an isolating lovelessness

-on conservative politics, greed, and pedophilia

I have been thinking deeply about the changing political order that is leaning towards curbing dissent and concentrating power. The common people, as per routine, have to dodge the worst possible situations. It is like being in the Subway Surfers game without ever signing up for it. Religion is getting closely tied to your identity, along with your relatability on the scale of nerding around to fucking around. So, you see what I mean. The conservatives are on the rise, the liberals are seething, and pop culture is fighting back (or at least trying to) by being more inclusive and accepting. (Thank you, Bad Bunny. Your Super Bowl performance is duly appreciated). In this context, I have been trying to figure out what conservatism stands for and how much sense it makes.

Derived from the Latin word ‘conservativus’, conservative in English means aiming to preserve. In a socio-political space, conservatism strives to protect and propagate traditional values and institutions like the nuclear family, organised religion, aristocracy, the military and so on. ¹Edmund Burke, the 18th-century Anglo-Irish statesman, is considered one of the forefathers of conservative thought in the 1790s, along with the Savoyard statesman, Joseph de Maistre. The first established use of the term is noted in 1818 by François-René de Chateaubriand during the Bourbon Restoration. In this light, what I have been meaning to understand is the true essence of conservative thought, because as far as I can see, it is contradicting itself.

In the present day, conservatism is often synonymous with extremism, destruction and capitalism. The market, however, does not seek to preserve any thought per se, for it’s solely built on maximizing profit. What it stands on is liberalisation, which is, linguistically, directly at odds with conservatism, like rising tariffs, trade barriers, stringent visa norms and migrant fear. Doesn’t a liberal world order help in the easier transfer of ideas and cultures to and fro, thereby helping the market? Meanwhile, the environment is also getting properly fucked to bits for further industrial expansion, and people are feeling unsafe in their neighborhoods ever since a ‘homogenized’ society became the new norm. Now, it also seems that the political elites who revel in the said greatness of their antiquated culture that thrived on a docile family structure are…well… not conserving any family values privately. Instead, their wealth and power serve to normalize subservience, pillaging and oppression. Case in point, the Epstein Files. I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that the people who have been marketed to us as politicians, tech geniuses, spiritual gurus, businessmen, and whatnot— those who have the power to actually create a difference— are absolute fucking degenerates. What in the god’s name is the correlation between a billion and a moral rock bottom? Which political, social and moral ideology justifies rape? How is there such a wide contrast between their public and private lives? The reason, in my belief, lies in the lack of a love ethic. I do not mean an individualistic love, but empathy and compassion that take shape into love for your fellow beings. Bell Hooks verbalizes this in her seminal work, All About Love. She highlights the transformative power of love in building a more emotive and equitable society. At the same time, she points out that:

“A culture of narcissism is not a place where love can flourish […] Left alone in the ‘me’ culture, we consume and consume with no thought of others. Greed and exploitation become the norm when an ethic of domination prevails. They bring in their wake alienation and lovelessness”.

This reminds me of a video that talked about how pedophilia is deeply ingrained in our culture. We are naturally taught to obey without question. Power begets violence, which in turn guarantees possession. That is where children figure in. The younger the victim, the more malleable they are. In this light, I also want to talk about Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, Lolita, and the effect of the “little girl culture” in shaping our ideas around beauty and girlhood. Right off the bat, I want to point out that Nabokov did not promote pedophilia in his novel. If anything, he scrutinised the male gaze and how insane Humbert had to be for sexualising a scrawny 13-year-old girl. The movie plays into Humbert’s gaze by giving us a rather uncomfortable depiction of Lolita, like an airbrushed1950s pin-up model, as Ira Wells points out in The New Republic. Her legs are shaved and she is seductively sucking on lollipops and crookedly applying lipstick— a girl who wants to “grow up” in Humbert’s imagination. The beauty industry has played into it by propagating hairlessness (ouch, waxing. Women are not butter), baby pink lips, rosebud cheeks— a sign of innocence. For instance, in 2018, Kat Von D Beauty launched its Lolita Capsule Collection featuring an eyeshadow palette, liquid lipstick and liquid eyeliner. Maybelline launched a ‘Pink Lolita’ shade for its Baby Lips lip balm. Furthermore, Lolita fashion leans into a version of hyper yet mature femininity with delicate silhouettes, ruffles, and more. Jessica DeFino ‘s article offers great insight into this topic. Women are told to smile more and be increasingly unassuming. Girlhood has been sexualised and brutalised.

Keeping this in mind, I truly wonder, those among the mentioned elites who are proud to call themselves conservatives, are conserving what? What value was Bill Clinton, who is famously known for braving a major scandal regarding his alleged affair with his intern, Monica Lewinsky, to save his marriage, conserving on Epstein Island? Donald Trump talks of making America great again. Does American culture stand for sexual harassment? How is pedophilia connected to Deepak Chopra’s spirituality? Does the image of raping a child lead him closer to an unseen, magnificent, and vomited version of a divine power?

As far as I know, every tech ‘genius’, along with politicians, especially Donald Trump, has been in cahoots with promoting climate denial for drilling oil, promoting AI, fast fashion and the like. The air is barely breathable and the water is full of chemicals. Therefore, the climate is not among the things to be preserved, got it. Then what is? Religion? Which religion and/or faith can be propagated down the barrel of a gun? Oh, and race? Well, if the massive unpopularity of Sydney Sweeney after the infamous American Eagle ad that played on ‘great jeans/genes’ does not signal the logical discontent with the idea, then I don’t know what does. Anyway, your blue eyes and fair skin will not save you from becoming a target in the greed for power. That’s for sure. No nation needs to be protected from migrants. If anything, the world is an amalgamation of different cultural practices. It, instead, must be protected from the elite.

In any case, I am not making a case for liberalism over conservatism. Not at all. For me, every elite is a hoarder of wealth, power, and a manipulator of values for their own gain. It does not matter what political thought they subscribe to. The common person is wedged between the pressures of daily life— a job, romance, family, healthcare, housing, and so much more. Spewing hatred guarantees distraction from wanting a decent livelihood. The enemy is always your neighbor, someone you have grown attuned to. There is always a conspiracy. Always something tantalising and dangerous. I hate to break it to you, but nothing is being preserved. Those who prefer to remain above the conversation of the general population and effectively promote their decline will have nothing to preserve.

Men who herald their loyalty have already stepped out on their partners. Men who want ‘good wives’ in the kitchen want ‘whores’ in their bed, or worse. They are addicted to power and materialism. That is what is being ‘conserved’. Bell Hooks argues:

“When greedy consumption is the order of the day, dehumanization becomes acceptable. Then, treating people like objects is not only acceptable but required behavior. It’s the culture of exchange, the tyranny of marketplace values”.

Does this mean that capitalism is to blame for moral decline? Well, I am not an economics genius, so I am unqualified to make that claim. What I can say is that an elasticized version of it that thrives on hoarding and exacerbating poverty is the problem. The lack of social compassion is the culprit. No social ideology, conservative or otherwise, can thrive on annihilation and domination. It needs empathy for fulfilment. I, for one, am done with this insanity around me.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism