but today or in the past realistically that's what we needed so the conservative believes that people need strong external structures and constraints to behave well this is why the conservative is so concerned and goes into a moral Panic about the breakdown of these structures for example you know the conservative mind might believe that if we don't have strong heterosexual Norms then people might start to experiment with homosexuality they might actually discover that they like it and enjoy it and then there will be a lot more homosexual sex now the progressive says well so what let people have sex however they want well the conservative might say well it's going to lead to the spread of disease and AIDS and also it's going to lead to a breakdown of the family unit and there's going to be less children how are we going to sustain the population if half the population is having gay sex see now as a progressive you'll say well we'll we'll solve that problem when we get to it if it's even a problem the conservative says no it's going to be too late to solve that problem by the time we get to it we got to be concerned about it now we gotta preempt it therefore let's be conservative and let's enforce heterosexual norms and let's not have gay marriage and so forth now I'm not saying which is right I'm just I'm just showing you different World Views try not to think of these things as right or wrong these are different trade-offs these are survival trade-offs right you might have a preference for being more LAX or being more anal more liberal more conservative these are trade-offs there's not some right answer there's not a right answer on gay sex there's not a right answer on abortion trade-offs there will be pros and cons to any of these different policies or World Views and if you go too far in either direction there's going to be problems you know if humans you know decide that the next hot trend is having sex with with monkeys um that can become toxic dysfunctional unhealthy and lead to many problems on the other hand if humans decide that the only kind of sex we're going to have is heterosexual sex and any other kind of sex will be punished by Death that's also going to lead to problems so be careful with both extremes the conservative mind wants to reject behavior that does not conform to some social Norm the conservative mind has a fear of new technology and the potential disruption that that could have on social order this is a constant problem throughout human history is that new technology is developed and then it disrupts the old social order whether it's the printing press whether it's steam engines Cotton Gins a nuclear weaponry social media the internet pornography whatever it's always disrupting and creating problems now of course it's creating a lot of benefit but it's a mixed bag it's a benefit it's there's always pros and cons and trade-offs with all new technology so the progressive is going to tend to throw more caution to the wind and a more embracing of new technology whereas the conservative is going to be more uh insecure and protective against new technology and hey you know that's not necessarily wrong again like I said you know nuclear technology genetic engineering um social media these are dangerous Technologies look at what social media has done to society in the last 10 years some pretty nasty ugly stuff suicide rates are up people are having less sex people are more lonely um girls are feeling [ __ ] about horrible about themselves because of Instagram and all this kind of stuff so like um people are getting sucked into rabbit holes of conspiracy thinking and toxic ideology through algorithms on YouTube and social media Facebook potentially very dangerous stuff the conservative mind is more concerned about pleasing others and fitting um and fitting in with the in-group it's more of the conformist stage of ego development so go check out my series The Nine stages of ego development part one two three where one of the stages is the conformist stage that's a lot of where conservativism comes from conservatives seek to preserve culture and ethnic identity they see themselves as the Guardians of an endangered civilization they're less tolerant of disorder the conservative mind values obedience to Authority with an emphasis on respect for authority allegiance to the group and purity of self the conservative mind is more authoritarian more strict and more domineering it's less critical of authority it's more patriarchal more hierarchical more nationalist more ethnocentrist and more monocultural the conservative mind has a deep love for its culture above all others it sees its own culture as Superior morally and in other ways the conservative mind has a fear and discomfort with alien cultures the conservative mind practices a sort of paternalistic love which means that the leader the powerful authoritarian leader has a duty to safeguard the weak among his flock and then the weak among his flock have a duty to obey and respect the authoritarian paternalistic leader this is what I call paternalistic love the conservative mind favors the masculine versus feminine form of compassion I have an episode called masculine versus feminine compassion go check that out a masculine compassion is more tough-minded whereas feminine compassion is more tender-minded so the progressive is going to have a more tender-minded form of compassion this is one of the key differences between these two minds the conservative mind sees the dangers of idiot compassion feminine compassion and over empathy empathy can be dangerous from the conservative point of view the conservative mind tends to express love as tough love if you really love your child are you going to let your child eat a bunch of junk food and Candy his whole life is that how you raise your child or do you toughen the child up do you discipline the child do you give the child certain rules of do's and don'ts that make it simple for the child to be good otherwise the child is sort of just lost in a moral relativism and ambiguity and doesn't even know what the right and wrong things are and then the chances of the travel figured out for himself are quite low because he's just going to be following all the other stupid kids and what they're doing getting himself into trouble so um one of the ways to to just kind of gauge yourself how liberal or conservative are you think about it like this do this thought experiment if you're going to have children how do you prefer to raise your children are you going to err on the side of being too strict or are you going to err on the side of being too permissive which do you think is the greater Danger do you think the greater dangers that your kid is just going to be um have no rules and gonna be out there doing whatever doing drugs having sex and then getting himself into trouble and eventually he's gonna horribly ruin his life do you think that's the greatest danger that your child needs to be protected from or do you think the greater danger is that uh you're going to be so strict with your child that you're going to traumatize your child with all these rules and the child is not even going to feel like you love them because you're strict with the child all the time and therefore the child is going to rebel against you and um and then just to spite you go out there and do dangerous things and take risks and become dysfunctional which is the greater Danger do you think that if you're going to be too strict with your child you're going to end up brainwashing your child and that's going to be bad or do you think your child needs to learn these things for himself or herself and generate the answers for example are you gonna give your child a moral code to follow or are you going to allow your child to derive his or her own moral code and then are you worried about what kind of moral code they're going to derive are they going to derive the right moral code or the wrong moral code what if they derive a moral code that that says that having sex with animals and children is good what if that's their moral code are you gonna be okay with that or are you going to trust them to derive the right moral code the conservative mind has a disdain for weakness because weakness is dangerous conservatives don't like coddling the weak they like telling the weak to toughen up the conservative mind favors a harsher form of Justice with less empathy towards those who break the rules because breaking the rules is a serious violation and it's bad and it could lead to the collapsed Society therefore we need to be strict about enforcing the rules therefore an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth less leniency less Mercy if you break the laws suffer the consequences don't go asking for breaks you know what the laws are you know what the consequences are therefore don't ask for leniency the conservative mind is more prone to violence this is not a smear or a straw man of the conservative mind it's simply that the conservative mind is more down to earth more engaged in survival at that sort of animalistic level at the animalistic level a lot of disputes are resolved through violence in a prison a lot of disputes are resolved through violence not through empathy not through therapy not through sitting in a drum circle And discussing our differences and conscious communication and free love no you punch someone you shank someone that's legitimate foreign but of course the conservative makes a distinction between oral violence versus immoral violence so there's times when violence is Justified and moral and other times when it isn't the conservative mind responds to threatening situations with more aggression and um it's more reactive to perceived threats because it's more insecure fundamentally more fearful the the conservative mind is less sentimental about war it's more willing to fight and use violence due to having less empathy war is legitimate when it's the in the name of good in the name of morality and also war is legitimate because sometimes repressive force is necessary to suppress chaos to maintain order and sometimes the greatest danger is not the war itself or uh too much order but too much chaos the breakdown of order so again keep in mind that these are just generalizations right not every conservative is going to subscribe to all this these are just generalizations now here's another way to think about the conservative mind in a very fundamental way the general outlook for the conservative mind is that the world is a dangerous place there's no time for frivolity so follow the strict father leader to learn discipline obedience respect and self-reliance then follow the rules and don't get sloppy about it stay disciplined or else something bad will happen don't get too artsy don't get too creative or else don't innovate too much or else don't explore too much of the unknown or else keep to your kind because others out there other tribes are selfish and dangerous and you don't know what you're dealing with when you're dealing with others so keep to your own kind stay loyal to your own kind your kind will protect you and defend you and you have a duty to protect and defend them against others from the outside who threaten us this is the general conservative worldview the details will change who the leader is will change what the rules are will change what the religion is will change who the tribes are will change but this is the general structure you were under such pressure to survive that you cannot afford to be loose and Lacks so again the strict Father Figure versus the permissive mother the conservative sees the liberal as the permissive mother and the conservative sees the permissive mother as more dangerous than the restrictive father conservativism is an attitude towards change that views change as necessary but cautious and prudent you need to be cautious and prudent about doing change because what exists has stood the test of time and what you're changing into who knows what that's going to bring for example this will drive the point home think about cutting out organs from your body what if you're naive enough to think that you know I know better than then the nature that Evolution you know I don't need a second kidney I'm just going to cut out my kidney um do I really need my gallbladder maybe I'll cut that out too see you have to go in to biology assuming that every organ in your body is there for a reason there are no extraneous organs in the body it's all there serving a function the conservative tends to hold that same line of logic towards society as a whole and culture and Mankind as a whole it's all there for a reason right so you have to be very careful changing it because you might change something in this complex system which will have unintended consequences you know you might think that changing the institution of marriage and redefining it to include gay people that this is just it's just a minor change nothing no big deal it's not going to lead to any problems but then unintended consequences happen and that's what the conservative is worried about and trying to protect against to the conservative mind tradition represents the wisdom of the species and community and social harmony are more important than idealistic social reforms so if we can make a reform that's gonna create social disharmony even if that reform is going to improve Society in some other way the net negative is going to be worse in this case because of the disharmony it creates therefore we shouldn't pursue this reform the liberal thinks exactly the opposite way the conservative mind prefers patience and gradualism over Promises of utopia and revolution the conservative mind sees Revolution as far more dangerous than the status quo the attempt to make the world perfect can cause more harm than good The Cure can be worse than the disease the idea that there are that there is um let me rephrase that the conservative mind subscribes to the idea that there is something intrinsically good about what already exists as our ancestors built it the conservative mind has a certain realism to it it has a suspicion of utopian schemes they sound too good to be true so when the Liberals and progressives promise US free health care and free college and a great welfare state and a socialist Utopia the conservative thinks that's too good to be true what's the catch because the conservatives has a fundamentally negative view of human nature and our ability to social socially engineer Utopia the progressive thinks that humans can all live in peace and Harmony if we just work together and love each other a little bit more and we're just a little bit more open-minded and a little bit less hateful and racist the conservative says no there are rapists out there are Nazis there are um communists and there are criminals and God knows what else there are revolutionaries and they're going to lead to the collapse of all of society if we don't keep them in check and that something like empathy and love alone are not going to be enough to make this work Society doesn't run on empathy and love it runs on laws and force and police the conservative knows and understands that new fads come and go quickly out of fashion and that most Innovations fail which is why we should be suspicious of them fundamentally conservativism is about feeling secure securing your identity and your survival with the people around you with your culture feeling comfortable and familiar building your own personal little community your own little personal Paradise of those who you can trust in your tribe and then those who are not in your tribe you can't trust those people and they can't be part of building your Paradise because they have different values different Norms different moral schemes and you won't be able to get along the conservative mind has a more realistic view of the brutality of human nature therefore it's more realistic it's also more pessimistic and therefore it's more defensive and protective which was why for example conservatives like to spend more on military defense because the conservative generally thinks that there's bad countries and actors out there who are going to come and rape and pillagers if we're not extra protective whereas the liberal says oh we can get along with them just with diplomacy and the conservative says no diplomacy is not going to be enough when Putin comes knocking on your door for example the liberal might say let's give everyone free speech and the conservative might say let's not because if we allow everyone to say whatever they want then we're going to have a bloody Civil War because people are not going to get along they're going to be fighting and that's going to be worse than the situation we have now so instead let's execute a few of these revolutionaries who want free speech Kill Them All in the end this is going to be a net positive we're going to maintain peace and harmony and Life Will Go On well now you might say Leo this is this doesn't make sense because aren't conservatives for free speech these days and Liberals are against free speech and for censorship look things have gotten Twisted traditionally conservatives have never been for free speech um because free speech is dangerous so the traditional conservative position is to prohibit Free Speech look at any conservative um third world country Russia Iran Saudi Arabia China Brazil these countries are very conservative relative to America to American Standards look at the Taliban in Afghanistan very conservative relative to Americans the Taliban or even the Chinese government I mean the Chinese Communist Party these people nominally they might seem like they're very liberal you know Communists are liberal no the the Chinese Communist party and the the Taliban these are so conservative that they make America's most conservative um political commentators look like uh bleeding heart liberals so look at the Taliban in the Taliban they don't allow you free speech they don't need to allow you free um choice of clothing to wear for women right so why is it that women are not allowed to wear whatever they want in Afghanistan because the survival conditions in Afghanistan are so brutal that if women just wear whatever they want if you have women walking around in a [ __ ] mini skirt in Afghanistan they're going to get raped and everyone in the Taliban understands this the only people who don't understand this are [ __ ] American liberals and progressives because they're [ __ ] so stupid so um restriction of speech dress freedom of religion freedom of sexuality all of these restrictions are conservative values and they make sense when you're living in in an environment where having that much freedom and flexibility uh becomes dangerous and threatens the survival of this of the state the tribe the people the culture the religion um or the individuals see um authoritarian dictators do not allow Free Speech why not because if they do what's going to happen is that their power will get questioned and there will be a bloody Civil War where all the different tribes that they have unified will be fighting against each other this is exactly what happened in Saddam Hussein's Iraq when Saddam Hussein was deposed Iraq devolved into a bloody civil war between the Shiites the sunnis the um the various political parties and factions that existed the Kurds and so forth and they're still fighting to this day and they still can't get along right so what Saddam Hussein was doing by limiting free speech and so forth is he was conserving the the unity that was developed through Force yeah he had to use Force to unify all those people but he did unify them and so that's the danger of too much freedom see in America today's conservatives are like preaching Freedom they're not really for Freedom they don't understand what freedom is they're bastardizing the notion of Freedom conservatives are never for Freedom conservatives are terrified of freedom true freedom is really scary so a lot of times conservatives will say that they're for freedom but they don't really understand what they're talking about it's traditionally liberals that are for freedom and conservatives are right to criticize liberals for too much freedom because too much freedom is dangerous too much Freedom with who you have sex with is dangerous too much Freedom with um um you know where you go on vacation is dangerous you don't want to go on vacation to Somalia that's dangerous you want to restrict where you go on vacation you want to restrict the freedom of your children allowing your children to have sex with whoever they want do whatever kind of drugs they want go hang out with whatever friends they want put whatever tattoos on the on their face they want this is dangerous if you're a conservative recognize you don't like Freedom you're scared of freedom things have gotten a little twisted up today in our in our very uh polarized and Twisted 21st century world of politics in America especially also try to see it this way if people are selfish and cruel as a just as a baseline to each other that justifies you not having too much empathy for them and not being too nice and too gullible for example if you're in a prison environment people there are rough selfish and cruel empathy is not going to get you very far in prison being too nice is not going to get you very far you want to make sure you're not being gullible only be as empathetic as others are empathetic towards you and most people are not very empathetic therefore you shouldn't be either here's another example the conservative mind will say rather than risking us being invaded by our neighbor let's invade our neighbor first the liberal mind says no no no let's just use diplomacy our neighbor's not going to invade us don't worry about it be nice to them and we'll get along fine now is that true well it depends what kind of neighbor you have if you have Hitler he'll he'll invade you even if you appease him famously and then the liberal is going to call for a disarmament a foolish kind of disarmament the liberal says let's cut our military budget down to 10 of what it is the conservative says that's crazy if you do that you're just going to invite every dictator in the world to come bully you the liberal says but if we disarm uh and everybody disarms we can invest all that money into public education and creating a better Society Better Health Care and so forth yeah but that assumes you won't get invaded and enslaved which you could who's right well there's not a clear answer to this it all depends on the situation in some situations for example would Saddam Hussein have invaded America no um could the Chinese start a war with America if America disarms possibly yeah that's that's legitimate threat or could Putin yeah possibly from the conservative point of view the economy has to be organized around self-interest because people are fundamentally selfish democracy at the workplace doesn't work because the average worker is lazy and stupid and simply has no vision and no sense of direction workers need an authoritarian boss to tell them what to do and to make sure that they do it in the same way that children need an authoritarian parent to give them structure without which they'd be lost very different than how the liberal things being a conservative makes sense when the margin of error is very small for example if you're doing brain surgery it's good to be conservative err on the side of caution if you're launching a spacecraft be very conservative if you're using a chainsaw be very careful and you know don't don't go um getting all artsy with your use of a chainsaw there's a right and a wrong way to use a chainsaw and if you don't follow the rules you're going to cut your foot off and when it comes to protecting your children you want to be conservative right you want to err on the side of caution because you care about your children so much you have so much invested in them however for example if you're talking about something that's not so sensitive and delicate and so life and death then it makes more sense to be liberal for example when you're cooking food or you're ordering new food at a restaurant should you be anally conservative and order the same thing every time or should you be in veterans to take a risk well what is the risk the risk is you're gonna order something that you don't quite like it's not a big risk it's not the same risk as misusing a chainsaw or doing brain surgery incorrectly so see depending on the situation it makes more or less sense to be liberal or conservative it's very context sensitive you don't want to adopt a singular monolithic strategy for survival like I'm going to be conservative in all situations no that's unintelligent likewise I'm going to be a liberal in all situations be open to everything no that's not that's not smart either your survival situation dictates how much space and room you have for freedom frivolity and exploration also it's a matter of your risk tolerance you know brains and Minds and personality types have different risk tolerances some people can tolerate a lot more risk than others most people are not very good at tolerating risk here are some more aspects of the conservative worldview the conservative mind respects strength discipline and order it does not respect softness weakness frivolity and for the conservative mind respect is very important as a value for the conservative mind when life gets tough you must get tougher the solution is not to whine and cry and go seeking sympathy from others or sharing your feelings the solution is to suck it up get smarter get tougher and deal with it the conservative mind finds a lot of security and family values traditional gender roles the conservative mind is more neurotic more anal more insecure it's more sexually repressed sexual Cravings must be strictly controlled deviant sexuality is viewed as sinful and very bad and immoral the conservative mind employs sexual shaming and guilt to control his sexual cravings because sexual Cravings if you just let them free can lead to a lot of harm and damage to others and to yourself therefore they need to be controlled and repressed which was why all fundamentalist religion controls and represses sexuality and basically that's been happening throughout all of human civilization sexuality has been repressed and controlled the conservative mind is more prone to guilt shame anger and disgust it's preoccupied with sin and displeasing God not sinning the conservative mind is more squeamish looking at vomit feces and blood this is a scientific um study that they did the conservative mind fears not only the dangerous outer world but also the dangerous inner world hence the avoidance of deep introspection again this is going to seem like I'm demonizing or straw Manning the conservative world you I'm actually not again this is one of those instances where they've done scientific studies and they have found that the conservative mind is less capable of deep introspection than the liberal mind this is not something I'm just making up they've done studies on this the conservative mind actually has fear of radical new thoughts if you think of the external environment and also the internal environment the mindscape in the external environment there are dangers there are crocodiles lions and volcanoes and all sorts of dangerous stuff out there that could hurt you if you're not careful so venturing out into the unknown is dangerous we've established that but there's now a parallelism between that and the inner mindscape in the mindscape think of it like a jungle of Consciousness the Consciousness jungle you can think all sorts of impure thoughts immoral thoughts crazy thoughts weird alien thoughts and some of these thoughts can be very dangerous if you think the wrong thoughts you might become a murderer you might become a rapist you might become a pedophile you might um you know become insane and lose your mind or you might become depressed or whatever or you might have to face your own internal contradictions which is scary and difficult you might realize that you've been lying to yourself you might realize that the religion you subscribed to was actually just propaganda or brainwashing you might realize that the political ideology you subscribed to is wrong and this is all going to cause cognitive dissonance and um um that's something to genuinely fear and conservatives fear that so you as a progressive need to understand that the conservative the conservative really struggles to open his mind to radical new ideas not just things but ideas ideas themselves can be threatening and dangerous and before you pooh-pooh that and dismiss that and laugh at that what I want you to understand even if you're the most Progressive person in the world I want you to understand that if you explore Consciousness as deeply as I have you're going to realize that there are things that conscience is capable of conceiving and imagining and thinking that are so radical and so threatening that they will make you curl up into a fetal position in in the bathroom um you know crying for Mommy that's what a bad trip is if you ever had a bad trip you understand the dangers of the Jungle of Consciousness that is that is out there if you ever had a nightmare you understand um how scary your own mind can be exploring your own mind can be scarier than exploring the outer world this is what people don't appreciate and I guarantee you no matter how liberal you are there are things in your mind that you do not want to explore I've explored recesses of my own Consciousness that include um hell Realms insanity um alien dimensions of consciousness um evil that you can barely imagine very very challenging to explore and to integrate and to confront and open your mind to these possibilities so don't just think that conservative struggle with this problem this problem is something that you struggle with even if you're very liberal I guarantee you you're underestimating the depth of this problem conservatives have a lower cognitive complexity they have more ordered rigid thinking patterns and less intuitive in their insight conservatives are generally just less intuitive people on the Myers-Briggs personality type they have the sensing versus intuiting function you're either a sensor or you're an intuitor I'm an intuitor um conservatives tend to be more sensors than intuitives as a result of this and the things I said above conservatives have a difficulty with multi-perspectivalism the conservative mind really struggles to see in multiple perspectives because this introduces ambiguities uncertainties gray areas and paradoxes and it creates a sort of a relativism that their mind doesn't know how to cope with conservatives are therefore less understanding of other points of view now that doesn't mean Liberals are perfect at it liberals also struggle understanding radical new points of view but conservatives are generally worse at it because conservatives fear uncertainty uh ambiguity and they have a need for closure more of a need for closure this uh can create some strong disadvantages the conservative mind has a disregard for the subjective the imaginative or the abstract it's more concerned with the tangible unambiguous the real versus the ideal the conservative mind has a deep fear of insanity losing control of one's mind and sense of reality and therefore is extra defensive against this things like weed psychedelics and even alcohol is seen as dangerous to the conservative mind even things like music partying or colorful clothing can be seen as dangerous now here you might say what Leo I mean I understand wheat and alcohol I mean wheat and psychedelics but alcohol music partying colorful dress how what does that have to do with it look at for example the sh um the Shakers and the Quakers these people are so conservative they don't use cell phones these people are so conservative they don't allow playing music or only certain kinds of music they don't allow partying they don't allow colorful dress they're so conservative look at underdeveloped Middle Eastern countries they don't allow alcohol Islam doesn't allow alcohol why not because alcohol is intoxicating and it leads to such a freedom and a loosening of self-discipline that then who knows what you're going to do who knows who you're going to rape who knows who you're going to kill if you allow that kind of intoxication you see now here in the west we say well big deal you know in the west we drink alcohol all the time and nobody rapes anybody or kills anybody well is that actually true think of how many people get raped because of over consumption of alcohol think of how many people get killed from drunk driving but in a less developed culture that would be even more of a problem which is why women are not allowed to walk around in bikinis in the Middle East see liberals tend to think oh that that's just because it's so backwards over there there's such there you know they're so medieval and if they just allowed women to do whatever they want everything would be fine they're just oppressing women it's just like the patriarchy is just oppressing women because they get a thrill out of it and men just like to oppress women in the Middle East no that's not what's happening what's happening is that the men are protecting the women from other men and the women there are thankful for that protection not all though but many of them those Norms are there to protect women they are not there just so that men can exploit women although there's some degree of that as well the conservative mind tries to control the world through ideology it prefers traditional simple realistic art and less abstract art and music it's very interesting how the difference between the conservative and liberal mind between the closeness and the openness between the concreteness and the idealism of the liberal mind also reflects in your taste for for music and art which is why conservatives bemoan and criticize abstract art their mind literally is uncomfortable with it they want art that has a specific concrete picture or story or meaning to it like they want a painting of Jesus or something they don't want a painting of just some random splotches and squares that could mean anything to anybody and interpret it however you want they want to clear one interpretation that's how deep this goes the conservative mind is more grateful to the status quo the status quo is seen as pretty good yeah there's problems there's problems with everything you can nitpick everything but fundamentally the status quo is pretty good therefore the conservative mind justifies existing systems it tends to defend existing social hierarchy and class structures caste systems monarchy capitalism oligarchy Elites nobility aristocracy and classes if they exist conservatives have traditionally defended all these the conservative mind is less bothered by inequalities in society and simply happier with the status quo it has a tendency to believe that some groups of people are innately better than others and those are the ones who rise to the top of this caste system or hierarchy humans are seen as innately hierarchical humans are not naturally equal there's deep inequality amongst humans this is perhaps one of the biggest factors that distinguish the conservative and the liberal mind the liberal mind tends to believe that all humans are equal and the conservative mind says what are you talking about humans are so grossly unequal in their capacity to generate value business work to do combat to um care for children and many other things and there are many mediocre people in society that that it would be dangerous to put into positions of Power by equalizing them some people deserve to be on the bottom of society some people don't deserve to be in charge of things and to be leaders because some people are really effective leaders and other people are not the majority of people are not effective military leaders for example or effective CEOs therefore they should just work at McDonald's or Starbucks where they belong and uh you know to put everyone on the same playing field would be a mistake and would lead to a worsening of society it would actually endanger Society the conservative mind glorifies the nobility of man rather than seeing just man as a cancer on Mother Earth as an exploiter there's a certain nobility to human civilization in society and therefore the conservative mind reveres and respects that the conservative mind also tends to believe that man because of this nobility has the right to pillage nature and animals the conservative mind is more sensitive to evils threats and dangers from the outside of one's tribe other tribes diseases foreign forces and influences that's why there's a xenophobia there a fundamental xenophobia fear of the unknown a fear of foreignness you see the conservative mind tends to favor one's in group versus out-group it's more tribalistic since resources are scarce they should be reserved for one's tribe or in-group if you believe we have unlimited resources then you don't need to be stingy with how you allocate them and that's what the liberal tends to believe it's like we have enough for everybody we have enough food for everybody why do we got to be stingy about it the conservative says the reality is that we don't have enough food for everybody and therefore not just food of course but other resources as well housing and beachfront property and so forth therefore the resources need to be controlled and allocated to those who deserve them the most who worked the hardest who are the most moral people the people who do the most uh to conform to the tribe to help the tribe survive those are the people who we reserve the resources for and we reserve it for our group not the out group for our tribe that's who the resources are for the conservative mind is in general less tolerant and appreciative of diversity diversity is seen as dangerous because the mind struggles to deal with diversity and diversity of people races Norms culture languages sexual behaviors um A diversity of religions and spiritual techniques A diversity of ideas and philosophies this is all overwhelming for the mind to deal with and it can even be confusing to the point where people get lost the liberal tends to poo poo this fear and this concern as though it's not legitimate understand that there is some legitimacy to this fear and concern diversity can be dangerous if you have a lot of diverse people coming together into one room there's going to be more chaos there's going to be more Divergence of perspectives and you're not going to be able to build a cohesive unit or a community out of those very diverse groups or if you will it's going to require a lot more work this is why the conservative mind is generally anti-multicultural it has a fear and discomfort with foreigners and immigrants immigrants tend to be seen as dirty disgusting unworthy sub-human or other or a corrupting influence on the in-group it goes much deeper than just xenophobia or racism or tribalism you have to understand why tribalism is so prevalent in the human mind it's because it's necessary for survival it has been for thousands and thousands of years and it still continues to be today as ugly as it is sometimes the conservative mind tends to have a hostility towards minorities who deviate from Traditional Values that sure explains a lot to liberals isn't it it also has a tendency to seek to control others behaviors through the use of punishment laws authority figures and strictness the conservative mind values clear rewards and punishments for Behavior one of the things that infuriates the conservative mind which the liberals do is that the Liberals want to give amnesty to people who break the laws for example liberals want to give amnesty to and have mercy on uh immigrant illegal immigrants or you know people who get put into jail for a weed possession or minor violations you know minor crimes that are committed liberals tend to want to have mercy and empathy for all these people whereas for the conservatives they can't allow that because if they allow that that's too permissive then the whole structure of laws gets undermined and then anybody can do whatever they want in a certain sense Pandora's Box is opened and then this destroys Society so for conservative is it's very important for conservatives that if somebody breaks a law that they are punished for it appropriately they're not given special treatment now of course in modern times with what's happening with Donald Trump this has all been thrown out the window which is why Maga and modern Trump supporters are not like really true conservatives it's just a a bastardization of conservatism but like uh true conservative is going to be a stickler on the punishment for crimes a true conservative would want Donald Trump punished for all the crimes he's committed and all the rules he's broken next point is that the conservative mind has a strong attachment The Nostalgia and love for home tribe country culture and tradition it's hard to really communicate um how attached one can get to these things and how nostalgic one can be for these things and how much love one can have for these things liberals tend to not understand this aspect of the conservative mind another point is that the conservative mind has a mythological sentimental craving for the glory of the good old days that's a lot of what the appeal of fascism is fascism appeals to hearkening back to the good old days when our society was morally pure and strong and not as decadent and corrupted as it is today so there is a desire for the restoration of that moral fabric which has been undermined thinking that that will lead to the highest good which was where you see movements for the restoration of National Historical greatness the restoration of Russian historical greatness Indian historical greatness Chinese historical greatness Japanese German Iranian historical greatness all these countries were once great Empires and the conservatives in all these countries lament the fact that we've lost our way in recent times we've lost our power we've lost our Prestige and they attribute that to the breakdown of the moral fabric of those societies of being undermined from the outside by foreigners and so that's what they're reacting against and their ultimate vision is a revitalization of Mother Russia or mother Germany or the Chinese Empire or the you know the glory of ancient India or Japan or the Persian Empire you know consider where Iran is today and where the Persian Empire was in the past think about how how bad it must feel for Iranian conservatives to like to know that we had this great Persian Empire that was at one point one of the most developed and cultured and civilized uh parts of the world and now it's fallen into this disarray that we see today and now we're being out-competed by the Americans you know the Godless Americans and the Chinese and the Godless Chinese and and so forth this really uh stings the ego of the of the radiance they still think of themselves as Persians any of them do of course there's the appeal of fiscal conservativism which is the idea that the government does not have a right to run up large debt to then burden future Generations so that's the list of various attitudes and characteristics of the conservative world view here is a list of the top conservative values family tradition ancestors bloodline Duty order following clear rules of right and wrong obeying Authority serving one's tribe and Nation loyalty honor fighting evil serving God defending tradition serving traditional roles country race and ethnicity religion strong work ethic discipline personal responsibility marriage Chastity Purity sexual propriety decorum security safety patriarchy toughness stoicism strength status quo rugged individualism pulling yourself up by your bootstraps being grounded and realistic tribal Pride domination over nature Conquest over evil doers here's a characterization of the conservative personality it's persistent tenacious stable consistent hard-working reliable trustworthy faithful loyal careful practical methodical dutiful conventional ordinary straight laced Square obedient conformist concerned with Norms trying to be a good boy or girl trying to fit in Less open to experience closed-minded rigid intolerant threatened insecure and worried I want to say a little bit more to help you appreciate the conservative world to you some more the conservative worldview has a legitimate function imagine if you grew up in a war-torn country imagine you were recently born in Ukraine and you're seven years old growing up in Ukraine with this war that's going on now your whole country has been devastated and destroyed that's going to shape your whole worldview you will grow up much less optimistic about human beings when someone teaches you about love or about God or about empathy or about helping others you're not going to care about these things because for you to survive in this war-torn environment you have to care about yourself and your small circle of friends and family your tribe and your nation this is what's necessary for you to not get exterminated but if you grew up in a good family in a safe part of the world then you can afford to be much more optimistic about human nature you're going to tend to believe that people are nice fundamentally that the we can resolve our our differences without violence that we can just use diplomacy and empathy we can talk things out we can use democracy and this will solve all of our problems but you see that is only true within the privileged environment survival environment that you grew up in you could not hold those beliefs as you grew up in a war-torn country that was getting Savage and devastated the way that Ukraine is right now and when you grow up in a place like Ukraine where the resources are scarce you know there's only so much food to go around you're gonna have to act tougher to get your survival needs met you're going to maybe have to steal some food Ben some rules bribe somebody in order to get a Visa out of the country in order to secure a firearm to protect your family in order to get enough food for your family and so on in this way the conservative world you is a reaction to survival conditions and is way hyper more hyper-realistic and pessimistic it's worried about protecting against danger and threat it takes danger and threat seriously in a way that many liberals don't life in a certain sense the conservative's life is closer has a closer appreciation of the possibility of death this is why ironically conservatives start more Wars the reason conservatives start more Wars is because they're paranoid and preemptive if you're fearful you're going to attack your neighbor before your neighbor gets a chance to attack you this might seem kind of Twisted and perverted but this is exactly how it works when your life is in danger being empathetic and caring is a luxury you cannot afford if most of your neighbors are psychopaths and rapists then it doesn't make sense for you to just sit by and wait for them to come threaten you you're going to preemptively go out there and threaten them this is why conservatives love to act tough their ideal is to survive through toughness they have little respect for empathy or empathy for the weak don't go crying to somebody to solve your problems solve them yourself that's the conservative ethos act tough so people don't [ __ ] with you so people don't bully you if you act weak that's just going to invite bullying this is why conservatives glorify violence guns battles Sports manliness masculinity strength military the police and various authority figures here's an example about how arms races works for example if you have an arms race there's two solutions to solving an arms race there is the toughness approach and there's the apathy approach the diplomacy approach the diplomacy approach says that you know we can come together and realize that you know I'm building up my Nuclear Arsenal you're building up yours we're wasting a bunch of resources doing this and in the end these nuclear weapons they're just going to destroy the world we can't even use them so it's just a massive waste of energy therefore let's disarm and have peace and invest those resources into education Healthcare and society and it's going to be a win-win that's the liberal Solution that's the Diplomatic the sort of empathetic solution can't we just have enough empathy to realize that we don't want to kill each other okay the conservative solution is to just win the arms race by out fighting the other we're not going to defeat Soviet communism by sitting down and sharing our feelings and empathy we have fundamentally Different World Views communism and capitalism is incompatible and the solution is not to compromise the solution is to defeat the Soviets and you do that by building better bombs more bombs to the point where you are so far ahead of them that they just get demoralized and they quit the game themselves which is the right solution well it very much depends there is no one right solution it's very context dependent every situation is going to be different the conservative sees empathy and diplomacy as too weak the liberal sees toughness in the sort of Macho out fight the other side attitude as too dumb and cruel it's like you know it's like we're living like cavemen so to the conservative is stupid I mean to the to the liberal what the conservative the conservative attitude seems stupid because it's so crude but on the other hand if you're living amongst cavemen you need to do as the Romans you know as they say when in Rome do as the Romans uh if you're living amongst cavemen cavemen only understand Force and brutality they don't understand diplomacy they don't understand empathy they don't understand love they don't understand peace so the mistake that the liberal can make is that if you put one liberal into a tribe of 50 cavemen that liberal is going to approach those cavemen she's going to approach them as though they're all liberals too when they aren't she's going to try to reason with them and have pity on them and take the soft feminine approach and they won't understand that they're just going to rape her because that's what cavemen do so in that situation you need another caveman who's going to defend her caveman who understands how cavemen operate who has a realistic appraisal of the situation another example of conservativism is actually within science most scientists are very conservative people by their temperament I don't mean that they're conservative in the sense that they're uh you know pro-gun rights and anti-abortion or something like that no I mean most scientists are conservative in the sense that they are conservative with respect to the way that they do science the institution of science they want to preserve it they're very protective of it and they're terrified of ruining their reputations and authority and the way that most scientists do science is in a very conscientious manner they dot all their T's and since they dot all their eyes and cross all their T's um and they get locked by by that they get locked into a into a system into a bureaucracy into an institution and into a paradigm and this actually prevents science from making new groundbreaking discoveries so there are pros and cons to this one of the pros of conservative science is that if you do science in a very sort of technocratic uh way and sort of well not technocratic what I mean is in a sort of very technical rigorous way with attention to to detail you can do that but you lose sight of the big picture that's the problem with materialism for example um on the other hand if you do science or investigation of reality in a very loose manner where you're not very rigorous then you make more mistakes and then people will trust you less you're going to be less of an authority because you know the more mistakes you make the less trust people place in you so one of the differences you might have noticed between me versus a a traditional scientist is that I have a much more sloppy approach to my way of understanding reality I talk about things in a much more loose manner a much more liberal with my Explorations and reality which allows me to access Things That No scientists will ever understand or access but what's the downside the downside is that I make more mistakes I'm not as rigorous so if you're going to compare actualize the body of work of actualize.org to the rigors of of science um obviously science is going to be much more rigorous and accurate but that's because it's also much less ambitious it doesn't explain very much um and it tackles subjects which are much easier to explain less abstract less paradoxical less interesting less mystical all right so these are the trade-offs between having a sort of a liberal epistemology in metaphysics versus a conservative epistemology in metaphysics there's trade-offs there here's a list of the top conservative fears this is really what triggers and controls the conservative mind right so it's all about what you're fearing and then liberals have their own set of fears that controls them so the conservatives are controlled by the fear of disorder chaos change emotions and feelings sin being bad not fitting in with the tribe loss of power loss of control foreigners alien cultures the feminine homosexuality loss of objective reality relativity Paradox ambiguity abstraction uncertainty confusion not knowing insanity and Hell here's a list of conservative blind spots the conservative mind overemphasizes the dangers of change and underemphasizes the dangers of the status quo sometimes change is more dangerous than the status quo but other times status quo is more dangerous than change and that is very situational there's no algorithm for knowing which is which when also another blind spot is that the conservative mind fails to empathize with those oppressed by the current system its circle of empathy is too narrow and usually the conservative mind only understands this when it itself becomes oppressed or victimized um for example the conservative a typical conservative might have little empathy for people who are drug addicts condemning these people as being Sinners and immoral and so forth and wanting maximum Criminal penalties however win this conservative mind itself gets addicted to opioids because of some back surgery that went wrong or whatever it's addicted to opioid pills um now all of a sudden the conservative mind starts to empathize with drug addicts because it itself has experienced drug addiction or for example a typical conservative might not empathize with the poor until that conservative becomes poor and then it starts to empathize with the poor so this is one advantage that liberals tend to have over conservatives is empathy another blind spot for conservatives is uh that fear can become a self-fulfilling prophecy if you're run by fear and insecurity we've talked about this in the past is that fear tends to recreate itself even if the thing you fear isn't very likely by fearing it you can make it more likely what's an example of this for example with cheating if you're an insecure man in a relationship with a loving woman but you have some bad experiences in the past you're paranoid and you think that every woman is going to cheat on you so all the time you're with her she's not thinking about cheating on you but you're always thinking that she might cheat on you so you're paranoid all the time to the point where now you're controlling you know she wants to go out with her friends so you don't let her she has a a guy friend you tell her to stop texting him she has an ex-boyfriend she talks to you tell her to cut it off and so forth well you become so controlling that eventually she loses attraction for you and she leaves you for another man and then you say well I knew it I knew she was going to cheat on me all women are cheating [ __ ] no it's because you created it you see your fear and paranoia brought it about that's how fear tends to work or for example here's some more a political example is like let's say America fears terrorism therefore what we do is we decide to preemptively invade Iraq because we believe that there are harboring terrorists and that future terrorist attacks will come from Iraq well by doing that though uh we actually end up creating more terrorists than there were in Iraq in the first place destabilizing the whole region destabilizing neighboring countries like Syria and perhaps Iran and um whatever else is around there and um this leads to more terrorism this is a great example of fear as a self-fulfilling prophecy so you have to be very careful about that that's what happens when you're paranoid you know you might be so paranoid you think the police are going to come get you in reality no police are after you but if you're so paranoid you start acting so suspicious around the police they might actually come and arrest you just because you're being so weird uh this tends to be a problem for conspiracy theories as well as conspiracy theorists tend to sort of create self-fulfilling prophecy effects another blind spot of the conservative mind is excessive conformity to man-made constructions the conservative mind has to not understand that human Norms are pretty much all arbitrary human cultures are very arbitrary and just blindly conforming to them and treating them as though their objective reality this leads to all sorts of problems and speaking of Conformity the other blind spot that conservatives really suffer from is since they like obedience to Authority they tend to follow authoritarians off a cliff they find some authoritarian leader fall in love with him and then he ends up being a [ __ ] madman or a criminal or a narcissist like Trump and then you follow him off a cliff and he leads you off a cliff and you just because you're just blindly following Authority and you believe you have to follow all the rules to be a good boy or girl you end up following a Hitler or Mussolini or a trump off a cliff another blind spot for conservatives is what I call the Lesser Jihad fighting evil with evil the idea that evil can be defeated through violence or through physical confrontation stuff like you know torturing terrorists in Guantanamo or whatever that the Bush Administration did this kind of stuff thinking that you're going to solve the problem of terrorism by torturing people it doesn't work this way you cannot defeat evil with evil the solution to evil is not more evil the solution to evil is love conservatives don't understand this and speaking of which conservatives have a blind spot when it comes to a fundamental misunderstanding of evil God love religion and freedom conservatives really don't understand these things almost their understanding is almost the opposite of the truth when it comes to these things so it's very difficult to teach the conservative mind because it's so closed it's difficult to teach the conservative mind about the proper understanding of evil God religion love and freedom now here's a list of what the conservative mind struggles with it struggles with relativity blurred metaphysical and moral lines this is a huge one it struggles with construct awareness and subjectivity also a huge one it struggles with emotionality being touchy-feely being vulnerable femininity being playful and spontaneous the conservative mind has to be too robotic lacking in requisite variety to algorithmic in its approach to surviving and this counter-intuitively ends up undermining its survival so the conservative mind is acting very rigid and strict because it needs to justify because that's how it has been able to survive to this point but then future more advanced Avenues of survival are closed off to it because it's so attached to this particular way of surviving right here but in the future as environment and Society changes survival changes therefore survival to truly be good at survival to be really intelligent survival you need infinite requisite variety a topic that I talked about in the past on my blog see my episode called requisite variety for that um but uh yeah the bottom line is that you can get so attached to one way of surviving that it actually ends up undermining your survival and ends up killing you you got to be smart enough to see that and to preempt that from happening the conservative mind struggles with letting go surrender and self-control by softer means than just strict self-discipline it also struggles with empathy and opening of the heart this is seen as dangerous and threatening and it struggles with opening of the mind to radical new ideas perspectives habits and cultures I want to quickly take you through now an application of the conservative worldview I'm going to go through about eight different topics here and I'm gonna put on my conservative hat and I'm going to speak to you about this topic as though I'm a arch conservative now keep in mind these are not my necessarily genuine positions on these points I'm just going to be speaking as a conservative so you can get a feel for what it's really like to embody the conservative world you and speak from it and you should be able to do this as well right so I'm modeling this for you if you can't do this then you haven't really understood the conservative worldview all right so for example how does the conservative view feminism feminism is dangerous because it undermines the structure upon which all of human civilization has been built on for hundreds of thousands of years which is strong men leading and organizing Society that's how mankind has always lived mankind without strong Noble moral leaders uh always falls into disarray and Evil and women suffer from this as much as men do humans by their nature are um pretty brutal and they will do brutal things to each other and the reality is that when [ __ ] hits the fan you need a strong man to protect you against other strong men women are not capable of doing this and so by giving women too much power by equalizing men and women we fall prey into this utopian idea that men and women are all equal when in fact we're not equal when it comes to defending you from a rapist you need a strong man that's the reality of the situation when it comes to Leading the military you need a military full of strong men not women women can serve some supporting roles as caretakers nurses administrators and so forth but they're not going to be in the trenches Manning a machine gun and if they are our civilization will collapse and we'll get taken over by Nazis we need to be realistic about this this is not because we want to dominate women or because we hate women or because we want to oppress women this is simply our biology this is how man as a ape species has evolved some ape species have women in charge and are more matriarchal and some ape species are more patriarchal and humans just happen to be one of the ape species that is more patriarchal this is not good or bad it just is what it is we need to be realistic about that because if we're not then bad things will happen and the reality is that most women like being feminine most women don't like being put into positions of authority and Leadership where they are forced to act like masculine men some women want that but the majority of women don't so feminism can take things too far by over equalizing uh and kidding ourselves about the structure of uh of healthy human societies okay there we go next topic transgenderism the conservative you transgenderism is dangerous because identifying as a man or a woman this is very fundamental to who you are to your psyche to your mind and also to the morality and structure of society it's also fundamental to the family unit and our ability to have children upon which all of human civilization hinges we need to have a replacement rate of humans of something like two point one children per woman in order just to maintain civilization otherwise civilization will collapse and right now in many Advanced Western democracies women are having children way below replacement rates this could become a serious problem in the years to come despite concerns about overpopulation what transgenderism does is it tends to blur boundaries between these very traditional classic categories of man and woman masculine and feminine and it creates a lot of confusion for people especially for young people and young people are pretty foolish and they just get on whatever latest trend is happening in society and there's a significant number of transgender people that are just being confused just by the fact they're growing up in a LAX culture that permits them this source of confusion and ambiguity in traditional cultures where gender Norms were more strictly enforced you didn't have all these options and a lot of times these options are not giving you uh the happiness that you desire what you desire from life is happiness and stability and certainty and Direction not infinite freedom sometimes the more choices you're given the less happy you end up being sometimes when all you have is two ice cream flavors your life is better you're happier than when you go and you have 30 different ice cream flavors you don't know which one to choose and you're just standing there you're kind of like lost rudderless without a direction without an identity what you want what these transgender kids want is they want a strong firm identity but that becomes impossible when you can just invent your own genders and you can change genders from one day to the next day and you can have all sorts of different kinds of sex and inventing things left and right there's a danger to this kind of relativism next topic atheism and secularism the conservative View the problem with atheism is that it leads to secularism and the problem with secularism is that it leads to a sort of materialism where we're no longer living for something higher Beyond man there's nothing Beyond man there's no order in the universe beyond man becomes the measure of all things man gets to invent whatever man wants and then it's just what earning money having sex going to parties inventing new crazy technology and that's all that our life becomes there's nothing higher to live for there's no moral code because secularism tells you that hey every culture has their own relative moral codes and basically do as you wish and it's all the same but it's not all the same some cultures and moral codes are better than others are more Superior are more aligned with Consciousness and with love and the net effect of secularism has been that people just get lost in Endless materialism and nihilism they have nothing Noble nothing higher nothing Transcendent to Aspire towards it's just business Money video games sex and this is leading to the degradation of our society our society is becoming dumb and weak as a result of this next item is socialism Marxism the conservative View socialism and Marxism is great in theory but only in theory because it has a utopian view of human nature the idea that we can all roughly earn the same amount of money and all be in roughly the same positions of power is it's nice I wish mankind worked that way but it simply doesn't the reality is that mankind is very hierarchical the reality is that some humans generate much more value than others and they deserve much more reward than others the reality is that co-ops don't work very well the reason most businesses are not co-ops and most governments are not co-ops is because you need leaders at the top setting the vision and setting the tone and the direction for the entire institutional organization if co-ops worked there'd be a lot of co-ops there aren't that's because they're out competed by hierarchical corporations this is not some scheme to keep humans oppressed the way that Marxist claimed this is not exploitation this is simply the natural order of of human communities and societies for for thousands of years they're very hierarchical and so marxist's idea of leveling all these hierarchies and making everyone equal it simply doesn't work look at what happened in Soviet Russia under communism the reality is that when you implement socialism and Marxism it get it gets implemented in very selfish ways it never gets implemented in the utopian ways that the liberal or the progressive thinks it should or would in reality to enforce this very unnatural um scheme utopian scheme upon all of mankind requires totalitarian and authoritarian means as we see or have seen in communist Russia and communist China and even then with all this brutal totalitarianism it still doesn't work look at North Korea it still doesn't work in North Korea they still have to have black free markets despite trying to pretend like they're communists so maybe in a thousand years or in five thousand years mankind will evolve to some sort of point where we can have a socialist Marxist system but today it's completely foolish and idealistic and utopian and it's not going to work it's completely impractical and by trying to implement it you're actually going to make things worse and more unfair which is exactly what happened in the 20th century in China Russia Cuba Korea other places the next item is immigration the conservative view of immigration it would be nice if anybody could just immigrate anywhere they wanted to in the world if all countries were equal but the reality is that all countries are not equal some countries are much more developed than other countries and if we allow anybody to just immigrate anywhere they want to then everyone would flood to the best countries and the infrastructure and social safety nets that we have in place would not be able to handle it moreover not just that but a community and a country is it's not just a collection of people it's a culture it's a collection of people it's a tribe organized under a cultural identity a Common Language a common religion sometimes a common ethnicity and so forth that binds people together that creates a shared value system under which we can then operate when you let in a lot of immigrants it creates so much diversity so many different World Views languages cultures Cuisines races ethnicities government Styles you know you've got capitalists and Marxist all living together trying to make things work and then what happens is that we're not able to create a competitive government that's able to compete with other governments around the world who are cohesive and have a singular vision for example we need to compete against China we compete against Russia and so forth where they are very homogeneous culturally and ethnically and as a result of that they're able to find a common vision and work together whereas in a very diverse country like America for example we have so many people pulling in so many different directions under democracy that nothing gets done government is completely dysfunctional we're polarized everybody is fighting everybody else all these different special interest groups and so forth and not to mention which the resources that our community develops need to be first and foremost allocated to the people who are most loyal to our community not to Outsiders otherwise this is just unfair and it creates resentment and also many people in our societies and communities they're simply uh uncomfortable with too much immigration and too much foreign influence in our culture it degrades the culture which we love the way that it is that we're trying to defend and protect and all this immigration dilutes that culture which is like a betrayal of our ancestors next item punishment of criminals the conservative perspective criminals need to receive harsh punishment because the only thing that is preventing disorder and Chaos from running loose in society is our police our military our legal system and our enforcement of it if we start being lacks about our enforcement of punishments on criminals then this is going to create a general atmosphere of leniency and this attitude of do whatever you want and things will be okay this will lead to more crime and the last item environmentalism the conservative perspective the environment is important but human suffering is more important and the reality is is that most humans on this planet live in such dire material conditions that they don't have enough to survive and from this they suffer greatly by making environmentalism such a top concern and priority the way that liberals do this is going to put economic pressure this is going to cost people jobs and ultimately this is going to lead to more suffering than having to endure and retrofit some of our um infrastructure over the next hundred years you know as the temperature rises one or two degrees in the end mankind is technologically Innovative enough to deal with any kind of environmental disasters and um our technology will be able to solve this problem in the future but in the meantime our priority needs to be on increasing the material and economic conditions of the majority of mankind which means that we don't want to over regulate on environmental issues where the costs are low we can do that but when the costs are too high we need to have as our top priority the economy not the environment because ultimately what you have to understand about the economy it's not just the economy in some abstract sense a bad economy means children are starving a bad economy means you can't afford to go to the doctor therefore you die from a disease a bad economy means that you can't give your children Christmas presents because you can't afford it and so on and then a bad economy means that governments can collapse and Wars can start which could lead to the deaths of millions of people so this issue is much more complicated than simply whether you care about Mother Nature or not the way that liberals sometimes presented as you have to also take into account of who suffers the most on this planet is it the trees or is it the children of some hungry people in some third world country so there you go you should be able to do that this is a straw man of conservativism on all these different positions now I'm not saying this is 100 right and that there's not alternative perspectives just um be able to see things from the conservative point of view here's some personal examples of where I've been conservative in my own life even though generally like socially speaking I'm very liberal politically I'm very Progressive but actually when I started out off my life I was quite conservative specifically in my personal life not politically but in my personal life for example I was very conservative when it came to my education and my development when I was young I was extremely disciplined I disciplined myself in a strict way to study really hard in school and to be very serious about that not just flake around and screw around and go to parties and have sex indiscriminately and do drugs and all this kind of stuff no I was very straight laced and square because I knew that the first 20 years of my life would set up the rest of my life so I was very disciplined about my education I got very disciplined about Fitness I applied enormous discipline when it came to learning attraction dealing with girls relationships pick up stuff I became very disciplined in order to succeed in my first few businesses and even with actualize.org I for went socialization going to parties having fun so that I basically worked for a couple of Decades of my life to set up the rest of my life and uh what I saw with all the other kids around me is that they were in a sense very liberal about that they didn't do any of that and today their life is mediocre if not garbage um and I'm extremely glad that I was so conservative when I was young I had a very realistic assessment of human nature I had a very realistic assessment of what my life would be like if I flaked around and screwed around and just played games and didn't take it seriously didn't develop myself and then didn't discipline myself also I've been very conservative financially not wasting money saving money not getting loans not using credit cards not buying [ __ ] I don't need this was very important for me without this I wouldn't have been able to have the funds I needed to do something like actualize.org and to stay financially independent and that came from the fact that when I was growing up the survival situation in my household when it came to money is that money was very fleeting it's not that we didn't have it it's just that it came and it went it was lost very easily my dad lost lots and lots and lots and lots of money he lost so much money he traumatized me have nightmares about how much money he lost and I could fall into the same um situation if I'm not careful that made me extremely conservative with my money and I'm glad about that because most people just pissed their money away most people if they had the money I had they would have pissed it all away years ago especially at my age another place where I was conservative is um was with spirituality actually believe it or not when it comes to pursuing enlightenment Awakening and Truth in God I was extremely conservative what does that mean exactly what that means is I was conservative in the sense that I knew that if I didn't take this issue seriously I would never achieve it so from the very first time when I heard about Enlightenment I took it very seriously I was very disciplined about it I was also uh very honest with myself about what it would take you know sometimes I say stuff like it's going to take you a thousand hours to reach Awakening or to God realization or something like that and then people say well Leah why are you putting a number on it why are you making it sound so difficult like aren't it's not just a limiting belief why are you limiting your audience this way and my response is that I'm airing on the side of being conservative I would much rather you think that Awakening and God realization is going to be really really difficult than you thinking it's going to be really easy or you thinking that you're already enlightened or something like that so I'm being conservative on your behalf when you when I tell you how hard some of these things are it's because I know that the greatest danger is that you're going to slack off you're not going to take the things that I say seriously you're going to underestimate the depth of these issues when I tell you how advanced something is that's a conservative statement because see most spiritual teachers they tell you like oh don't worry just kind of take it easy you know pursue Awakening on your own terms at your own pace you can do it in a single weekend or just you know follow some some simple Buddhist path or something like that and I'm telling you no none of that shit's gonna work if you really want to understand what God is none of it's going to work like you got to be I want you going to bed at night sweating and having nightmares about how all of your spiritual methods are just delusion and are gonna lead you nowhere you're gonna waste 20 years with Buddhism and never realize God that's what I want you to be afraid of you might say well Leo that's dysfunctional well um ideally you'd find a middle ground there somewhere but if we're going to err on the side of somewhere I'm going to err on the side of making you more paranoid about that than to loose and Lacks see again this is just my bias I'm not saying this is necessarily true or right or the one way of doing spirituality or the best attitude to have this is just my attitude because I'm anticipating kind of like where the audience is at what the traps are what the most common obstacles are and then how to inoculate you against those uh also I noticed myself being conservative sometimes when I think about my family sometimes when I think about where I grew up like sometimes I'll take a trip to Orange County which is where I grew up and it's amazing I I take a trip to Orange County it's as though I travel back in time I get this like wave of nostalgia it's almost like a psychedelic trip of nostalgia hits me I think about all the you know good times I had with my family there I'm bad times too but you know in retrospect you remember all the good stuff you delete all the bad stuff um and you get this like deep Nostalgia for your home for your family Christmas time with the family you know sometimes I I miss that and uh you can extrapolate from that you can say that's sort of like the conservative attitude towards family towards culture towards um defending one's Nation defending one's tribe is this deep love and Nostalgia for your roots where you came from your heritage your bloodline your home your mother country this kind of thing I rarely experience that but occasionally I'll experience it like once a year twice a year I'll experience that if I travel back home and um it just makes me think like oh this is how a conservative usually feels what I feel once a year conservative is feeling like every week that certainly explains a lot maybe you can relate to that um and also where I've been conservative is with my is with my work with actualize.org and um with psychedelics actually I've been very conservative in the sense that with psychedelics you know I treat them so seriously most people they treat psychedelics as something something frivolous I treat them so seriously you know like I do 100 or 200 trips and still I treat it as though I don't understand what it is I still treat it as though I'm taking them for the first time I'm still treating it as though there's something new to learn that there's so much depth to consciousness there's so much I still don't understand about reality whereas many spiritual people you know they they take a little bit of psychedelics here and there and then and then they're like okay yeah you know Leo I've done that I'm over it now I've transcended it I'm beyond it no you're not beyond anything you haven't even begun you haven't even begun um so in this sense I'm super conservative you know I'm very conservative when it comes to self-deception when it comes to epistemology to metaphysics it might seem the opposite it might seem like I'm so loosey-goosey I talk about alien intelligence and alien Consciousness and God and love and crazy [ __ ] like this and you might see Leo that that's so crazy and far out there but you have to understand like how seriously I take this I'm extra conservative not to underestimate Consciousness the depth of Consciousness the complexity the trickeries of consciousness whereas most spiritual people I see them doing the opposite of that most Buddhists and stuff like that no I see them not being conservative to me a Buddhist just subscribes to some stupid Buddhist um you know series of techniques thinking that that's going to be enough to understand what Consciousness is are you [ __ ] kidding me you have to be so foolish to believe that that's not conservative to me that's not airing on the side of caution that's what I mean by conservatives airing on the side of caution when it comes to con understanding consciousness the most likely thing is that you're not going to understand it because you're completely underestimating it you're going to undershoot not overshoot so I would aim to overshoot when it comes to consciousness I want to take you through a series of visualization a little very quick visualization exercises to help you to see the emotional appeal of conservativism okay here we go imagine having such a difficult upbringing that you have no time for games or frivolity you have to work hard and be strict with yourself for years just to survive next imagine having deep pride in your city country family company team or cultures achievements like you really feel proud about the achievements of your tribe and you want to respect and honor that not to undermine it next imagine a revolution that happens in your country that overthrows the government but it makes things ten times worse than they were 10 times more violence ten times more disorder and chaos ten times more inequality should make you think twice about a revolution supporting one next imagine your children grow up to be spoiled brats who just drink play video games eat pizza do drugs go to parties have sex and don't develop any serious skills in life no work skills no discipline and they're just constantly whining and entitled they're soft and they're weak they can't take care of themselves and then you have to take care of them for the rest of their life you have to pay for them you have to solve all their problems because they're too weak to do it themselves because nobody taught them any discipline nobody taught them to treat life seriously and now they're like domesticated Lions who don't know how to hunt they need to be fed food how do you feel about that situation are you happy with that next imagine you have a son who cries and wants to kill himself because he lost in a video game and he can't approach approach girls or get laid and now he's depressed and miserable and all of this because he's just too afraid to go to a nightclub and talk to a girl or he's so undisciplined he can't even motivate himself to leave his house leave the basement and go into a social environment and deal with the difficulty of doing that and facing his social anxiety he's just too emotionally weak to do that and as a result he's never going to have a family he's never going to have a good sex life and he's going to subscribe now to some kind of toxic in cell ideology which is going to make him want to kill himself he's going to hate himself when on the other hand if he disciplined himself and he was more serious about life and someone taught him how to do that then he could be very successful with girls and he could have a great family life have children and all that find himself a great wife through this process instead he just plays video games and [ __ ] and moans about um how unfair life is on in-cell forums next imagine our culture degrades to the point of Idiocracy this one might be pretty easy to imagine I I already feel we're there but just imagine how bad it could really get if we have a complete degradation of our culture where we lose sight of God and love and Consciousness and hard work and discipline all those classic virtues and values honesty Integrity truth Beauty goodness helping others we lose sight of all that instead we just become whiny entitled constantly divided tribe of people who can't get along and can't solve the real challenges of life and we all just get addicted to our phones video games and Netflix and porn next imagine a world that is purely materialistic technocratic secular rationalist homogeneous a global a globalist dystopia with no spirituality in it where life is just about material acquisition and nothing deeper next imagine a case where young people are jumping on some foolish new trend like some new crypto Ponzi scheme or eating Tide Pods rather than sticking to the tried and true principles of our ancestors they're engaging in this childish immature frivolous Behavior rather than pursuing virtue next imagine the culture shock and discomfort that you feel when you travel someplace foreign and then the relief and comfort when you return back home so maybe you travel to China or to India it's exciting it's interesting but then when you come back home how good it feels to come back home how comforting you feel how secure your fear you feel how good that feels next Imagine The Pride you feel in fighting for uh for your country with your brothers and sisters to defend from Nazis next imagine how good you feel when you follow a solid morning routine every day for months until it becomes effortless you don't even think about it you just get up every morning you do your morning routine it sets you up for the day you get so much accomplished at the end of the day you go to bed feeling proud of yourself about um everything you've achieved that day next imagine that warm fuzzy feeling you get spending Christmas time with your family everybody getting along sharing presence sharing stories next imagine how good you feel when your whole house is clean and perfectly ordered what if you could make society that way next imagine how good you feel saving up money to buy a house when your stupid friends waste all their money on Diamond Jewelry champagne and strippers that's it those are the exercises let's get to a little bit of a taste of um the genuine value and appeal of conservativism here are some questions I'd like you to contemplate and ask yourself to help you in this regard number one where in your life are you conservative what you'll discover is that it's not really a matter of are you liberal or conservative it's more a matter of in which domains of your life are you conservative I guarantee you there are some domains even if you're very liberal and Progressive I guarantee there are some domains where you're conservative maybe it's with your money maybe it's with psychedelics maybe it's with spirituality or whatever the way you raise your children Maybe next question where are you hyper realistic and pragmatic as opposed to idealistic and utopian that's a key question next question where are you cautious to make changes in your life because the risks are so great to getting it wrong sauce making you conservative next where do you stick to tried and true principles in your life rather than innovating or Reinventing the wheel maybe it's what the way you cook your lasagna or something next question where are you set in your habits and old ways you just have a way of doing something it works you like it and you don't even want to think about changing it your mom tells you to do something different your friends tell you to do something different and you just stick with the old habit next question where are you closed to radical new ideas next question where are you pessimistic about human nature and the last question where do you shake your head in shame at the weakness and degeneracy of the young you see the Young Generation of Zoomers doing something stupid some stupid trend whether it's crypto or Pokemon or Tide Pods or whatever it is whatever the kids are doing these days you know getting tattoos nose rings some god-awful thing listening to some god-awful music you look at it you just shake your head in shame you cringe at it and you say you know if this continues Society is going to hell maybe it's with Instagram or with pornography whatever it is within cells foreign so obviously online you're going to find a lot of examples of dumb conservatives this is really a shame because like I've demonstrated to you here today hopefully there are intelligent formulations of the conservative worldview Beware of the left-wing straw mans there are so many left-wing straw mans out there that you guys are being brainwashed with I strongly encourage you I challenge you to find the most intelligent articulations of conservative thought that are out there you can find some some of this stuff I've shared some of this on my blog and elsewhere Jordan Peterson represents some of that Dennis Prager funnily enough you know some of his prageru videos are just pure propaganda and garbage but if you actually listen to Dennis Prager like his long-form interviews he actually presents um I was I was amazed he actually presents some pretty intelligent defenses of conservativism uh it's just that the Prager U videos are so awful that it's hard to recommend listening to him but I actually I do recommend it it'll it'll grow you a few other episodes you should watch if you like this series my conscious politics series part one part two part three part four go watch that it'll change your whole understanding of politics also my episode called how Society evolves go check that out also my spiral Dynamics series spironamic stage blue well it starts with red stage well actually it starts with purple purple red blue um orange green yellow and so on also see my series The Nine stages of ego development part one two three that'll be helpful and check out my episode called understanding democracy versus authoritarianism all of these episodes are combining the Consciousness stuff that I teach in spirituality and some of the advanced philosophy combining it with developmental psychology models and combining it with Society social issues political issues issues of governance and so on you know practical way so if you watch all that you're going to have a completely recontextualized understanding of of our political situation and then the last thing you should do is make sure you stay tuned for part two of this series next week where I'm going to talk about understanding the liberal mind