So....I don't debate a lot of conservatives any more on issues related outside of economics, because quite frankly, it's often a waste of time. Moreover, most conservatives I do regularly debate with are generally much smarter and more informed than many conservatives out there and I can generally expect good arguments from there. Regardless, once in a while I do run into a topic in which I ultimately run into one of the more rank and file conservatives and end up debating them.
Yesterday, I ran into one in discussing the electoral college. As you guys know, I'm a critic of it, and have been a critic of it, and despite my differences with the democrats at the moment, I do think a system in which a candidate that wins the popular vote and loses the election is a poor one. And I already expressed my thoughts on this so I'm not going to delve into details, as my stated opinion is consistent with the one I discussed elsewhere on this blog. Anyway, this conservative dude I was arguing with started talking about how the founding fathers built the electoral system the way it is because they didn't trust the people to make decisions for themselves, and that people are flawed and shouldn't be given too much power, and that we should trust the founding fathers who fought against tyranny more than I trust my own judgment.
Before, I get into rebutting this opinion, now is the time to discuss conservatism as an ideology. Conservatism essentially means to "conserve", as in, we should favor the status quo and be skeptical of change. Essentially, conservatives believe that things are the way they are for a reason, and that we aren't smart enough to go around digging into social systems because if we do, we could be messing something up. We should trust tradition and the accumulated wisdom of previous generations more than our own judgment, and when we change things, it could very well be for the worse.
Here's the problem with such an ideology. It's basically a substitute for having real knowledge or real input on the situation. It is fine for a default position when you lack knowledge on the subject, but when you adopt such a position, it tells me that you're not actually informed enough to actually be able to debate the merits of the issue and are just relying on the status quo and the fact that there are other people smarter than you on these things and that you're deferring your opinion to them.
Now, there's no shame in this, but when you make this argument, you already lost in my eyes if your opponent does have a solid, well researched path to change. You've pretty much told me you're an inadequate debate partner who can't form their own opinion on the subject and that I should probably address the experts directly while leaving you out as the middle man. Moreover, these opinions are often full of logical fallacies. Argument from authority, for one, from tradition, and a lot of status quo bias.
I'll admit, when I was younger, I used a lot of these arguments a lot. I was skeptical of change, so I said, let's stick with the status quo, or some variation thereof, and let's not mess with things I don't understand. But therein lies the problem, just because I didn't understand doesn't mean other people don't either. Regardless, I do think that my conservative bias was a general part of my moral development and I don't regret holding those opinions at the time. It's scary for a teenager or even a college student who knows little about how the world works to want to change things, without having an understanding of how this change will impact the world. Change that is not researched and not based on evidence can be dangerous, because people who mess with things they don't understand can cause serious issues.
Essentially, my views at the time were based on a certain level of moral development. Lawrence Kohlberg had a theory in which different people have different stages of moral development and how they conduct themselves and how they approach morality and social systems. There are 6 known stages in 3 broad categories. Preconventional stages (stages 1 and 2) are normally found in children and morally stunted adults like sociopaths, and are generally what conservatives fear. That deep down, without a moral system to tell people how to act, they will start behaving in bad and harmful ways. While this is certainly true of some people, I doubt it is true of many or most. People at this stage respond best to incentive structures that reward people for good behavior and punish people for bad behavior. They need authority to tell them what to do, and they need rewards structures to incentivize their behavior. Those who are at conventional stages (3 and 4) tend to internalize and uphold society's values. Most people are at these stages, and stage 4 in particular seems to demonstrate conservative logic well. That these social structures and values are in place for a reason, and that we need to accept them because they're good. And this is where I was in my late teens and early 20s when I was a conservative, and where many conservatives are in their adulthood. However, there are stages above this. Post conventional morality (stages 5 and 6) tend to be much more free thinking and unmoored by social conventions. People start recognizing that moral values aren't set in stone and that they are malleable, and that change can be a good thing. We can change our conventions to make our lives better and more consistent with what we think is right. And I would argue I'm somewhere around stage 5 with a hint of stage 6 (stage 6 is mostly theoretical and most people don't consistently act at that level). And I would argue most liberals and free thinkers tend to operate at this stage.
Now, to a conservative, stage 5 and 6 thinking is not only incomprehensible, but dangerous. Conservatives, operating around stage 4, tend to favor tradition and upholding social values that exist while being skeptical of change. To some, post conventional morality might actually seen to be a regression to pre conventional morality, where people are "lawless" and only respond to incentive structures in changing their behavior. But really, post conventional morality is a much higher plane of morality based on free thought, logic, and coming to one's own conclusions about what is good. It's an upgrade, not a downgrade. To a post conventional morality, conventional morality seems a lot like what I just said about conservatism above. It's something that is useful for some because they lack the understanding to understand how things work more deeply, but it's also kind of intellectually stunting in some ways because it sometimes stops people from learning higher levels of moral thinking.
As for change, one last thing. There's a good reason to be skeptical of change if you really can't predict the consequences of change. There's a reason I still lean toward capitalism despite my criticisms of it, and it's because I can't see us replacing an entire system without things going wrong in the process. Unless we know exactly what we're doing before hand, and have done extensive research into what we want to change, in which we understand what the problem is, how to fix it, and how to deal with any externalities that might arise, sometimes sticking with what we have is better, because at least it works. But at the same time, if we do understand our structures are flawed, and we do desire change, and we know how to accomplish it and what the general effects will be, we should do it. We should not be beholden to the ideas of the past when there's a better way of doing things out there and we know it. As such, while being "conservative" can sometimes have benefits if you don't know what you're doing (and it is better to admit I don't know if you really don't), if you do know what you're doing, and you can make a good argument for change, then we should be changing things. Which is why appeals to the founding fathers doesn't make sense to me on the electoral college issue, because there are clearly all of these problems that wouldn't exist if we moved to the popular vote, I don't see many problems being introduced except for maybe more legal challenges regarding recounts, and because I believe the net change will be positive and work out for the people.
That being said, while I don't regret being a conservative when I was a teenager who didn't know anything, as someone in his 20s who does know a lot more than he used to, change is good and should be pursued, assuming it is well researched. We should not be beholden to the ideas of the past if they are flawed and we know a better alternative exists. Conservatism just doesn't make sense to me at my current stage of morality, unless there is no realistic, researched path to change that is virtually guaranteed to produce more positive outcomes than what we have.
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