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Super Obvious Take on Conservatism
Yes, Yes, I know.
When we talk about political ideology there is an almost ubiquitous temptation to conceptualize it along a single spectrum. Jacobins versus monarchists, Right versus left, Democrats versus Republicans or even Progressives versus Moderates. And while that last one might be misleading and you might think I’m about to launch into another one of my super intense diatribes about the multifactorial origins of opinion and therefore ideology … I am.
Well, no. I’m actually not.
This is actually really simple. At least now. Arguably it always has been and there definitely were warnings. I’m hardly the first or the only person to raise the alarm that democracy is vulnerable to authoritarian leanings or even vulnerable to the dictatorship of the mob. (See Robespierre aka my favourite guy to hate on.)
But there’s something really interesting about France in the midst of its revolutionary fervour. Before Napoleon the French Republic was actually incredibly progressive. And progressive in the modern sense of the word. With the literal decapitation of the monarchy there followed a figurative decapitation of traditional and authoritarian forms of power down to people’s very families.
Women could get divorced. Daughters could inherit. Men no longer had the absolute right…
