On Friday, I took a day off work to travel to the Hague (which is actually quite close to where I live) for an all-day seminar entitled "Conservatism and Western Civilization" put on by a Dutch conservative think tank. While I consider myself more libertarian than conservative, I thought I would still have much in common with participants at such a gathering.I confess to being a trifle underwhelmed. A criticism which is frequently leveled at conservatives is that they want to turn the clock back to the 1950s. And, well, that would that be a fairly accurate summary of Friday's seminar: "Everything was better in the 1950s." That's certainly not what I believe, and I was sorry to hear that view being propounded, particularly because it goes hand-in-hand with another great conservative vice: a tendency to complain about how bad society is.
I felt like I was in an Alchoholics Anonymous meeting as we went around the room and people confessed how poor their education had been. ("I was only required to read 15 books in my French class, whereas my father had to read 30.") IMHO, if you think your education was bad, it's kind of your own fault. There's no reason why you can't read those extra 15 books in your own time. I was also a little frustrated because I asked several questions which were not answered.
Oh well. I wouldn't say I wasted my time. For me, this seminar had a lot of symbolic meaning. I was conscious of the fact that in taking a day off from my cool corporate job to go to a political seminar in the Hague I was living out one of my dreams.
At the end of the day, one of the speakers gave a long list of books that he said everyone should read before they get involved in politics. I am pleased to say that I had actually read all of them. And I am definitely going to get involved in Dutch politics, I've finally picked a political party to join. I am already plotting my participation in/conquest of their youth division.
Stay tuned for more on that...
