If you people dont know conservertiveness deals with how "closed" people are (they are resistant to change), it's part of the non liberal group and and are the right wing, religion based and traditionalist. a lot of people in malaysia are ignorant to how conservertive they are, they in fact seek more, argue for more and our ever loving government responds with more.

while a lot of malaysians think being conservertive is right, i believe it is actually wrong in a lot of ways. in economics its argued that the more open people are the better it is economically, this also applies into other factors like human rights. a number of big countries in the world today are not conservertive and are very atuned to change. in fact in business and economics its very important to atune the company or a country to change allowing new markets to branch up and generally improve the well being of a country.

what do you think? being far right is a good thing?

A portion of the country will do well, but social ills will be rampant too..and i think malaysia as an islamic country will ever be liberal.

a portion of a country will always do well, take kl for example or the major states in malaysia. vast contrast compared to smaller states. theres no such thing as a general well being in all areas. NY is vastly differnet then say new england or current detriot

social ills? thats a rather interesting point, a lot of these soo called social ills are created because we are conservertive. a lot of these are actually baseless too, most liberal countries have far better HDI, GDP and Gini index then malaysia or any other more conservertive countries. however how does one define social ills becomes a very interesting question, a lot malaysians see it bad to see a chick clubbing or being a slut. the moral scorn from all parties are huge and varied, however a vcd pedeller is greeted with welcome. where in reality the vcd pedeller is the greater of both evils.

its something of pot calling the kettle black when teachers/ politicians and parents saying we wont go western as its morally bad but the western way did produce better results economically and interms of welfare.

note its not an islamic thing, malaysians are a far right bunch.

This post has been edited by +3kk!: Aug 12 2009, 10:54 PM

Very much depends on how you define "Conservatism".

After all, Liberalism used to be about Small Government and Free Trade. Nowadays, American and to a certain extent European liberals are more often than not Big Government advocates.

Same goes for what constitutes "far-right". Hitler's economic policies would be considered leftist by present-day American rightists/conservatives.

I personally see Conservatism as the manifestation of humanity's survival instincts in sticking to a group, defending it and enforcing discipline within it to ensure survival.

cheers

that's why there's an additional political leaning comes into the picture. libertarian at the top and authoritarian at the bottom.


This post has been edited by quintessential: Aug 15 2009, 10:47 PM

I would like to think that the current younger generation is more open minded than being conservertive...though some tend to stick to tradition n rules like glue.

With total conservertiveness as a person and as a society...they will never progress along with other societies and that's not good. Science always challenges religion..to think out of the box hence there has to be some balance between being open minded and being conservertive.

The 1st world countries practices open mindedness and it makes them progress though their public morale is down...but that can be fixed with teaching and public awareness. Third world countries like us tend to have the "stay away, this is my country so I will do what I want with it" attitude so they cannever progress since they're not open to other concepts on how to move forward.

Both sides have its pros and cons actually...and u can never stick to on side all the time as u will never know when the side you're on starts to go 'sideways'.

conservationist view breeds a stay-in-the-comfort-zone mentality. and by that, conservationists tend to find contentment rather easily. and as we all know contentment stun progress.

It depends on what kind of conservativeness we uphold. Conservativeness is good in some way that it controls the behavior of the overall society.

Liberalism cannot be instilled in a country like Malaysia where we have multi ethnic protected under the constitution of Malaysia where certain ethnic groups have their respective special rights.... Lots of factors have to be look into further before liberalization in a country like malaysia is possible.

Furthermore for an asian country like Malaysia where we have our official religion...open mindedness is not something that every1 can accept...it depends on to what extend we open our minds....

Open mindedness like Free Speech etc etc is out of question too in our country....in fact, we cannot totally open up our mind as long as we stay in Malaysia...lolz....

This post has been edited by gstrapinuse: Aug 16 2009, 11:41 PM

The Imperial Germany after 1871 (and it's Prussian predecessor) is a great example of highly Conservative societies achieving great "advances".

While open societies can ferment ideas, openness is not the sole determinant of a countries' progress.

cheers

I'm conversative in terms of government, i believe a conservative government should have nothing to do with the personal lives of the people, merely regulating external affairs and enforcing economic ownership.

I like to be left alone to do what i want to do, if a crime is victimless, why should the government care?

Okay… I'm not going to refer to political conservatism or liberalism. Instead, let's look into their social aspects.

Firstly, I think social conservatism adheres strictly to a lot of "rules and regulations" and for that reason, when it comes to any changes being introduced to a conservative's routine, he will almost always stick to what he has been doing instead of agreeing to any changes. After all, why change when it has worked so well this far? However, if he is to make any new changes, it will most likely be based on an old standard. He will be skeptical of advancements and will not accept them without carefully studying them. A conservative is faithful and loyal and never strays.

Secondly, in contrast, social liberalism takes life to its limits and a liberal goes with the ever-changing flow of the world and everything around him. He is always into all the new stuff and enjoys lurking in the advancements in science and technology. He presents his ideas and proposals that may sometimes be preposterous but he knows he needs to do further research and study to get them recognized. A liberal is "open and free", in his spirit and thinking. He may get into trouble, but it is most likely for the benefit of himself and for mankind.

Well, as Christians, we may say that conservatism is right and liberalism is wrong. Not forgetting the fact that our Bible is a few thousand years old and we believe that our God is never-changing and steadfast. There is nothing so bad about being conservative... but I also believe that a certain "dosage" of liberalism is healthy. Change happens, and happens every day. We shouldn't be "left behind" (by change or by God - pun intended) but should instead be able to blend in with the changes to move forward.

So, in a nutshell, change where acceptable and keep what is good. Am I correct? But therein lies the question, which changes are acceptable and for which aspects of life should we be conservative about. People will argue about it. Personally I think a certain degree of conservertiveness is a must, to preserve certain good values cultivated since old, but then again some should just be done away with.

This post has been edited by ZeratoS: Aug 19 2009, 03:58 AM

It would not be fair to attack the develop world on their low moral. Here I believe we are referring to free sex. Free sex is the by product of urbanization. We are no different. Cohabiting is also popular in Asian countries. Even worst parents had started to accept boyfriends staying the night at their daughter’s room and vice versa. Furthermore, our papers had reported people organized wild sex parties for the New Year and another occasion on police raiding a similar party in an island. In fact if we compare basic moral issue we are a lot worse than the developed world. There is no courtesy in our driving. We are litter bug and we can’t keep our public toilets clean. Were these things not taught in moral lessons?

Let's talk about rationalization

The tendency for a society to transform from a traditional one into a rational one. Adopting rational way of doing things and technology will no doubt, promotes the advancement of the society. Much like how religion and moral teachings had interfere with many of the scientific research and slows down the overall advancement. However, rational usually involves bureaucracy, in which it involves more impersonality of a society or alienation. Look at New York of USA, a highly impersonalized, rationalized, competitive society. Everyone interact with others because they need the others to do something that they can't be done themselves instead of trying to make friends or whatever but they top the list economically.

So is rationalization good? In-terms of advancement of society, certainly yes. But it is kinda sad as we proceeds further, the dehumanizing effect will be getting more serious. You want something you gotta pay for it eh?

This post has been edited by NicJolin: Mar 30 2010, 11:25 PM