In England, white male patriarchism rose as the British and other empires expanded colonial rule and exploitation world-wide. Rational framework was needed to explain how tiny numbers of western men deserved to control vast, eastern and New World populations and wealth. Combining a vulgarized version of Darwin’s theory of evolution (“survival of the fittest”), Galton’s finding about genius (that rich, successful folks were related to each other) and Spencer’s view that natural selection among humans rids society of bad stock while preserving the best, a notion of righteous dominance took form which was then imported to the Western Hemisphere where it joined an earlier, religious elitism and still has influence. The poor ‘deserve’ failure. The White Man’s Burden is to civilize his darker, backward brothers, even by harsh means, since the causes of inferiority, crime and addiction are bad heredity and poor brains; nothing at all to do with human institutions, culture or the structure of society itself.
Research into many sources reveals that the core ideology of self-styled conservatism stresses resistance to change and justification of inequality. (Self-styled here means personal identification with the views and wishes of so-called “Rightist” groups.) Motivated by needs that vary according to situation and particular disposition, conservatives struggle to manage uncertainty and perceived threat. They display high fear of death, loss (personal, financial or political) and the instability latent in feelings of disorder, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity and injury to self-esteem. Anxieties limit their openness to new experience or view, resulting in dogmatism, hyper-assertiveness and intolerance that mask any sense of weakness, ineptness or ignorance.
Conservatives are ideologically subject to delusions of a sort of ‘reverse’ utopia, not of the future but of present or past, especially idealizing an often unstated “golden age.” They look forward, paradoxically, to earlier times in which they imagine themselves better attuned than the unwanted present and threatening future. Doubts of adequate understanding and ability to cope on their part are totally intolerable, often moving them to ill-conceived and misdirected action. They need the mutual support and assurance of group conformity and set agenda, cheering each other on to delusive goals.
Now comes the kicker! These red shirt-wearing Tea Party “Patriots” are not conservatives!
They misidentify themselves as such from sheer linguistic ignorance. Plainly, they are reactionaries. Political commentators resist using the word because for many it is tainted by root-association with Marxist socio-political analysis. What the Red Shirts are most “conservative” about are, informing themselves widely enough to open their minds and engage creatively in original thinking with clarity and intelligent discrimination. They prefer dogma and stereotypes, canned ideas handed down from parents or leaders and blind certainty in the goodness of outworn attitudes. They like to inflate themselves with all virtue and misconstrue opposition as unjustly as did puritans, inquisitors, facists, nazis and soviet communists. Authoritarian dreamers!
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