The difference in criteria between being a conservative and being anti-system

For some time now I have been observing a curious phenomenon in the discourse of a section of the conservative right.

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This difference can be seen in their criteria for determining their positions, that is, in the method of discernment to determine what is right in politics. There is a considerable part of the conservative right (I would dare say that it is the majority) that, when determining its positions, bases itself on criteria of truth, justice, ethics and morality. Of course, I am referring to Christian morality. Defining your positions in this way has a great advantage: you do not depend on what others say to know what is right.

I can give some examples. I defend the cause of Ukraine and support its resistance to Russian imperialism, because as a Christian and a democrat I am disgusted to see a great power invade a neighbouring country without any justification, appealing to purely nationalist motives and committing all kinds of crimes. Likewise, I reject racism and antisemitism, because I believe that a person should be judged by his actions, not by the colour of his skin. Furthermore, hatred of Jews was the trigger for a colossal genocide in which Hitler's dictatorship murdered millions of people, and that, as a defender of life, provokes the most absolute rejection in me, just as I do the genocides perpetrated by communist dictatorships.

However, there is a small part of the conservative right that is abandoning these criteria for determining its positions, moving ever closer to the ideological coordinates of the extreme right (which is not the one that the media often say, but that part of the right that defends anti-democratic positions, just like the extreme left). For that part of the right, the important thing is to contradict the "system", rightly or wrongly. And often the right identifies the democratic system with a certain government and its policies, even though they are not the same thing.

In this regard, I have seen so-called conservatives defend Russia and communist China, arguing that the West has become a decadent part of the world, as if the two dictatorships mentioned were an example of impeccable morality. Some oppose Ukraine simply because there are centrists, liberals and social democrats who support it, which leads these anti-system conservatives to adopt an unjustifiable position due to a painful differentialism that ignores logic, reason and truth to establish their positions.

Along the same lines, some adopt anti-Semitic positions simply because they identify the rejection of those positions with the "system". It is an absurd and aberrant criterion to determine what is fair or not, a fallacious and immature way of thinking. It is as crazy as if you defended that it is okay to jump off a bridge just because the "system" rejects it. Along these lines, some are reaching ideological positions that are no longer conservative, but quite the opposite: ideological garbage like Dugin's Eurasianism, a lunatic admired by many supporters of Putin's dictatorship.

The paradox is that among this anti-system right there are many who believe that the rest of us are manipulated, as if they were the discoverers of a truth hidden from all humanity that is only accessible to a handful of initiates. It is a way of thinking typical of sects. In fact, an intellectually mature person must always maintain a critical sense towards their own approaches, contrast them with reality and subject them to the scrutiny of truth. Basing your principles on logic, reason, ethics and morality is what makes you less manipulable, what allows you to avoid being deceived by any charlatan who tells you some nonsense.

Driven by this absurd differentialism of the "system", what this anti-system right has been demonstrating is, precisely, how easily it is manipulated by the worst charlatans in the world, among which are the dictatorships of Moscow and Beijing, allies of other dictatorships such as North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. Embracing those who have such perverse allies must always be a cause for suspicion, but some have been so blinded by their anti-system discourse that they are no longer able to see that these anti-democratic regimes they support are much worse than this decadent West they criticize.

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Photo: Fabian Bimmer / Reuters. A pro-Russian demonstration in Hanover, Germany.