DaftguruJul 16, 2024
Mark Holtom (aka Kingbeard)

20 Years Ago on July 6th, 2002 - the brilliant economist and thinker John Kenneth Galbraith, gave an interview in which he said this perfect bit:

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

Jul 16, 2024 at 7:51amWeb
Show threadGorobarJul 16, 2024

@MarkHoltom So true...

(for the small part of them who care about morality - the rest just keep on serving up new minorities as victims for the masses)

Show threadNazaniJul 16, 2024
@gorobar @MarkHoltom
I wouldn''t call it real morality, it's trying to force everyone into the Procrustean bed of their religion.
Show threadMirishuliJul 16, 2024
@MarkHoltom I wish I had read this decades ago. Would have made things so much simpler.
Show thread🇺🇸 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 🐧 🥦Jul 16, 2024

@MarkHoltom

Great quote!

Show threadDamkinaJul 16, 2024
@MarkHoltom 🎯
Show threadOliver SchafeldJul 16, 2024

Here's a longer excerpt with that quote:

»…The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character-building value of privation for the poor. The man who has struck it rich in minerals, oil, or other bounties of nature is found explaining the debilitating effect of unearned income from the state. The corporate executive who is a superlative success as an organization man weighs in on the evils of bureaucracy. …«

https://wist.info/galbraith-john-kenneth/7463/

Speech (1963-12-13), "Wealth and Poverty," National Policy Committee on Pockets of Poverty - Galbraith, John Kenneth | WIST Quotations

The modern conservative is not even especially modern. He is engaged, on the contrary, in one of man’s oldest, best financed, most applauded, and, on the whole, least successful exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. It is an exercise which always involves…

WIST Quotations
Show threadNazaniJul 16, 2024
@MarkHoltom
I'm old enough to remember him appearing on The Firing Line with Buckley. That's when I knew I wasn't whatever Buckley was.
Show threadDoug Baker - Elbows Up! 🇨🇦Jul 16, 2024
@MarkHoltom That pretty much defines the Right: I always say (having voted Left for over 50 years) that the problem with the Left is that "they know what's best for you". The problem with the Right is that "they know what's best for themselves".
Show threadSpace WranglerJul 16, 2024
@MarkHoltom
After listening to a group of Mom's that send their kids to an expensive private school railing against how their taxes are wasted on universal breakfast and lunch for all public school students in California - i gotta say - this quote hits home.
You have to a real POS to think kids dont deserve food, but they were apoplectic at the "waste" of money and not compelled by the fact that me and my kids benefit daily from this program.
Show threadSteve PopovichJul 16, 2024
@MarkHoltom they are throwing spaghetti at the wall in the hope that something will stick, enough for the peasants to shut up and stay in their place. SMH
Show threadMary ClarkJul 16, 2024
@MarkHoltom Back then conservatives did seek a moral justification but it's been dropped from consideration, b/c all is covered by saying Jesus is my lord and savior. Blanket immunity.
Show threadKelsey JordahlJul 16, 2024
@MarkHoltom I had to look this up because I didn't believe Galbraith could have been alive in 2002, but in fact he was, he died in 2006 at age 97.
Show threadmindsetsJul 18, 2024

@MarkHoltom

At least in the US, however, that type of conservative has been supplanted (though obviously not eliminated) by the type which strives to justify tribalism.

https://mindly.social/@setsly/112544176455018146

mindsets (@[email protected])

I sense that most folks here, in the Left-leaning Mastodon system, don't talk to Trump supporters too often. I mean ordinary Trump supporters; not outliers who own MAGA hats and such. If they did, they'd know: for Trump supporters, #politics is all about the culture war. Anything else is a distant secondary concern to the vast majority of them. Thus, law and policy changes which wouldn't directly modify human culture can be easier wins, for the Left, than the Left currently realizes. 1 of 2

Mindly.Social