I was talking politics with a friend yesterday and the idea of conservative vs. progressive came up, and I realized that most folks probably don't know the origins of those words, and knowing where the origins of these movements come from is helpful to understand them. (short 🧵)
So after the First French Revolution, France was in a political flux. Napoleon rose to power, and then fell again. In the aftermath, different groups emerged. One group wanted to return to pre-revolution politics. They wanted to restore the deposed King Louis to the throne.
There was another group who wanted to embrace the values of the revolution. They wanted to move society forward under the values of equality and fairness. They were progressives. They sat on the left side (left-wing) of the chamber. The conservatives sat on the right.
The conservatives wanted to restore the king because of a belief that a hierarchical society is right and good. They believed that some people were simply more deserving, or intrinsically more worthwhile than others. The monarchy was a path to sustain that system.
Eventually, the second French Revolution happened, and democracy took root. So the conservatives had to come up with a different plan. And they did. They enforced their hierarchical model of society using ideas like the development of exploitative financial systems and...
suppression of labour power. Even more shamefully, minority groups were (and still are) viewed and treated as a form of underclass, fit only to hold space at the bottom of the pyramid. Instead of enforcing a hierarchical model of society through monarchy and bloodlines,
they did it through economic forces. And that model of society, that works to rank and sort people into winners and losers? That is what we need to break down. Conservatism excludes the underprivileged, by definition. Don't lose sight of that.
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