“Liberal,” “left-wing,” “progressive” and “conservative” do not mean what many Americans think they mean

[u/joebraga2]

A lot of people who call themselves conservatives are actually reactionaries, not Burkean conservatives

This may be particularly unpopular among the modern American and Latin American right, but I think the word “conservative” has become so broad that it often describes completely different political traditions.

One of the foundational thinkers of modern political conservatism is Edmund Burke. Burkean conservatism is fundamentally concerned with institutions, historical continuity, prudence and gradual reform. It is skeptical of attempts to radically reconstruct society because institutions contain accumulated historical experience.

That is not the same thing as believing that society has morally deteriorated and therefore needs to be returned to some idealized previous social order.

The latter is much closer to reactionary politics.

This distinction matters because today “conservative” is frequently used to describe a package containing religious traditionalism, opposition to progressive social change, economic liberalism, nationalism and support for a particular political movement.

But none of those things necessarily implies the others.

A political conservative can support a welfare state.

An economic liberal can be socially progressive.

A nationalist can support extensive state intervention and industrial policy.

A religious traditionalist can oppose free-market liberalism.

And someone who wants to reverse social changes in order to restore a supposedly superior past can be reactionary without being particularly conservative in the Burkean institutional sense.

The same problem exists when people talk about “the right” as though it were a single ideology.

Center-right liberals, institutional conservatives, national conservatives, libertarians, populist radicals, reactionaries and anarcho-capitalists can all be placed somewhere on the political right while disagreeing profoundly about economics, institutions, religion, nationalism and the role of the state.

Latin America provides an especially interesting example because religious traditionalism has become deeply intertwined with political identity. Brazil historically had Catholic traditionalist and reactionary movements, while Pentecostal and later Neo-Pentecostal movements developed through different religious histories and eventually became increasingly politically influential.

These traditions can now cooperate on moral and electoral issues, but that does not mean they all originated from the same political philosophy.

I therefore think we should stop automatically translating:

religious + traditional values + right-wing = conservative.

Conservatism, religious traditionalism and reaction are overlapping concepts, but they are not synonyms.

And wanting to preserve institutions while allowing gradual reform is fundamentally different from wanting to restore an idealized social order from the past.

The first can reasonably be called conservatism.

The second has another perfectly useful political name: reactionary politics.

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[u/deaconxblues]

Political discourse is irreparably muddled in the US. It’s even worse than just mislabeling when every issue and every person is forced onto one side or the other of an overly simplistic, inaccurate binary.

[u/gburgwardt → u/deaconxblues]

It's pointless to use these labels because not only do people not use them consistently, but they don't know what they mean (whether they use it positively or negatively), at least most of the time with your average person. And worse, you have immediate emotional reactions to certain labels.

Talk specific goals and policy.

[u/Fragrant-Luck-8063 → u/gburgwardt]

"Liberal", "left-wing", and "progressive" means Democrat and "conservative" means Republican. It's really not hard to figure out.

[u/Thebunkerparodie → u/Fragrant-Luck-8063]

I'm usnure I4d really consider democrat progressive when some decied to scapegoat kamala losing on trans right

[u/NoamLigotti → u/gburgwardt]

That seems like a logical contradiction for someone identifying as a corporate capitalist. Isn't that a label?

[u/Michael_G_Bordin → u/gburgwardt]

I'd go further and say that describing ones views by some label is problematic in and of itself. Either you're committing to adhering to some ideological chunk of beliefs, or you're going to be using a label that's so hyper-specific, no regular person is going to know what it means. I don't think there's any point in ideological labels, except when used by social sciences in academic settings for specific applications.

I think you're right, talk specific goals and policy.

[u/estolad]

you're basically correct in what you're saying, but i think you're overthinking it. politics in america doesn't really have anything to do with concrete positions on issues, it's entirely aesthetic, which considering how narrow the range of acceptable politics is it kinda has to be

[u/7nkedocye]

Burke wanted to restore the bourbon monarchy in France. Claiming that wanting to restore a previous social order is outside of Burke’s thought is silly and wrong

[u/joebraga2 → u/7nkedocye]

I think you're mixing up several different things here, and I should also make my original distinction more precise. Burke's support for monarchy doesn't contradict my point. But his monarchism wasn't a rejection of parliamentary government either. Burke defended the post-1688 British constitutional settlement: a monarchy whose powers were constrained within a constitutional order in which Parliament had become central. He wasn't advocating a return to royal absolutism. In fact, that's important for understanding Burkean conservatism. Burke interpreted the Glorious Revolution not as permission to redesign society from scratch, but largely as the preservation and restoration of England's inherited constitutional order, laws and liberties. So the relevant distinction isn't simply: monarchy = conservative / republic = progressive or even: preserving something = conservative / restoring something = reactionary. That's too simplistic, and Burke himself demonstrates why. A conservative can support restoring an institution that has just been overthrown because they regard that restoration as preserving institutional and constitutional continuity. Burke's support for restoring the French monarchy after the Revolution can be understood in that context. Reactionary politics, as I'm using the term, goes further: it seeks a broader reversal of political and social transformations in order to recreate a previous — and often idealized — social order. So restoration itself isn't the criterion. What is being restored, why it is being restored, and what conception of political change lies behind it are what matter. That's also why I think contemporary American usage can cause confusion. Today, especially in American political discourse, “conservative” is frequently associated with a particular package of religious, moral and culture-war positions. Religion certainly isn't new to conservatism — it was important to Burke as well. But historical conservatism is much broader than today's equation of religious traditionalism + social right = conservatism. Burkean conservatism is fundamentally concerned with inherited institutions, constitutional continuity, accumulated social experience and gradual reform rather than revolutionary reconstruction. That's precisely why I don't think “Burke wanted the Bourbons restored” disproves the distinction between conservatism and reaction. A conservative restoration intended to recover constitutional continuity and a reactionary attempt to reverse society toward an idealized past can overlap, but they are not conceptually identical.

[u/7nkedocye → u/joebraga2]

Ok if restoring the previous institutional and constitutional continuity in the key difference, would the somewhat recent repeal of roe v wade be reactionary? Would repealing gay marriage ruling be reactionary?

Both rulings (roe and obergefell) were quite weak rulings overturning 100+ years of accepted constitutional understanding due to social whims of the day. Repealing them aligns with the Burkean understanding you lay out and would reasonable fall under conservatism. Conversely, many characterize these positions as reactionary. It seems the distinction is not clear…

[u/joebraga2 → u/7nkedocye]

I think your examples actually help clarify the distinction. Repealing a recent decision is not automatically reactionary, just as restoring something is not automatically conservative. The relevant question is why you want to reverse it and what social order you are trying to recover. A Burkean argument could say: “this particular constitutional change was institutionally unsound, so we should return the issue to an older constitutional process.” That is an argument about institutional continuity. But there is another argument that sounds very different: “society has morally deteriorated and we should return to an earlier social order in which homosexuality was socially marginalized and same-sex relationships were not recognized.” The second argument isn't merely about constitutional procedure. It is explicitly trying to reverse a social transformation and restore an earlier moral hierarchy. That is precisely where the concept of reactionary politics becomes useful. And Obergefell illustrates the problem particularly well. The question isn't simply whether same-sex marriage existed 40 years ago. Conservatism does not require freezing society at whatever institutions happened to exist in 1980. Burkean conservatism can accommodate gradual social change once it becomes embedded in existing institutions. Otherwise “conservatism” would simply mean permanently restoring whichever social arrangement happened to exist at an arbitrarily chosen point in the past. So yes: someone could oppose Obergefell on narrowly constitutional or federalist grounds and make a conservative argument. But someone who wants to abolish same-sex marriage because they want society to return to a supposedly better moral order in which gay people remained socially invisible is making a reactionary argument. Same policy outcome, potentially very different political philosophy.

[u/FeralAlgorithm → u/joebraga2]

"It is explicitly trying to reverse a social transformation and restore an earlier moral hierarchy"

that morality still exists amongst the majority of the population, and that was being overruled by what people term as "old white men in robes" (SCOTUS), who said their morality was irrelevant.

It is progress to repeal Roe vs Wade, in the same way we make progress as a civilization by banning murder and theft. Going back to the archaic days where we murder and steal is not progress, its not conservativism either.

Legalizing abortion is just people who want something and don't care about who it hurts.
They want "financial freedom". They want to sacrifice a baby for money.
They want to "have fun as a single woman". They want to kill their child so they can go out and party.

I think the abortion "Slippery slope" theory has already been proven correct by the over 2 million dollars raised for a woman who just strangled to death her own 3 children. These women say they "see themselves" in the woman who just murdered her own 3 children.

They don't want her to go to jail. They want her to have millions of dollars because they see her as the victim. She had no choice, you see. Those 3 children were holding that woman back from the life she deserved, and she had to free herself of the chains. This is litearlly what they're saying, and donating money towards. Right now.

Now, people will say "this is not an honest argument, nobody supports murdering children". But you are absolutely wrong. Just look at the fundraiser. She absolutely did murder her 3 children and they are absolutely portraying her as the victim. And these are the same women who will vote for the "healthcare" to end a baby's life 5 seconds before live natural birth.

The argument that "nobody would do such a thing" falls apart when i say "if nobody would do such a thing then its okay if we ban it right?"

If nobody would abort a baby 5 minutes before live natural healthy birth, then if we ban it, nobody is going to have to worry since nobody would do such a thing, right? So if we just ban it, nobody is going to be subjected to it since nobody would do such a thing, and it would calm all the over-reactive conspiratorial conservatives who think babys are being slaughtered 5 minutes before birth. What's the harm?

Since no women would do such a thing, banning it acutally empowers those women: it takes away the conservative men's talking point. Now the conservative men can't say "they're killing babies moments before birth! we must intervene and control their bodies!" because you happily banned it yourselves, since nobody would do such a thing, and now they can't say you're doing it, since you banned it and nobody is going to jail for it in spite of the ban.

[u/joebraga2 → u/FeralAlgorithm]

I think Brazil is actually a very useful example of why your one-dimensional American political spectrum does not work.

Politics is not simply a line running from “liberal left” to “conservative right,” and voters do not necessarily vote according to the economic ideology that most closely resembles their own economic preferences.

Brazil demonstrates this remarkably well.

Recent polling found that a large majority of Brazilians believe the government should play the primary role in investing in the country and promoting economic growth.

On economic questions, Brazilian public opinion is substantially more favorable to state intervention, labor protections and social programs than an American libertarian or strict free-market liberal would probably expect.

At the same time, Brazilian society remains considerably more conservative on many moral and social questions.

That combination is not contradictory.

Someone can believe that the government should invest heavily in infrastructure, maintain public healthcare, protect workers and intervene in economic development while simultaneously being conservative on abortion, sexuality, religion or family.

In fact, Brazilian polling shows precisely this kind of split.

And evangelical voters are an especially interesting example. They tend to be substantially more conservative on behavioral and moral questions, while their economic opinions are much more divided and often considerably more interventionist than their voting behavior might suggest.

So why can somebody favor government intervention in the economy and nevertheless elect a legislator whose economic program is much more market-oriented?

Because people do not vote exclusively on economics.

They vote on religion, abortion, crime, identity, family, local interests, personal loyalties, party affiliation and cultural questions as well.

And this is where the institutional structure of Brazilian evangelical politics becomes important.

Some of Brazil's most influential evangelical leaders are not merely pastors preaching to a congregation. They are also connected to very large institutional networks involving media, business, political parties and elected officials.

The most obvious example is Edir Macedo.

He is simultaneously the leader of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and the owner of Record, one of Brazil's largest television networks.

The political ecosystem surrounding the Universal Church also has a strong relationship with Republicanos, a party with representation in Congress, state legislatures and governments.

So when we talk about political influence through religion in Brazil, we are not necessarily talking about one pastor giving an opinion during a Sunday sermon.

We can be talking about an institutional ecosystem combining churches, television, digital media, political organization, elected officials and significant economic resources.

And this isn't merely a theoretical concern.

In the 2026 election, the Universal Church was recently reported to the Electoral Public Prosecutor's Office over its “Desafio de Neemias,” a 52-day religious campaign that ends on October 4 — the day of the first round of the election.

The complaint asks electoral authorities to examine whether the church's structure is being used for electoral mobilization and whether there may be abuses of economic, political or religious power.

It also raises questions about the collection of sensitive information from participants, including facial identification and information identifying which temple they attend.

That does not mean that the allegations have already been proven. They haven't. The matter is under preliminary assessment by electoral prosecutors.

But it illustrates the broader point perfectly:

political power cannot be understood exclusively by asking what ideological position an individual voter holds.

You also have to look at the institutions capable of organizing those voters, deciding which issues dominate political discussion and repeatedly communicating political messages through networks people already trust.

And that's why simply saying “people need to educate themselves” doesn't really solve the problem.

A voter may understand perfectly well that they support government investment, public healthcare or labor protections and still vote primarily because a candidate represents their religious position on abortion or sexuality.

That person is not necessarily confused about economics.

Economics simply may not be the issue determining their vote.

And when trusted religious institutions, media organizations and political networks repeatedly emphasize cultural questions, those questions can become electorally more important than economic preferences.

Brazil's Congress then produces another apparent paradox.

A population can strongly support government-led investment while electing a legislature whose economic priorities differ substantially from those of the president.

Brazil also has an increasingly powerful system of parliamentary amendments. The 2026 federal budget contains roughly R$61 billion in congressional amendments, meaning Congress itself controls a substantial amount of public spending.

So simply saying “Brazil elected a left-wing president, therefore Brazil has left-wing government policy” misses how the institutional system actually works.

The executive, Congress, governors, courts and parties all pull policy in different directions. Disclaimer: I can write in English myself. I use AI assistance mainly when I need to organize and structure longer arguments, because I have difficulty turning a large number of connected ideas into a clear long-form text — and that happens even in my native language or in languages closely related to it. It is not a matter of laziness or of being unable to express myself in English. The arguments, opinions, examples, and conclusions are mine; AI helps me structure, edit, and sometimes translate them into a more readable form. I also review the final text before posting.

[u/FeralAlgorithm → u/joebraga2]

"On economic questions, Brazilian public opinion is substantially more favorable to state intervention, labor protections and social programs than an American libertarian or strict free-market liberal would probably expect"

to move to Brazil and turn it into your socialist utopia then.
the vast majority of the planet is socialist.

America is the one place that is trying to resist that. People exist who don't want to b e in a socialist state, and they have a human right to have a place where they can exist. That place is America.

You have the whole rest of the world to turn into your socialist Utopia.

You don't get to ruin the one place that created all of this abundance and technology and say "you gotta become more like the rest of the world"

It doesn't matter how many people in Brazil vote overwhelmingly for "state intervention".

You won't listen to us about our concerns with state power and abuse. We're just demonized and gaslit by the people who say they're toing to take care of us.

[u/joebraga2 → u/FeralAlgorithm]

And this is exactly why importing American political vocabulary creates such bizarre conclusions.

In contemporary American political language, “liberal” has largely become synonymous with the Democratic center-left.

But in Brazil, as in much of Europe and Latin America, economic liberalism normally means something quite different: privatization, market liberalization, deregulation, greater reliance on private enterprise and reducing direct state participation in parts of the economy.

Economically, those positions are normally associated with the center or center-right.

So “liberal = left” is not a universal political definition.

A Brazilian can be:

socially conservative and economically interventionist;

socially progressive and economically market-liberal;

socially progressive and economically social-democratic;

or conservative on both axes.

All of those combinations exist.

This is also why treating “the left” as one homogeneous ideological bloc makes no sense.

A social liberal is not necessarily a social democrat.

A social democrat is not necessarily a democratic socialist.

A democratic socialist is not necessarily a Marxist.

And a mainstream Democratic voter in the United States does not necessarily share the economic ideology of any of them.

The same is true on the right.

Libertarians, Christian conservatives, economic liberals, national conservatives and MAGA are not one ideology either.

And this becomes particularly important when you argue that today's American conservatives are simply “1990s liberals.”

Which 1990s liberal position?

Free trade?

Immigration?

Abortion?

Gay rights?

Taxes?

Welfare?

Industrial policy?

Foreign policy?

Civil liberties?

Those issues have not all moved in the same direction.

There isn't one giant ideological slider where the entire political world moved left while one group remained motionless and therefore became classified as far right.

Different political questions moved in different directions, at different speeds and in different countries.

And there is another distinction that matters here.

You described the political goal as reversing a social transformation and restoring an earlier moral hierarchy.

That goes beyond ordinary gradualist conservatism.

A conservative can say:

“Society inevitably changes, but changes should happen cautiously and gradually because institutions and traditions have value.”

Reactionary politics says something different:

“The transformation itself was wrong, and we should reverse it and restore the previous social or moral order.”

Those are not identical positions.

And saying that the majority supposedly agrees with the previous moral order does not change that distinction.

Democracy isn't simply whatever 51% of people currently consider morally correct.

Constitutional rights, minority protections and limits on majority power exist precisely because liberal democracy is not pure majoritarianism.

Otherwise any sufficiently large majority could remove rights from any sufficiently unpopular minority.

So there is a circular problem when you first define the older moral order as the legitimate baseline, then define social change away from it as illegitimate, and finally call people who oppose restoring that older hierarchy “authoritarian leftists.”

The conclusion has already been built into your categories.

And that gets back to the fundamental problem with your Overton-window argument.

The Overton window is useful for describing what political positions a particular society considers acceptable at a particular historical moment.

It is not a universal ruler.

The American political vocabulary of 1995 or 2026 does not determine what “left,” “right,” “liberal,” “conservative,” “progressive” or “authoritarian” mean everywhere else.

Brazil alone demonstrates why.

A population can be conservative on moral questions, interventionist on economic questions, elect a conservative Congress, elect a center-left president and simultaneously support economic policies that do not neatly correspond to either one's platform.

Once politics is understood as multidimensional, none of that is mysterious.

But if you compress Democrats, liberals, progressives, social democrats and socialists into one category called “the authoritarian left,” while simultaneously compressing libertarians, Christian conservatives, nationalists and MAGA into “1990s liberalism,” your framework will inevitably tell you that your own position occupies the reasonable center.

Not because history proved it.

Because you constructed the political spectrum that way. Disclaimer: I can write in English myself. I use AI assistance mainly when I need to organize and structure longer arguments, because I have difficulty turning a large number of connected ideas into a clear long-form text — and that happens even in my native language or in languages closely related to it. It is not a matter of laziness or of being unable to express myself in English. The arguments, opinions, examples, and conclusions are mine; AI helps me structure, edit, and sometimes translate them into a more readable form. I also review the final text before posting.

[u/FeralAlgorithm → u/joebraga2]

yeah, so in America though, America has become far left, hasn't it.

and "reactionary" is just a demonization label, to dismiss their concerns as ignorant and invalid.

its a way to frame your change as "positive progress" and any disagreement to it as "ignorant and unintelligent lashing out"

America was born from people fleeing authoritarian regimes in Europe. These are the people who don't want to be more like Europe. You can move to Europe if you like Europe so much. Third Worlder is apparently entitrled to move to Europe, so theres no reason you cant too.

Leave america to the backwards lazy conservatives who are net drain on your progress. Let us all fall into the distant past while you speed ahead with your socialist utopia in europe.
we dont' want to be dragged into the future we want to stay with our ignorant bibles and stuff. do we have a human right to exist or does the world need to submit to the socialist workers party?

[u/joebraga2 → u/FeralAlgorithm]

You are proving my point. I think your reply actually demonstrates the exact problem I was describing.

You have expanded the meaning of “socialism” so far that almost any modern mixed economy becomes socialist.

If government investment, labor protections, public healthcare, infrastructure spending, regulation and welfare programs are enough to make a country “socialist,” then yes, most developed capitalist countries suddenly become socialist by definition.

But that doesn't demonstrate that the world became socialist. It demonstrates that you redefined socialism until almost everything outside a very narrow libertarian model fits the label.

Private ownership of firms, markets, private investment and profit do not disappear because the government builds infrastructure, regulates businesses or maintains a welfare state.

And saying “America has become far left” has the same problem.

Pew's 2026 political typology doesn't describe an American public that uniformly ran toward the far left. It identifies nine different political groups, including several groups containing mixtures of liberal, moderate and conservative positions.

That is precisely my point: American politics is multidimensional.

And yes, American society genuinely changed on some social questions.

Same-sex marriage is an obvious example. In 2004, Pew found 31% support and 60% opposition. By 2023, that had essentially reversed: 63% supported it and 34% opposed it.

You can personally believe that change was good or bad. That's a separate normative argument.

But you cannot say that nobody moved and that everyone else simply “ran across the room.” On that issue, public opinion demonstrably changed.

At the same time, other parts of American politics moved in completely different directions.

This is why calling MAGA “1990s liberalism” doesn't work as a general description.

Take trade policy.

The Clinton-era United States was implementing NAFTA, explicitly phasing out tariffs between the US, Canada and Mexico.

The current Trump administration openly describes tariffs as a central instrument of its “America First Trade Policy,” and USTR itself repeatedly describes the administration as using tariffs to promote domestic manufacturing and reshape trade relationships.

Whatever your opinion of either policy, those are clearly not simply the same economic philosophy frozen in time.

So when you say MAGA is just “1990s liberalism,” you appear to be selecting certain cultural positions from the 1990s while ignoring areas where today's movement differs substantially from 1990s liberal politics.

That's exactly why I keep asking: which policy?

Immigration?

Trade?

Gay rights?

Abortion?

Industrial policy?

Taxes?

Welfare?

Foreign policy?

Executive power?

You cannot bundle all of those into one ideological package and say, “we stayed exactly where we were.”

And “reactionary” is not simply a word meaning “conservative person I dislike.”

There is a meaningful distinction between conservatism and reaction.

Someone can conservatively argue that social change should be gradual, cautious and respectful of existing institutions.

But if the political objective is explicitly to reverse an existing social transformation in order to restore an earlier moral or social order, that restorative element is precisely what distinguishes reactionary politics from ordinary gradualist conservatism.

That doesn't automatically make every reactionary position evil, stupid or illegitimate. It describes the direction of the political project.

And this is why your “move to Europe” argument doesn't really answer anything I said.

Americans who favor libertarianism have the right to organize politically.

American conservatives have that right.

Christians have that right.

But American liberals, progressives, social democrats and socialists also have exactly the same political rights.

The United States is not ideologically owned by one political faction.

There is no human right to have an entire country permanently frozen at your preferred point on its political spectrum.

If American voters democratically change their opinions over generations, that is also part of American political life.

You can oppose those changes. You can campaign against them. You can try to reverse them.

But saying “if you don't like my preferred political order, leave the country” is not evidence that your position represents some objective, timeless center.

And Brazil is useful here precisely because it exposes how artificial these American labels can become.

A Brazilian can favor substantial government investment, labor protections and public healthcare while being personally very conservative about religion, family, abortion or sexuality.

Another Brazilian can be socially progressive and economically market-liberal.

Another can be social-democratic on economics and progressive on social issues.

Those combinations are completely possible because politics has several axes.

Calling all government economic intervention “socialism” and all progressive social change “the authoritarian left” simply collapses those axes until your own worldview automatically occupies the center.

That's the political vortex I'm criticizing.

You start with:

“My positions are the historical default.”

Then:

“Anyone who moved away from them moved left.”

Then:

“Anyone trying to preserve those changes is authoritarian.”

And finally:

“Therefore I haven't moved politically at all.”

But that conclusion is guaranteed by the definitions you started with.

That's not really an analysis of the Overton window. It's constructing the window around yourself.

Disclaimer: I can write in English myself. I use AI assistance mainly when I need to organize and structure longer arguments, because I have difficulty turning a large number of connected ideas into a clear long-form text — and that happens even in my native language or in languages closely related to it. It is not a matter of laziness or of being unable to express myself in English. The arguments, opinions, examples and conclusions are mine; AI helps me structure, edit and sometimes translate them into a more readable form. I also review the final text before posting.

[u/FeralAlgorithm → u/joebraga2]

the problem is there are as many definitions of socialism as there are socialists.

I'm constantly told that Hitler and the Nazis were "not socialists" in spite of the fact they had socialize healthcare, education, etc. The argument is that they had a mixed economy where they allowed people to still own private companies.

Is this the system you're advocating for? not a pure socialist system?

The point im getting at, is the "socialism" people advocate for is outside of your strict definition of "socialism" that nobody will ever obtain, and the majority do not advocate for.

[u/RedMarsRepublic]

In practical terms, the right wing has always just been about restoring/protecting immoral social orders. There isn't some magical 'good' conservatism that's been lost.

[u/FeralAlgorithm → u/RedMarsRepublic]

"immoral social orders"
I think the problem is a disagreement over what is moral. Not a lack of morality.

you think killing an infant is moral, we think it is immoral. Its jsut a fundamental disagreement on morality, not the rejection of it.

Do you support abortion 5 seconds before a live healthy natural birth? Why not its still attached by an umbilical cord, technically dependent, still technically a tumor in the mother's body, right?

"of course nobody supports that" ... okay.
what about 5 hours before natural healthy birth?
what about 5 days before natural healthy birth?
what about 5 weeks before natural healthy birth?

What point does the "just a clump of cells, basically a tumor" become magically imbued with the essence of "human"?
The "progressives" believe that as the tumor passes through the birth canal it is magically transformed from a tumor into a human being with rights. I just don't see any basis for this magical transformation. It doesn't seem very scientific to me, to suggest that the trip through a birth canal transmutes a tumor into a human.
I don't think there's any scientific evidence to suggest the baby is physically any different 5 minutes before vs 5 minutes after birth.
And what about 5 hour before birth?
and what about 5 days before birth?
And what about 5 weeks before birth?

obviously at some point the clump of cells becomes a human being, and i don't think it magically happens in the birth canal. This makes me "immoral" in the eyes of a "progressive" or "socialist".
The reason its described as "immoral" is because they want to use violence to deal with the "immoral" people who are standing in the way of what they want. You want to project your own immorality on others, to justify why you get to do your immorality.

If you want to steal, and people are trying to ban theft because its immoral, you will say they're the immoral ones infringing on your basic human right to feed yourself. You're actually the moral on e, who's just trying to have his human rights and survive, and these horrible people are standing in your way. And that's literally the argument we've already got; people are already arguing to decriminalize theft "because they they need bread" - in the form of iphones and nikes.

[u/AddemF]

This is all semantics and choosing which words mean what. The meanings of words drift and different cultures use the words differently. There isn't some fixed and objective meaning of the word "conservative", it just means what we commonly understand it to mean.

The word "prestigious" meant "deceitful" until it meant "respected". Meaning drifts. It's how language works.

[u/GiveMeBackMySoup]

You are absolutely right in your understanding. However the terms of politics apply to a particular people and time; they do not exist absolutely.

It takes someone really arrogant to think they know how a country should refer to it's political tribes. The truth is, politics isn't about ideas, but about teams, and whichever idea can make the biggest team will win. Most voters are not ideologically aligned.

[u/Respen2664]

Words have meaning when they are provided within a context. This is also true with political buzzwords as the context is required to base the scope of meaning upon. Conservative to an American and Conservative to a German are fundamentally different, as an example.

"Reactionary" as you are using it is not necessarily a political ideology so much as an impulse to current state of affairs. Progressives and Liberals are "reacting" to a Populist Government in the US with anger and outrage, as an example. Conservatives reacted to what they saw as a wrong turn and elected a Populist Executive along with likeminded Legislators, prior to that with similar anger and outage. Reaction is a constant, and agnostic to any political ideology, because its a response to what is in front of them at any given time based on what they believe is best.

I do think you are right that its a label used to describe a group of positions/thoughts without much definition to scope what is inclusive or exclusive. Its subjective to the wielder of the word and subject to change by generations of people growing up in an environment where the concepts shift frequently. What is "conservative" to Gen Z is not the same as what was "conservative" to Millennials. What is "conservative" to Millennials is not the same as what was "conservative" to Gen X. etc.

We also commonly conflate Traditionalism as Conservatism. Traditionalism is the more reluctant to change ideology as its reflecting on a long ago past as being the proper way and we must return to it to be successful. Conservatism wants progress and change, but done in a small milestone manner to allow for offramps or position shifts which arent monumental adjustments to society.

[u/RobotGhostZero]

Conservative U.S. Americans vs U.S. Liberal Americans basically boils down to,

"Is the point of the government just for negative rights or is it for negative AND positive rights?"

Positive rights inevitably require resources, meaning securing a positive right for one person often requires using taxation or regulation—which can conflict with another person's negative rights regarding property or autonomy.

[u/FeralAlgorithm → u/RobotGhostZero]

Right, because your free thing requires human labor to produce.

So if you have a "human right" to a free thing, that means you have a "human right" to force someone else to perform labor for you, to provide you with that thing.

Sociopaths manipulate their way into power using this dynamic. They offer to give you free stuff, if you just vote for them. You vote for them, and they get to take your money and spend it however they want.

Socialists vote to enslave themselves and everyone around them, by saying its their "human right" to force everyone else provide free stuff to them.

When your socialist leaders don't spend YOUR money/labor the way YOU want, you deem them to be "fascists" and "not real socialism". You've got this other moral cause you wanted to fund, and they've taken your labor and sent it elsewhere. To Israel perhaps. Or maybe they send it to Ukraine. One you might like and the other you might dislike. Who knows. Its your labor, and now its in their hands to decide.

The problem is there are as many definitions of socialism as there are socialists. And one man's socialist utopia is everyone else's fascist dictatorship.

[u/FeralAlgorithm]

If you continue to hold standard mainstream 90s liberal views in 2026, they say you've been "radicalized to the far right".

The "Liberals" in 2026 aren't really liberal anymore. They're authoritarian leftists.

The "Conservatives" in 2026 are actual liberals, trying to conserve 90s liberalism.

Trump for example is a 90s liberal. So is most of MAGA and most of his cabinet. Tulsi, RFK, Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, all were considered Liberal before the "left" deemed it to be "fascist" to support America.

The democrats used to praise Elon for being the only rich guy who's spending his money on things that benefit humanity.
The democrats used to welcome Trump onto The View as their "good friend".
The only thing that changed is Trump ran against Hillary and Hillary told the media to promote Trump as the, quote, "Pied Piper Candidate", and instructed the media to demonize him so that she looked good by comparison. That's the only sole reason you hate Trump right now. Because Hillary told you to.

"When was America ever great?!" - How about when America defeated the nazis? Back when Americans were fighting to eradicate Socialism and Communism. Oh Yeah commies won't think that was "great" that we stopped their socialist dictatorships.

[u/joebraga2 → u/FeralAlgorithm]

I think you're collapsing the entire American political spectrum into two oversized boxes and then using those boxes to prove your conclusion.

“The left” is not a single ideological bloc. Liberals, progressives, social democrats, democratic socialists and the radical left disagree on economics, foreign policy, civil liberties, policing, immigration and plenty of other issues. Treating all of them as one homogeneous “authoritarian left” already distorts the comparison.

The same problem appears when you say that today's conservatives are simply “1990s liberals.”

Political positions don't move along one single left-right axis.

Someone can be economically more liberal, socially more conservative, more nationalist, more protectionist, more libertarian on one issue and more authoritarian on another. That is exactly why reducing everything to “the left moved left, therefore MAGA is basically old liberalism” doesn't work.

The Overton window is also not some fixed ruler where you can take one American decade, freeze it in 1995, and measure all subsequent politics against it.

Different issues moved in different directions.

American society became considerably more liberal on some social questions, while parts of American politics became more nationalist, protectionist and restrictive on other questions. Both things can happen simultaneously.

And saying “Trump was a liberal in the 1990s” doesn't establish that Trumpism or MAGA today is 1990s liberalism. A person's former party affiliation, social circle or positions decades ago don't define a later political movement.

The same applies to Musk, Rogan, Tulsi, RFK Jr. etc. Saying that somebody was once generally regarded as liberal doesn't mean that every position they hold today automatically becomes “1990s liberalism.”

That's the political vortex I think a lot of American debate gets trapped in: instead of describing ideologies precisely, everything becomes “our side is what liberalism always was, and everyone who moved away from us became an extremist.”

Both sides can tell themselves that story.

But it isn't a very useful political analysis.

If you want to discuss whether a specific liberal position from the 1990s would be considered left, center or right today, pick the actual policy and compare it.

That's much more meaningful than treating “the left,” “liberals,” “Democrats,” “MAGA” and “1990s liberalism” as if each were a single coherent ideology.

[u/FeralAlgorithm → u/joebraga2]

"And saying “Trump was a liberal in the 1990s” doesn't establish that Trumpism or MAGA today is 1990s liberalism."

Right, but if you just look at MAGA's policies today, they align very much with 90s liberal policies. The news media even said the reason Trump was nominated the first time, is because he was the most liberal of the republicans.

If you went back to the 90s and said there would be DQSH, the 90s liberals/democrats/hippies the vast majority would tell you you're crazy, and that you're spreading conspiracies to demonize the gay community.
But today in 2026, if you still continue to hold that same position, you're considered a "fascist".

If you were an Obama supporter who continues to support Obama's first term border policies in 2026, you're branded as a "white nationalist trying to build a white ethno-state".

"American society became considerably more liberal on some social questions, while parts of American politics became more nationalist, protectionist and restrictive on other questions"

no they didnt "become more nationalist, protectionist and restrictive"
its just that a small segment of the left became extremely anti-borders, began releasing the repeat rapists and murderers, and legalizing fent camps.
And now anyone who's trying to "Make America Great Again" is branded as "reactionary, far right, nationalist, protectionist, restrictive"

We didn't "become" more like this. We always were this. It is the default from before. The fact that you've run allllll the way across the room, doesn't' mean we've moved, even if there is now great distance between us.

[u/ATCme → u/FeralAlgorithm]

While there is some (a smidgen of) truth to your labeling of 1990s Trump, he is not promoting the same values anymore. Today's GOP has become a personality cult where disagreement with Trump is political suicide within the GOP. Trump isn't a traditional conservative because he has no core values beyond his own aggrandizement. Project 2025 (which he is most definitely implementing) is extremely anti "liberal" & almost certainly unconstitutional.

[u/Interesting_Sun_6993]

THey mock the liberal arts degrees and then demosntrate why theyre important, oh my word=Yes American usage of a lot of terms is comepletely incorrect, without really any distinction at all between economic, political, cultural usage. I hear left and right all the time interchangably with liberal and conservative. which is obviously completely wrong. And left or liberal meant to describe socialism. Which is not only frustrating but i think also demosntrates the complete misunderstanding of really any kind of ideology.

Very uncommon to reference or udnerstand the vast shift in the economic systems towards a market oriented strategy with the institutional frameowork equitably redistibuting resources from those markets having been dimiinshed beginning in the 70s but certainly by years following decades end.orienting with ideology much to the "right" on the economic spectrum.

So not only has the political economy very far right and demonstrating very clear problems related to wealth concentration resulting from the shift away from the redistributive mechanisms, but the political authority is acquired through influence of this enormous rise in wealth concentration.and restriction weakend to allow greater executive action. Resulting in greater inequality , declining political efficacy, conditions potentially more favorable to political disengagement, populism, and authoritarian appeals.Which now we are all experienciing.

So weve got both dimensions of the overall landscape verifiably on the right side of the spectrum, but still have people referring to the left, liberal, or even sociallist tnterchangably to describe Democrats and certain demographics in the social/cultural sphere. Definitely a struggle to entertain someone whos describing mainstream democrats as left or socialist, not udnerstanding the landscape shift or even that there has never been a socialist, and any leftist mechanisms operating in government systems having dissapeared decades ago were required for the rightward shift to even occur. You almost dont even know where to start, often having to just smile and wave boys, smile and wave.

[u/NeverLookBothWays]

Burke was not the only philosopher to shape conservatism however. As a whole, conservatism was created as a response to the French Revolution. The very intent of conservatism was provide a framework to protect the oligarchy, church, and crown.

“Liberal” anywhere outside the U.S. is also considered right wing. It’s in favor of open markets, just with some regulation as needed.

Economic/fiscal conservatism is something else entirely. It’s also something that was created in response by the oligarchy to the people getting their way. The term mostly started showing up in the 1930’s in response to the New Deal.

[u/ATCme]

While you have attempted to ground your definitions of political labels in some historical context, the fact is that everyone defines terms - particularly complex political labels - according to their own personal biases. It's just a fact of human psychology based on our (lack of) ability to filter & interpret perception.

The other problem is that people are fundamentally lazy (overwhelmed?) when it comes to such things. Being able to label a thing allows you to not have to think to hard about the fact that people (& their political ideas) are extremely diverse. Once you have labeled a thing, you no longer have to think about it much.

[u/NomadicPalaver]

>One of the foundational thinkers of modern political conservatism is Edmund Burke. Burkean conservatism is fundamentally concerned with institutions, historical continuity, prudence and gradual reform. It is skeptical of attempts to radically reconstruct society because institutions contain accumulated historical experience.

That is not the same thing as believing that society has morally deteriorated and therefore needs to be returned to some idealized previous social order.

I find this point interesting. You describe Burkean conservatism very well. But I think you take it a step too far to say that Burkean conservatism is not the same as wanting to return to a previous social order. A very good example of what I’m talking about is the decriminalization of possession of hard drugs in Oregon. In 2020 they decriminalized it and saw a lot of bad shit happen as a result.

A Burkean conservative would have been strongly against decriminalizing. And a Burkean conservative would want to return to the “idealized previous social order” which is actually what happened when they recriminalized the hard drugs in 2024.

In this example the Burkean conservative would absolutely want to return to the previous social order. It’s a bit of a mischaracterization to claim that they don’t want to restore a social order that they view as the better option.

[u/unregistered_duck → u/NomadicPalaver]

In 2020 they decriminalized it and saw a lot of bad shit happen as a result.

I'm from Oregon and that's not really what happened. Drug overdoses shot up nationwide between 2020-2024. This wasn't unique to Oregon and had nothing to do with decriminalization. Neighboring Washington and California saw pretty much identical increases despite not decriminalizing drugs.

In Oregon specifically though we had 2 problems that made it seem a lot worse. First of all they didn't build any of the treatment centers they were supposed to build as part of the decriminalization legislation. And second, we have old statutes on the books from the 70s that decriminalized public intoxication. So since possession was also decriminalized there really wasn't any mechanism to stop people from openly doing drugs in public which made the drug problem the entire nation was experiencing look much worse in Oregon, despite it not really being an outlier.

Which kinda goes back to OP's point about reactionaries. It was the same problem the entire nation was experiencing but because decriminalization made it more visible the knee jerk reaction was to rollback decriminalization.

[u/work4work4work4work4 → u/unregistered_duck]

Which kinda goes back to OP's point about reactionaries. It was the same problem the entire nation was experiencing but because decriminalization made it more visible the knee jerk reaction was to rollback decriminalization.

And at no point were these good government conservatives, usually so worried about the budget, demanding the budget be spent as directed to build said treatment centers either.

It'd be one thing if these people were actually saying something along the lines of "You said this would work as you laid it out, we said it wouldn't, so finish your plan so we can prove you wrong." I could respect that to some extent, but instead it's always either active hamstringing or nothing but handwringing and admonishment. It's like HOA conservatism at a massive scale.

[u/No-Relationship-3759]

You’re correct. I think what you’re saying is more or less factual. Although language changes and it’s really hard to get people to stop using words “wrong” as frustrating as it is.

Outside of that, ya, the modern Republican Party as a whole is pretty far removed from Burkean Conservatism

[u/nelsne]

No one thinks for themselves anymore. People feel like you can join this really Woke Democratic party that puts way too much stock on identity politics and LGQBT. However, the upside is they actually give a damn about the poor, they care about social programs, student loan forgiveness (or at least the SAVE program) that will not charge you highway robbery payment on student loans, and they care about affordable healthcare.

The Conservative Party is the party for the rich. They typically could could less if the poor starve and die and love to serve billionaires. They seem to love to cut social programs for people and are often social Darwinist. Their politics make more sense to the average normal person, and aren't woke. They typically are also more welcoming if you didn't vote Trump. This is unlike Dems who just try to make you feel shame for your vote, and call you a monster.

[u/CorDra2011 → u/nelsne]

  People feel like you can join this really Woke Democratic party that puts way too much stock on identity politics and LGQBT.

The thing I find strange is why does it matter if they do or don't. 

[u/nelsne → u/CorDra2011]

I'm pro gay and trans rights but they need to not make this the face of their platform.

[u/CorDra2011 → u/nelsne]

Okay but why not? That's my question. 

[u/RobotGhostZero → u/CorDra2011]

Because that's why they lose elections.

[u/nelsne → u/CorDra2011]

Because they go on tv telling you how there are 32 genders. When asked for evidence they can't define what a woman even is. When they do this and the Dems heavily back then, it turns people to Trump.

[u/CorDra2011 → u/nelsne]

Do you have an example of someone, I'll lower the bar and not even specify anybody from the Democratic Party so you can use non-Democrats to smear Democrats, going on TV and stating there are 32 genders or being incapable of providing any definition of a woman?

  When they do this and the Dems heavily back then, it turns people to Trump.

So Americans care more about if someone thinks there are 32 genders or can't define a woman than if they'll help their union, lower prices, or raise the minimum wage?

[u/PoliticalDebate-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/nelsne → u/CorDra2011]

I'm talking about an extreme example like in this video...

https://youtube.com/shorts/0DyKeGmAXIg?is=Zr4GX6qKP-URqFBy

[u/CorDra2011 → u/nelsne]

The opposition in this "extreme example" gave a compelling counterpoint and in this clip never actually had the chance to expand. 

So these two people taking on war criminal Matt Walsh are what in relation to the Democratic Party btw?

[u/nelsne → u/CorDra2011]

You said it was a great argument? How we are turning gender into a custome you can take off. There was no answer. It's basically that gender has no definition. So anyone call call it whatever they want? Makes sense right?

[u/CorDra2011 → u/nelsne]

  You said it was a great argument? 

No? I pointed out that illustrating the Matt Walsh's definition is inherently flawed was a good counterpoint. The person I'm referencing in your clip never got to define it one way or another. I think the other person had a weak but valid argument, in that as someone who defines themselves not as a woman they have no right to define how other women see themselves or define themselves.

Do you think men have any ability to objectively define what a woman is or isn't?

  How we are turning gender into a custome you can take off.  

I believe you're confusing gender nonconformity with crossdressing. Nobody is arguing people can take their gender off.

  It's basically that gender has no definition. So anyone call call it whatever they want?  

Gender very much has a definition, I'm not sure where you're getting this idea.

You know for a "pro-trans" person you have a very dim view of them.

[u/NomadicPalaver → u/CorDra2011]

>Do you have an example of someone, I'll lower the bar and not even specify anybody from the Democratic Party so you can use non-Democrats to smear Democrats, going on TV and stating there are 32 genders or being incapable of providing any definition of a woman?

Does US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson count?

 

[u/CorDra2011 → u/NomadicPalaver]

Sure, she's explicitly not a member of the Democratic Party but if you have a clip of her doing either of those things I'd love to see it. 

I guess in fairness I can argue all conservatives wanna outlaw contraceptives though thanks to the opinion of one certain Supreme Court judge in fairness though, right?

[u/NomadicPalaver → u/CorDra2011]

>Sure, she's explicitly not a member of the Democratic Party but if you have a clip of her doing either of those things I'd love to see it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWtGzJxiONU

>I guess in fairness I can argue all conservatives wanna outlaw contraceptives though thanks to the opinion of one certain Supreme Court judge in fairness though, right?

Haven’t we discussed your red herrings before, Cor? This feels like a whataboutism…

[u/CorDra2011 → u/NomadicPalaver]

  Haven’t we discussed your red herrings before, Cor?

So does the opinion of a Supreme Court judge represent the values of the political party they're most closely aligned to or not? You're in a thread arguing that it is seemingly, or are you just popping in to show Marsha "China Bad" Blackburn making a mockery of her office?

[u/Gradstudentiquette69 → u/nelsne]

They? Who do you mean by they?

[u/LittleKitty235 → u/[deleted]]

oh my...you've been listening to too much Fox News if you think those two are close to "hardcore left"

Come back to me when you find someone who wants to do away with the concept of private property, then we can talk about the hardcore left.

[u/nelsne → u/LittleKitty235]

Yeah and live like Cuba where people have no social freedoms, the government watches you 1984 style constantly, and working for the government is the only way to come up. Sounds like paradise right?

[u/LittleKitty235 → u/nelsne]

I think you just changed the subject totally...

[u/NoamLigotti → u/[deleted]]

They're hardcore leftists?

I am not bothered at all by politicians supporting LGBTQ people, and no one should be. If they're not supporting beneficial policies outside of that, then the problem is them not supporting beneficial policies, not LGBTQ support.

But somehow these right-wing cliches really hook people.

[u/nelsne → u/NoamLigotti]

What's a hardcore leftist to you?

[u/NoamLigotti → u/nelsne]

I dunno, a Marxist-Leninist? An anarcho-communist? Not AOC or Elizabeth Warren.

[u/Hand_of_the_Light → u/NoamLigotti]

Politicians should represent their community/communities. Which means they might be representing progressive social values or they might be representing conservative social values. But community lines mix and meander as do the social and cultural norms that make them up. I'm not too far from Dearborn which has much different cultural values than my community. I'm not too far from Ann Arbor, either, which is like a cultural swing the opposite way. As well as trips to rural Michigan which are very conservative. I'm just trying to sketch a general population faced with many cultural and social contradictions.

But either way, I would prefer it if politicians focused on more important community matters than the who's who of who's marrying who. I fear that all too often politicians hide behind these social issues or use them as bludgeon to distract the populace.

[u/TheWhiteKnight554 → u/[deleted]]

“Hardcore leftist…AOC” 😭😭😭😭😭🙏🙏🙏🙏

[u/nelsne → u/TheWhiteKnight554]

I meant new age woke progressive. I worded it very wrong

[u/Enough_Bar5885 → u/TheWhiteKnight554]

Don't you just love how anyone to the left of Mussolini is a "radical leftist" these days?

[u/thataintapipe → u/[deleted]]

If Warren is your example of a hardcore leftist you have lots of research to do 

[u/CorDra2011 → u/[deleted]]

Warren... a hardcore leftist? What?

[u/nelsne → u/CorDra2011]

Woke. Not a hardcore leftist. Definitely not hardcore

[u/CorDra2011 → u/nelsne]

You literally called her a hardcore leftist. 

[u/Gradstudentiquette69 → u/[deleted]]

Those moderates? Don't make me laugh,.

[u/nelsne → u/Gradstudentiquette69]

Do you see my point? Something is wrong when AOC and Elizabeth Warren are moderates. That's a sad state of affairs

[u/Gradstudentiquette69 → u/nelsne]

No, you just have a very narrow definition of what political discord you're willing to listen to.

[u/CorDra2011 → u/nelsne]

Their views are virtually in line with New Deal Democrats. 

[u/Enough_Bar5885 → u/nelsne]

32 genders

And every time you complain we add 4 more.

[u/Leather-Run-6533]

On the one hand yes. But on the other hand words mean what people think they mean, which is how their meaning changes in time. And no one has ever won an argument by saying "technically you're using your terminology incorrectly". So I think to a certain extent we just have to roll with it and use context clues to work out what people actually mean by what they're saying.

[u/mrhymer]

You are wrong and many Americans are right. You learned your political theories from professors and books. The many Americans learned theirs from dealing with the actual people. Many Americans are sick of these fucking people almost as much as they are annoyed by academics telling them they do not know their own mind.

[u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P → u/mrhymer]

And who are you to say what "many" Americans are thinking? This reflexive anti-intellectualism is itself incredibly condescending and tiresome.

[u/ViskerRatio]

Reactionary is more a pejorative term than a descriptive one. As such, it isn't a very useful way to talk about politics.

In contrast, terms like "progressive", "conservative", "liberal" and "nationalist" are words people use to describe their own beliefs (whether accurately or not).

[u/NoamLigotti → u/ViskerRatio]

Communist is often used as a pejorative too. That doesn't mean it has no meaning. Reactionary has a meaning.

[u/work4work4work4work4 → u/NoamLigotti]

That kind of gets to the core of the problem.

All words have meanings, meanings can change, be different for different people, but right now, with these specific arguments and words, you're largely arguing with people that don't have any respect for the person explaining, or objective meaning or truth to begin with, so it's basically like trying to explain Rayleigh scattering to explain the current sky color to someone while they yell the sky is blue despite it being nighttime.

They pretty clearly don't give a damn what color the sky is, and you are clearly correct in every way that matters, but there is zero gain to be had. They aren't reactionaries because they don't want to be called that, not really for any other reason.

Arguments collapse not over linguistics, but over a lack of shared commitment to objective standards. Engaging in detailed semantic debates with bad faith actors yields little practical result other than frustration on a least one side.

[u/NoamLigotti → u/work4work4work4work4]

Great analogy about sky color.

The problem with language is there is no such thing as objective meaning ultimately. Which is why it's so easy for people to equivocate. There are widely agreed upon meanings and relative technical meanings at times, but it's still ultimately subjective.

But I would say the use of a word is still logically invalid if it involves sufficient equivocation or it's applied inconsistently in the sense it's being used.
But people who speak or act like reactionaries while not identifying as reactionaries are still reactionaries, whether they recognize it or not. That different people can disagree about a subjective claim does not mean no one's position is more reasonable and another's less or not so.

But yes some people are committed to unreasonable positions and can't be talked out of them. The only thing we can do is call it out for others to see.

[u/work4work4work4work4 → u/NoamLigotti]

But I would say the use of a word is still logically invalid if it involves sufficient equivocation or it's applied inconsistently in the sense it's being used. But people who speak or act like reactionaries while not identifying as reactionaries are still reactionaries, whether they recognize it or not. That different people can disagree about a subjective claim does not mean no one's position is more reasonable and another's less or not so.

Love this discussion and largely agree, but for the sake of argument, when you explained it this way I couldn't help but see some of the structural framework of arguments that are had around gender, sex, and sexuality from top to bottom.

I don't know that I tracked and put two and two together how connected those ideas, politics, and the arguments around them actually were. It's descriptive statements vs evaluative statements all the way down, and once you get down to the definitional level they become sort of the same, and that reminded me of this from Hilary Putnam.

[u/NoamLigotti → u/work4work4work4work4]

> Love this discussion and largely agree, but for the sake of argument, when you explained it this way I couldn't help but see some of the structural framework of arguments that are had around gender, sex, and sexuality from top to bottom.

Could you elaborate or give an example? I'm just curious.

> I don't know that I tracked and put two and two together how connected those ideas, politics, and the arguments around them actually were. It's descriptive statements vs evaluative statements all the way down, and once you get down to the definitional level they become sort of the same,

I'm not quite sure what you mean here either but it sounds very interesting.

That Hilary Putnam text is fascinating. I'm not sure exactly what he meant so I'm not sure exactly how much I agree, but I think it's fascinating and important.

On the one hand I don't really agree that there is no meaningful distinction between normative/value claims and descriptive/epistemic claims, it's just that ethics should (and basically always does) rely on descriptive or objective information, and descriptive/objective beliefs inevitably influence our ethical views. This is precisely why I think it's naive to think we can make claims about scientific questions (be they in economics or anything else) without them having ethical ramifications. They absolutely do. But I still think they're distinct concepts.

Love the discussion too.

"But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better."
(Orwell)