I silently think I have conservative political values, yet my private lifestyle is anything but. In real life, I generally expouse fairly conservative views too, in contrast to my online posting behaviours. It’s one reason I am hesistant to be completely transparent about my LessWrong/reddit identities and my every day physical world identity.
I reckon it’s okay to have different attitudes to public and private life, since governance is differant than running your own life. However, the hypocrisy kinda unnerves me. My intuition is that conservative aesthetics make me less anxious. People around me will be more predictable and that’s a society I will feel safer in. But, I don’t trust the world to provide for me an acceptable life, so I life a free life of experimentation privately. Should I redefine my values or lifetyle?
Is conservatism something you appreciate aesthetically? A tribe you like belonging to more than the "liberal" tribe? Something closer or farther away from what you perceive to be reality than the alternatives?
I don't know how to give advice based on the question as you've stated it. Or, rather, my advice would be to pose a better question, not necessarily here, but to yourself. Figure out where the conflicts are and evaluate each one individually, instead of generalizing to all of them.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
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