Right Wing Conservatism Can Soon Become Extremism

 

In colonial countries, people can, without thinking, believe what they know will always be the same. 

It’s too easy to understand how conservative views can become extremism. If you are comfortable, white, have a home that’s clean and warm, enough money to eat, and assume you will always have a job because your father and grandfather did. Your mother could stay home and take care of you and the house, the laundry and the cooking. 

Your parents taught you to have good manners, to speak only when spoken to, and never to cry or demand anything from others. If you are bullied or treated badly it’s because you do not have the courage to stand up for yourself. What you believe to be true will always be true. Your father, teacher, preacher is always right. People in positions of responsibility are decent, and know how to handle power for the greater good.

People in positions of power have higher intelligence which includes moral principles. They read the newspaper and go to church on Sundays. This smug superiority is ignorance but we must never say that. George Orwell and Margaret Atwood notwithstanding, any idea that makes us uncomfortable is rude and should not be tolerated.

This has taken centuries of war and propaganda to arrive at what seems a comfortable truth. Media can tell us truth in small doses as long as those at the top do not feel threatened and those in the middle can watch TV documentaries, visit museums, shop at huge malls, visit their doctor and hospital, send their kids to school— and feel safe.

We’ve never had it so good, but many still suffer because they do not have the means to tell the world. It’s easy for us to believe we are a success if we are not in pain—which is an indicator of failure and shame. 

We cannot be ignorant because there is so much information “out there”.  Too much in fact.

Take politics for example—it’s disturbing to hear grown men argue over something we have not heard of before. Media is everywhere including social media, the internet, television, radio.

Yet there is history. The Holocaust, Communism, Billionaires, the Arms Race, domestic violence, prisons, law suits, different religions. This is privilege isn’t it?

Doesn’t it annoy you to hear people expressing different views? What is, is! Just get on with it. Unless of course it curtails my point of view and I am forced to see I might have been wrong. Or worse yet, the world is in a mess and our future is threatened.

I am not defending conservatism just pointing out how it creates a feeling of security among the priveleged.

But what if we are not in the majority? What if there are more deaths in Pakinstan than white people in America and Europe? What if there are more Muslims than Christians in the world? 

If climate change really exists why didn’t I see it coming? What if there are more diseases than we know? What if prayers don’t affect the weather? 

What if all I’ve learned is not true and there is nothing I can do to save the world?

What makes Right Wing Extremism so cuddly, is, I cannot see what the future will bring? There are no guarantees we shall survive.

Nothing comes with insurance. Not money, conservatism, religion, politics or prayer. And I have not written anything you didn’t already know! 

So along comes a cute young guy—white, clean cut, with round eyes and white skin—just like your father or grandfather who advocates all shall be well as long as we build more gas pipelines, more factories, more money for big business, more prisons, more sports and more weapons—we shall survive. 

Phew!  What a relief eh?