Revolutionary Conservatism – Part 2

Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 21 January 2005 16:33.

In the first part of this double post I focussed on the good, hard look a Conservative must take of his position if he is ever to start thinking seriously about his - and our - deepening troubles. For, the West is entering upon a period of crisis of proportions unseen since the fall of Rome. It is a crisis that touches upon all areas of life except, by and large, the economic. And it is NOT the crisis of Conservatism. That departed over the horizon a hundred years ago. It is the crisis of advanced liberalism.

I argued that our newly introspective Conservative must think on the causes of his political enfeeblement. He must acknowledge as fact the victory of liberalism throughout Western society. In so doing he may realise that liberalism extends to him, too, in all but name. If he is even to begin to understand the grave responsibility to the future that inhabits the mantle of Conservatism he must first resile from all the anti-Conservative beliefs and values he has imbibed. Then, if he is wise, he will acknowledge that even that may not be enough. There are additional difficulties posed him by economism and globalised capital and by democracy which could well be insoluble. Still, as a Conservative there is only one direction in which he can tread.

I hope that my Part 1 post made depressing reading. It was certainly intended to. But now we are going to change to a major key (well, almost).

So let’s go. When it doesn’t involve wearing reading glasses at forty-five or swallowing little blue tablets at … whatever age little blue tablets need to be swallowed, entropy is just grand. I say that because, to my deep satisfaction, liberalism is showing edifying signs of decay.

In England these signs are all around us. They are in the growing cynicism with which the public view government. They are in the increasingly tired and hollow-sounding ministerial evocations of “tolerance” and “diversity”. They are in the official furtiveness which surrounds black crime figures. They are in the blatently manifest desire of the 2001 Census-takers not to know how many Englishmen and women reside in England (and, by extension, how many immigrants).

They are in the collective psychological sigh that follows upon yet more mendacious minority victimology, more claims of white hate speech or racism, be it supposedly institutional or simply supposedly white of skin, or pretty well any statement by the CRE.

They are in the repellant immorality of a broadcast media which preaches multiculturalism to pre-school toddlers. They are in the quiet anger stirred by all the sensitivity training and the broader anti-white anti-racism sweeping our police forces, our public authorities, even our fire and rescue services.

They are in the growing scientific acceptance of human bio-diversity, and plain wonderment at the left’s stubborn attachment to old John Locke’s Tabula Rasa and Rousseau’s sauvage. They are in the visibly failing power of the left to silence such dissent by shrieking “racist”, “Nazi”, fascist”.

They are in the common man’s quiet curse when some leftie holds forth that all cultures are equally valid … that the difference between a Guinean “asylum seeker” and one’s daughter is a social construct … that men and women are exactly the same and, indeed, that first and foremost women want fulfilling careers like men … that a felching session and a bit of buggery between two blokes is as “valid” as the sexual union of man and woman … that all that matters anyway is the feelings people have for one another. All bollocks, I’m afraid. The common man knows it and he won’t keep the lid on it forever.

Those blessed signs of decay are visible in many other areas. They are in the dishonest creations of a victim culture and a rights industry, both of which people despise. They are in the statistics for teenage motherhood and in the nightly binge-drinking that goes on in our city centres, both of which people deplore. They are in the divorce rate, in fathers kept from seeing their children and fathers who do not care to see their children. They are in the political decay. They are in the naked contempt with which government holds the system. They are in the engineered collapse of educational standards to accommodate client minorities. They are in the politicisation of the workplace to accomodate the same client minorities. They are in the stupendous excessiveness of anti-terrorist legislation. They are in the panopticon state. They are in the unbridled viciousness with which that state and the liberal media pursue the benighted British National Party …

If we were really strolling barefoot across the free, sunlit meadows of love and respect for shared humanity none of this would be happening. But, manifestly, we are not. Everywhere is illiberality and moral declension.

Over what vast distances has Locke’s vision of liberty travelled and through what unforeseen transformations has it passed to arrive with us today as this? I suppose that the pursuit of self-definition as freedom always had to lead one day to the collapse of our social organisation. Whether the development of an anti-moral, anti-white racist police state was equally inevitable is another matter. The origins of the race war on European man have been alluded to on the blog already. It is as it is. By whatever route we came to this extraordinary state of self-destruction, as I look about me I see the beast disintegrating in the task of making us free. Liberalism is not a sustainable ideology. It is not, after all, Conservative.

I give its current cultural marxist phase a maximum of two more decades. But that does not mean we are yet in the hour before dawn. The minority group interests which have been engendered by multiculturalism and the politics of identity will not simply go away. In a socio-cultural context, they will have become as powerful as any of the 1970’s trade unions were industrially. No, it is the authority of government as a moral force endowed with the Lockean consent of the governed which is placed at risk by the promotion of minority interests. Accordingly, it is the authority of government which will dissolve – along with its cultural Project.

Thereafter, I anticipate a slow and ineluctable slide into nihilism. Both supporters and opponents of the Project will arrive at this sad condition, the first through disillusionment, the second through simple sickness at heart for what has been done and both through contact with a toxic and anti-human system of values.

As for the chances of a government of the existing Conservative Party wresting the nation out of harm’s way first, you can thoroughly discount them. Yes, liberalism is impelled further and faster by a government of the left, not least because the modern “systems and networks” approach to policy-formation has been so substantially benefited by cultural politics. But there is no pre-requisite for such government. Conservatives were in power for the bulk of the post-war twentieth century, when the old ways of policy forming still applied. But liberalism never faltered, while Conservatism lost all sense of itself chasing a leftward-migrating political centre.

Sometime after the death of CM that migration will reverse rightward, since the decay I have outlined cannot be repaired by more liberalism or by its dark shadow of formal state repression. At present the meaning of “rightward” is not really understood because left-liberal politics is the whole of the politically admissible spectrum. In other words, a rightward migration will be defined by reclaiming formerly de-legitimised language, loyalties and attitudes.

Therefore, it is reasonable to presume two things:-

1) This will be a revolutionary moment in Western, not just English, history.
2) Conservatism will begin to search for its soul.

There is much necessity but also much danger in the second presumption. One can imagine a battle for the Party not dissimilar to that for the GOP in the 1990’s. Almost certainly, one of the contestants will be a powerfully-funded, corporatist and internationalist, socially-conservative faction that is both anti-repatriation and anti-Muslim, the latter serving to mask the former. If successful it would address liberal nihilism by attempting, at least, to filter out the socially harmful elements and to bring new immigration to a halt. The deracination and dispossession of the English would be slowed thereby but, crucially, not ended. This faction would have no fundamental interest in seeing it ended. It could, though, readily afford to practise patience and the politics of delay.

Its natural ally, those tethered spirits of the Howe and Heseltine type, would still be found in the Party. Then as now they will be hypnotized by geopolitics and the belief that economism is ALL. However decayed the international institutions may be, for these people they - and particularly Europe - will still represent the only viable focus in a world whose post-nationalism is somehow “the profoundly patriotic choice”.

But I would expect most English Conservatives to reject all this as defeatism, and to look further right and to the past. They will certainly need to look beyond the late John Attarian’s view that the Conservative purpose is to “seek to conserve”. Pure political constipation. Of course, we are a century and the career of Mr Disraeli past a Conservative with, erm, healthy bowels. So is it even remotely possible that relief is at hand? Or maybe not at hand, exactly – bad choice of words. Anyhow, I believe it is possible.

The left or, more accurately, the Blairite-Schroeder contingent, does not, of course. They have handled power in a completely new way and to their exclusive advantage. They have developed a process of progressive governance which, they believe, will confer upon them political mastery at the end of history. They have done it at national level and some of them are searching for ways to do the same internationally. They think we have not understood, do not understand, will never understand. They think we belong to the past with our petty loyalties of family, nation and race. Were it not for the too, too solid fact that they are against Nature I might have to agree with them. But they are and I don’t. Anyway, if they can see my fate I, in turn, can see theirs. And it’s entropic. The last nationalist will not turn his back to the sea to face the spears of his enemy, like the last political Neanderthal hunted to a wind-blown Iberian cliff top by his liberal successor, Homo Cosmopolitanus.

So what to say to them? And what to say to all the Attarians who suppose themselves to be Conservatives, yet who have never so much as asked themselves if it is even possible to profess such a dangerous faith in these times?

Perhaps faith is the wrong term. Conservatives do not make a religion of their heritage. They use it. Therefore, they are - or should be - forward-looking, their thinking characterised by pragmatism (that, taken too far in the last century, has actually occasioned them nothing but harm). For dictionary purposes, Conservatism should be the profession of the optimum conditions and means by which the people may be freed to increase their estates. Simple as that. But since Conservatism is holistic and not mere economism, those conditions are well-established and accord with our natural instincts and, too, our heritage. Out of a stable social order emerges a Conservative freedom which is not at odds with Nature as liberalism is, and which can fructify the lives of men. Freedom, therefore, is the means, not the end of Conservatism. The end of Conservatism is a stable state of increase.

When, in that future time, Conservatives look back past our age for the lessons they forgot they will not be surprised by what they find. The rule of law, a stable social order, a liberal political system, laissez-faire economics, respect for property rights, an emphasis on the free individual and not the group, meritocracy, a constitutional balance of interests, an enlightened self-interest abroad … these are not artefacts of ancient Greece. Politically, they are living concepts. It is only their wise and courageous application that is lacking. But one day necessity will take a hand in that.

And if it fails - or, more accurately, if the then revolutionary Conservatives fail it?

Well, in continental Europe, under the same demographic pressures as here, the parties of the New Right may well make a breakthrough. They, too, are informed by the successors of John Locke, not marxists of course but distinctive thinkers such as Ernst Juenger, Baron Julius Evola, Rene Guénon, Alain de Benoist and Robert Steuckers. Here in England, moves are already afoot to found this canon of thought in our political discourse. Through them the BNP, alarmed at the sudden lack of space on the right and at its loss of exclusivity on the race issue, will be able to maintain its own distinctiveness. The intellectuals in the BNP believe that politics is the war of ideas. They have already concluded that race and nation are not, in themselves, enough to sustain a movement long-term. A new intellectual radicalism- a Nieztschian appeal to glory – will increasingly colour their thinking and, who knows, may yet produce a new if metaphorical March on Rome.

That is the other road for the right in England. It is an interesting road but it does not lead to the land - that is, my free and sovereign people - I knew as a boy. It is not, at this juncture, my road. But then I am, and hope always to be, a Conservative.

Tags: Conservatism

Comments:

Posted by Mark Richardson on Sat, 22 Jan 2005 00:55 | #

Guessedworker, your first major point is an important one. The one thing that we can pin our hopes on is that liberalism, in this advanced stage of its development, does not have the same kind of moral authority it used to enjoy.

As you point out, liberalism now often provokes the common man’s quiet curse rather than his allegiance.

The pity is, though, that politics is shaped more by the “political class” than by the common man. I can’t help but think, therefore, that the real breakthrough will be when a section of the political class begins to shift away from liberalism.

(The “One Nation” phenomenon in Australia represented a kind of revolt by the common man, but it didn’t attract anyone from the political class, so there was no one to adequately guide it or sustain it.)

Posted by Guessedworker on Sat, 22 Jan 2005 07:57 | #

Mark,

Pauline Hanson was presenting herself, as I understand it, as a straightforward, forthright “Keep Oz White” candidate. In other words, the Attarian principle of conserving for its own sake. And she was doing this long before the naked collapse of liberalism which I foresee, in a country not much suffering from Third-Worlders and, anyway, where everyone is an immigrant. Chances of success not great, I would say. Anti-immigrant parties have only succeeded in Austria and, to a lesser extent so far, in one half of Belgium (and then for reasons not constrained purely to immigration).

No, in the scenario I am predicting there are many currents flowing to a single end, and doing it in England (not Britain - the Scots, Welsh and Irish are not suffering as we are) and at a time of absolute liberal collapse. Different situation. Different dynamics.

Actually, the fundamental claim in my piece - which needs to be debated - is not that these dynamics will develop, but that an English Conservatism freed from liberalism is no more compatible with multi-racialism than it is with any other liberal anomie. In other words, giving your homeland away is not Conservative.

Posted by John Ray on Sat, 22 Jan 2005 11:14 | #

David

Either your history or your definition of conservatism is very shaky. You seem to be saying that Salisbury (“100 years ago”) was the last conservative—but Salisbury was thoroughly libertarian (when he was not being nepotistic)!

The blue tablets mostly cut in around 50

” Freedom, therefore, is the means, not the end of Conservatism” —agree with that

“The rule of law, a stable social order, a liberal political system, laissez-faire economics, respect for property rights, an emphasis on the free individual and not the group, meritocracy, a constitutional balance of interests, an enlightened self-interest abroad” —We mostly have that now. It’s not perfect, of course but nothing ever is

“a Nieztschian appeal to glory” —Erk! We know who went down that road in the 20th century!

Posted by Guessedworker on Sat, 22 Jan 2005 12:11 | #

John,

First, I think Conservatism is a set of broadly related principles which are only judged as Conservative in their effects. Thus Conservatism can admit of both pragmatism and tradition. It is capacious. The one thing it is NOT is a theoretical ideology.

The belief that it should be an ideology is probably rather widespread, even on the right. We have grown accustomed to thinking that is what any politic must be. This slightly slippery status has contributed to much confusion and claims of Conservatism where none was present. Equally, Conservatism has often been present in the actions of those whom history terms non-Conservatives.

Walpole was nominally a Whig, but his politics were Conservative (at a time when Tories were out-Whigging the Whigs). Palmerston, obviously a Whig and the founder of the Liberal Party, was nonetheless very Conservative in his executive politics. Salisbury was the last politician of whom that can be said.

As regards the well-established principles of Conservatism I have set out, they are not at all present in any Conservative sense in 21st century politics. Thus ...

1. The rule of law has become deeply oppressive. Since the sixties vast swathes of law have served minority interests. Today, the law is regularly abused for political purposes, hate speech law being the most eggregious example.

2. The social order is utterly destabilised, has been so since Philip Larkin’s seminal 1963 and will devolve thenceforward into deeper anomie, racial conflict and civil violence.

3. Property rights are certainly NOT respected when the English in their millions have been driven from their home areas.

4. We have an aggressive emphasis on group politics and social engineering of the individual, which ain’t freedom by any yardstick.

5. Meritocracy is being replaced by racial preference. Even to keep their jobs, white public sector workers have to believe in liberalism or censor themselves.

6. Our constitution has been broken and, if he could, Blair would entirely scrap the British nation state tomorrow in favour of supra-national government with policy formation (or “governance”) the remit of NGO networks.

7. Iraq?

As regards the New Right, I think they could be the inheritors of the morrow if the situation gets bad enough and no Conservative self-rediscovery takes place. What else are the English to do? Give up and resign themselves to minority status as a herald of racial extinction? Why would they do that? What people has willingly done so in the past?

This is where liberalism is pushing the West, John. The dangers as it dessicates are greater than those it posed in rude health. It’s highly unlikely you and I will live to see how it is all resolved. But a happy populace of multi-coloured, self-defined individuals skipping off over the horizon holding hands is not one of the possible resolutions.

Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 23 Jan 2005 10:47 | #

Neither America nor Australia are the homelands of European man. The essential guilt of colonisation and, in the American case, genocide can only be assuaged after the event by exposing the successor white race and his culture to global colonisation and enculturation. I am sure this is weighty factor in liberal motivations, and complements the usual extroverted desires for autonomy, authenticity and individual freedom through equality.

This entire dynamic is non-economic. Prosperity in America and Australia only touches on the immigration issue in the IQ debate (about which you have made your position clear).

Incidentally, John, a couple of days ago I watched a late-night talking-heads programme that dealt with our binge-drinking culture. A Prof opined that the greatest binge in history occurred after Spanish colonisation of the New World. A population of 16 million, he said, was reduced to 1 million. Is the bottom of the gourd where the Mexican cognitive elite went?

Posted by Geoff Beck on Sun, 23 Jan 2005 17:37 | #

To the Whitehouse Spokesman:

America was uni-cultural, and of European stock, and it did prosper.
America was uni-cultural, and of European stock, and it did prosper.
America was uni-cultural, and of European stock, and it did prosper.
America was uni-cultural, and of European stock, and it did prosper.

Who Are We : The Challenges to America’s National Identity, by Samuel P. Huntington

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sun, 23 Jan 2005 18:23 | #

“America is hugely multi-cultural and multi-racial but still prospers. Australia is hugely multi-cultural and multi-racial but still prospers.” —John Ray

First of all, the matrix in both places, America and Australia, is solidly white-Euro (although in the U.S. the genocide-through-race-replacement crowd are working feverishly to change that and make whites the minority). (Incidentally, I often say “white-Euro” in these discussions instead of “white” because I’m talking about a subset of the white race. Iraqis are white too, for example, but aren’t white-Euros. They’re a different kind of white. And John please don’t lecture me about the fact that one third of Iraqis are Indo-European-speaking Kurds not Arabic-speaking Semites and among the Arabic-speaking Semites the peoples are not ethnically or racially homogeneous and a language isn’t a race and there’s no such thing as a homogeneous race and there are genetic affinities between Anatolians, Middle-Eastern Arabic-speaking Semites, Indo-European-speaking Kurds, Armenians, modern-day Turks, and ancient and modern Greeks, and the reason ancient Greece achieved greatness was NOT an infusion of Nordic peoples into their peninsula in pre-literate times as the Nordicists claim and among the indigenous peoples of the British Isles are peoples having more genetic affiinity with ancient Iberians and Mediterraneans, and so on and so forth—trust me, I know all that stuff and tons more like it, John. Now that that’s out of the way, I’ll repeat: Iraqis are white too, but a different kind of white from white-Euros.)

John, don’t base your impression of this country’s racial composition on Hollywood movies, U.S. TV shows, or magazine or television advertising publicity. Hollywood movies, for example, now represent Negroes as if they made up about 80% of the U.S. population and not only that, but the more intelligent, more law-abiding 80% (with whites in Hollywood movies coming in dead last in law-abidingness and intelligence behind Negroes, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Orientals). That, all of that, is one-hundred percent liberal fantasy, wishful thinking, and a left-wing Hollywood attempt at creating a self-fulfilling prophesy. In fact, partly because of unrestricted abortion Negroes make up still about the same 12% or 13% or so they made up throughout the 20th century (though the anti-white genociders are doing their best to increase the Negro proportion of the U.S. population by aggressively persuading huge quantities of completely-incompatible-from-every-point-of-view African Negroes to immigrate to the U.S. from Africa, and so may actually succeed in significantly driving up the Negro proportion), and tragically are still the less intelligent, less law-abiding segment.

The decline in the proportion of whites here has been due mainly to the success of Bill Clinton’s and George Bush’s project of transforming this into a majority Hispanic country (in the shortest possible time, so those opposed won’t have time to organize against it), a project which so far has been working exactly according to plan, and is right on schedule for completion by around the year 2030: so far no one’s been able to stop or slow it. But it’s not 2030 yet, John. The white proportion of the U.S. population is about 76% or 77%.

But all of that isn’t really the point. Let’s say the race of Australia were changed to Hong-Kong Chinese in such a way as you could say, “But Australia still prospers.” Let’s say the race of the Irish republic, or the race of Poland, or the race of Portugal, were changed to German Swiss in such a way as you could say, “But Ireland, or Poland, or Portugal still prospers.” Let’s say the race of Rhodesia were changed to Hindus in such a way as you could say, “But Rhodesia still prospers.” Let’s say the race of Israel were changed to high-caste Hindu, or to Parsi, or to Korean, in such a way as you could say, “But Israel still prospers.” Let’s say the race of Mexico were changed to some combination of Englishmen, Scotsmen, Welshmen, Ulstermen, and Irishmen in such as way as you could say, “But Mexico still prospers.” Let’s say the race of ... or have you no more need of hypothetical illustrative examples, John? Do you truly not “get it”? Or are you only making believe you don’t, perhaps because there persists just that little smidgen of political correctness within you, which won’t let you take the final step toward recognizing the legitimacy of the concerns of those who are against replacement of their nation’s race?

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sun, 23 Jan 2005 18:33 | #

Not to mention the fact that we’ll see how well America “still prospers” once its transformation into a Hispano-Afro-Oriental country is completed. The race that made the Union of South Africa prosper as a first world country was displaced and is in the process of leaving, and the Union of South Africa most definitely does NOT “still prosper.” But again, that’s beside the fundamental point (the point John seems not able to grasp).

Posted by Geoff Beck on Sun, 23 Jan 2005 18:59 | #

Ray also fails to confront many inconvenient facts about the current American economy.

The ‘Blevins’ fellow confronted Ray with many unhappy facts, but Ray just dismissed them - perhaps they stand in the way of economic rapture of his faith:

1) 500 Billion dollar merchandise trade deficit

2) The US currency is supported only by caprice of China and Japan. ( Those great free traders and lovers of liberty ).

3) 60% of American have $14,000 in unsecured consumer debt

4) Americans have re-financed their home with ARM mortages, if interests rise millions could be bankrupted

5) Evaporation of full time employment, and the substitution of part time employment, with loss of benefits and insurance

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sun, 23 Jan 2005 19:03 | #

All good points from the economic angle, Geoff.

On the racial/ethnocultural angle: after posting my comments above I happened across this new post at Vdare.com, by David Wilson. This excerpt gives an idea how it reads:

“Medici Florence, Mozart’s Vienna and the Ireland that bore Joyce, Shaw and Yeats were hardly the multiracial war zones of the Western world today. By today’s standards, I suppose they would count as hotbeds of xenophobia in desperate need of de-homogenizing.”

Glance through it, John.

Posted by ben tillman on Tue, 25 Jan 2005 05:01 | #

...an emphasis on the free individual and not the group…

You’re positing a conflict where none exists. It is true that—until a society of clones is created (like our own bodies)—there will always be conflicts of interest between the individual human and the social group. (And even in a society of human clones, mutation would continually re-introduce such conflict.) This is not to say, however, that there is a conflict between indivdual *rights* and the welfare of the group. The health of the group, in fact, *depends* on the operation of a moral system that respects individual rights.

Posted by ben tillman on Tue, 25 Jan 2005 05:12 | #

The rule of law has become deeply oppressive. Since the sixties vast swathes of law have served minority interests. Today, the law is regularly abused for political purposes, hate speech law being the most eggregious example.

The development of the English Common Law is one of the most marvelous achievements of Western man. Should we really abandon the notion that law exists a priori and can be discovered through the use of reason? Should the legislation of which you speak really be dignified by characterization as “law”?

Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 25 Jan 2005 08:42 | #

ben,

I won’t dredge up all the history of England from the 14th to 18th centuries, but “emphasis on the individual” has to be understood as a development from a competitive polity of power elites, each with suzereignty over the life of a segment of the populace, to one in which the common man was gradually loosed into his own hands, so to speak. This is realy nothing to do with “groups” as they are variously understood in Marx, Gramsci etc.

I like your differentiation twixt legislation and law. This seems to me to be a very Conservative thought.

Posted by ben tillman on Tue, 25 Jan 2005 19:35 | #

This is realy nothing to do with “groups” as they are variously understood in Marx, Gramsci etc.

I am speaking of “groups” as that term is used in evolutionary biology. It translates closely enough to “society” or “community” or “populace” for political purposes. And my point is that, from a biological standpoint, individual rights are a necessary predicate for a healthy, stable community.

I have not read Marx since my college years—what exactly did he have to say about groups? The mechanisms of Marxist ascendancy seem to rely on radical individualism—the assessment by each individual (in the proletariat) that he (*not* the community) would be better off economically if he formed a political coalition with similarly situated selfish individuals. Similarly, my (more recent) readings of Gramsci do not reflect much interest in the “group”, unless the “group” is understood to be the ruling elite. Gramsi seems to posit a coercive (non-organic) State, which by definition works to benefit portions of the polity at the expense of others. Where in their works do Marx and Gramsci discuss the “group”?

Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 25 Jan 2005 20:37 | #

I won’t bother with Marx because it would take up too much time and isn’t very interesting. In any case, I think it is with Gramsci that the greater difficulty lies.

That is so because unless one speaks Italian one is restricted by the paucity of English translations. He is tragic and mysterious and the subject of much scholarly fascination. From the standpoint of practical leftist politics his method has, through its dominance of Culture Studies over the last decade, become more important than what he actually said. And it is in relation to his method that I wrote of groups. I am sure that actually you understand this, though you do not appear to have the charity to extend such understanding. However, to take the bull by the horns ...

Of couse he used the word “group”, as he did hegemon - and generally in the same social context. But he also spoke of “categories” of intellectuals, one of which was embedded in the revolutionary “forces”. Of the latter, he seems generally to have found it more revealing to analyse on the basis of “forces” - that is, to imbue a static grouping with a dynamic. A mark of the man’s intellectual subtlety.

Of the rest - the working man - he spoke of “the apolitical” and of its revolutionary disvalue. As with all leftist revolutionaries his connection to the people was less than his desire to level the hegemonic social group.

With the best will in the world - and as the owner of this blog I have, believe me, to have good will towards all types - I don’t find here any disqualification of the point I made originally and with which you are, apparently, intent upon disagreeing.

Furthermore, I cannot see why you need to disagree on what is, after all, a fundamental truth, which is that the interests of individual Englishmen were properly advanced for the first time in 1485 through the kingly and perspicacious imposition of law and order upon a scheming and dangerous barony.

Do you disagree in principle that freedom is fundamentally dependent upon stability? Do you perhaps believe that freedom supercedes all political and spiritual goals?

Posted by ben tillman on Tue, 25 Jan 2005 22:41 | #

I do not disagree on this point. You are far more qualified than I to interpret this period (and, presumably, all other periods) of English history. My comment was not directed at a particular historical event or period. It was more general or theoretical and offered in furtherance of your stated goals in contemplation of the following:

If [the Conservative] is even to begin to understand the grave responsibility to the future that inhabits the mantle of Conservatism he must first resile from all the anti-Conservative beliefs and values he has imbibed.

and

...an emphasis on the free individual and not the group….

My contention is that the belief that one should generally emphasise the “free individual and not the group”—rather than emphasising both or the interdependence of the free individual and the healthy community—is one such anti-Conservative belief. Your clarification, along with this question:

Do you disagree in principle that freedom is fundamentally dependent upon stability?

suggests that you do not hold this belief. It is prevalent, however, and is reflected in the equation of concern for the community with Marxism & Hitlerism. The tension between individual rights and community cohesion and stability is illusory. In response to your question, I say that I do believe that freedom is fundamentally dependent upon stability—and vice versa.

Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 25 Jan 2005 23:50 | #

Ah well, now I see that we have been talking past one another, the result of a small difference in value which we independently attach to a very few words. Language is a slippery servant.

Of course, in a healthy society politics will accomodate both stability and freedom. Conservatism does this quite naturally, since it relies upon historical development, not airy idealism.

In contrast, the freedom junkies of liberalism right and left are quite incapable of incorporating stability into their thinking. They find its self-limiting character authoritarian. In my view what’s going on here is a kind of intellectual prolapse. The freedom lobby falls back upon a negative determination before they can follow the idea through to its beautiful, even eternal truth: permanence begets independence. Freedom is a characteristic of independence, as taste is of food. We eat in the enjoyment of the taste of our food. But it is the food we need to live, not its taste. Thus, independence is the proper estate of man. Freedom is just the exhileration that accompanies it. All our philosophers of freedom, men of genius, are fundamentally gourmands, not chefs. Should one meet a chef one day I think you’ll find he is a Conservative.

You also raise the question of the relationship between the individual and, let’s say, his extended or, indeed, extremely extended family. But I see nothing here but the connectivities of a stable life - our roots. This is not the group I was referring to before, which we have dealt with previously.

We are, I think, fairly substantially in agreement on all this, save that I keep prattling on about Conservatism and you may look to some other political entity. If so, it would be interesting to know what.

Posted by ben tillman on Wed, 26 Jan 2005 19:02 | #

Ah well, now I see that we have been talking past one another, the result of a small difference in value which we independently attach to a very few words. Language is a slippery servant.

Yes, I think that was it.

Posted by ben tillman on Wed, 26 Jan 2005 20:37 | #

Yes, we seem to be substantially in agreement. If by “political entity” you mean political party or movement, then I am not looking to any other.

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