"There is something spiritual at the bottom of conservatism,..."
- Andrew Klavan, Pajamas Media
"Our main finding is that people who had a spiritual understanding of life had worse mental health than those with an understanding that was neither religious nor spiritual."
- Professor Michael King, University College London, in the British Journal of Psychiatry
Funny, conservatism appealed to me because it seemed common sense and practical -- then again, that "do onto others" thing never stroked any spiritual chords so much as it wasn't bad advice to try to live by as best one could. That's why I've never had a problem with it.
ReplyDeleteBut throwing spirituality into the mix kinda makes people forget about both of those things or at least start cheating on those things, and then we start getting into special little cupcake land...which means they'll excuse any and increasingly horrid infractions of "do onto others" in the name of their greater spiritual essence. Which is where "the thing called conservatism" will start to become some monster which bears no resemblance to what it's supposed to be at all -- kinda like the preacher man who excuses and then condones murder, rape, and theft in the name of the laird.
That's just wonderful; bloody terrific.
PW
-- this isn't the first blip on the radar I've seen of this; seems to be a new meme the big rightwing blogs are selling right now: conservatives are "spiritual"...didn't the leftwing push that for quite a few years now? why would they want to go for the same thing then? hmmmm...smells like a rat has died under the porch again