Although, as a kid, my family thought of our Jewish observance as ‘Orthodox-leaning’, in fact, we belonged to a ‘Conservative’ synagogue. The designation allowed for a more assimilated version of observance that took into account five thousand years of human progress that couldn’t possibly have been foreseen by the architects of the original dogma, (that is, unless God himself was that architect in which case he would have known everything and is probably gravely disappointed). Anyway, the fact that Jew-lite was called ‘Conservative’, (don’t get me started on the further-diluted ‘Reformed’ movement), never struck me until I became a political addict trying to come to grips with the preferred label of the Republican Party. The parallels are troubling.
Conservative Jews, (I’m way over-simplifying this, so please, no reprimands from friends or family for lack of thoroughly vetted context), altered centuries of traditionally accepted law to make observance more comfortable to their lifestyle. Biblically, this could have been grounds for Babel-esque retribution to rain from the heavens or, at the very least, a plethora of folks being turned into pillars of salt. Maybe that’s still on the table, perhaps the dastardly fake news media just haven’t been covering those kinds of stories…I don’t know. My point is, according to the OED:
noun
the labeling is at least confusing and most certainly misleading. For the Jewish context, definition ‘1’ would seem antithetical to the reality of the practice, calling it one thing while doing something almost polar opposite, (Maimonides must be rolling over in his burial urn).
But, my frustration, is with the political/social context. Sticking with ‘1’ for the moment, even with Google at my fingertips, I cannot find a moment in history when “traditional values” meant anything other than empirical supremacy, one geographic, racial, religious or ideological power imposing its might over another. Sure, the eloquent drafters of the American experiment in democracy offered some way cool guidelines for a leveler playing field, but nearly 250 years down that road we are not only far from being a nation of “all men created equal”, we are, at present, in full-throttle reverse. And, the party in power has interpreted “traditional values and ideas with opposition to change or innovation” to mean the destruction of the environment, the dismantling of public education, the abandonment of health care responsibility, a disdain for the arts and the embrace of white European supremacy, (for decades held politely at bay). And, definition ‘2’, well, that would be fine if the achievement of those ends didn’t imply shitting on all of that stuff from definition ‘1’.
Every day, I watch one or another of the leaders of the Conservative movement try to justify their destructive behavior. The rational me keeps thinking, these people have children, they breathe the air, drink the water, require health care, listen to music, may have noticed some art and probably have had a non-threatening encounter with someone non-white and Protestant. Really…none of you get it? Anyone…anyone…Bueller?…Bueller?