Brokenism - The real debate today isn't between the left and right
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From what I've seen on the Internet, a common failure mode of brokenism is to focus on the "tearing down" part and not the "building anew" part. Some brokenists seem to take for granted that if only the current system were torn down, a better system would arise in its place. But they're often vague about what, exactly, that better system would be or how it would work in practice.
For example, Brexit was fundamentally brokenist. The Brexiteers succeeded in tearing down the existing system of Britain-EU ties, but found that they couldn't actually build anything equally good or better to replace it.
Same with the "defund the police" movement. The premise of "defunding the police" was to cut funds from police departments, and use the funds for alternative methods of reducing crime & violence. But the movement was vague about what, exactly, those alternatives would be. And in practice, when cities did reduce funding for their police departments, the alternatives didn't seem to materialize.
So I'm deeply skeptical of the forms of brokenism that focus on tearing down the current system, rather than focusing on a specific alternative they want to build instead. (And when there is a genuinely better alternative, I think it's often possible to build that alternative _without_ first tearing down the current system, and then it replaces the current system naturally.)
America isn’t perfect. Nothing is. But boy the stuff we take for granted and forget all about.
On the other hand, liberals and conservatives are basically the same these days. Since the only thing I hear from either of them is how the other is your enemy, trying to destroy your way of life, grooming your children, stripping your rights, policing your speech, etc.
To be clear, I am a liberal and do think conservatives are "worse" in this regard but you would have to be pretty willfully ignorant to not see the liberals doing the same.
I am a Christian who is both theologically and politically conservative, so we have divergent understandings of what an ideal America would look like. But I would think that even an impartial observer would agree with me that whatever the faults of the left and the right might be, the faults of the left are much more likely to be imposed on us inasmuch as liberals in 2023 have "control" of academia, the media, and corporate America. The extreme flank of conservatives tends to be rather marginalized -- and deservedly so.
And because of the greater cultural influence of the left, I don't see how a conservative could be a brokenist. If everything is "burned down and built anew" what arises from the ashes will not only be more liberal than what we have now, but will also lack the conservative underpinnings (such as the Constitution) that we now have. It seems to me that the conservatives only win out in cautionary dystopian novels like The Handmaid's Tale.
I agree the left is dominant in those areas of our culture. I think this is due to the highly concentrated populations of liberals versus the vastly spread out conservatives. And this mechanism is shown in another area of important cultural power: government. I would say liberals and conservatives are pretty equal in this consequential area. I worry about conservatives controlling our governments because I don't think they would try to compromise.
I just watched Pleasantville; another great liberal take on the conservative mindset.
I think in history cultures tend to get more and more liberal until the society collapses. Then when something else arises in its place it is brutal and uncivilized and, I suppose, what we would call conservative. And the process starts over again.
I'll have to check out Pleasantville. Thanks for the exchange.