Trending #socialism

I'm not what anyone would perhaps call a socialist. Ideologically I'm conservative (not the little 'c' there folks), of the one nation variety. Boiled down, it recognises that the world is an imperfect place, that humans generally tend to want more than they really need, and as a result there is vast inequality. Such as this is, it is the duty of those with the wealth to help those worse off than themselves. That's as I understand it anyway, I'm dreading tirades from politito-socio-anthro-somethingorothers to tell me I'm wrong.

There are people who really exemplify what I love about this conservative thinking, people like Cadbury and Titus Salt, who built homes for their workers and provided them with schooling and healthcare. Salt actually built a whole town for his workers, although he did name it after himself, Saltaire. Oddly enough the one thing that I hear that people object about Saltaire is that it doesn't have a pub. Each to their own.

For me this type of political thinking is best because it isn't quite so aggressive as other stand points can be. There's an air Dicken's Herbert Pocket saying "Can't we just talk about this chaps?", no shouting, no slurs of anyone who doesn't agree with you being delusional, irrational, ridiculous or stupid. Just the idea that at the end of the day that we can talk like civilised human beings.

I used to be quite political in my thinking, and I knew more about politics when i was sixteen than I did when I had my first chance to vote in a general election. Why? Because I've grown tired of the rhetoric of politicians. I've grown used to the slagging off I receive for expressing a view point. During the general election I found myself referred to online, by two persons I counted as friends, as 'that fucking Tory boy'.

Only recently have I been able to talk to someone I consider a hard line socialist about politics, because she's the first one I've met in a long time, who has in word, respected my views. She hasn't confused respect, with agreement. I think in our society we seem to have come to a point where we view as respecting a person as tantamount to agreeing with them. Maybe that's where we've been going wrong?