This Conservative debate

Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 19 May 2005 00:40.

This is an apposite moment, following John Ray’s “Oakeshott” post, to set down some fundamentals of my view of Conservatism – and invite considered criticisms accordingly.

The great and recurring difficulty in debating Conservatism is that there is much discussion of the phenomenon but no agreed definition of it. As a basic direction in modern political life it is often thought to have dated from the accession to the English throne of Henry Tudor on 30th October, 1485. Henry VII was a great and wise monarch who sought to entrench stability in his realm, to avoid expensive entanglements abroad and to place his exchequer on the sound foundation of equable taxation. As a result he was able to bestow upon his subjects a rare and priceless period of peace and quiet, and to bequeath his son a settled and prosperous kingdom (which inheritance the turbulent fellow duly ruined).

Over the next three centuries or so this beneficent confection periodically appeared and disappeared, until it finally matured with the Ministry of William Pitt the Younger. Pitt was a political genius and the acknowledged “inventor” of Conservatism proper. Perhaps inventor is the wrong word. But he formalised it into a complex and sophisticated political philosophy and a prescription for good government.

For that is all it is … not a clarion call to freedom or responsibility or nationalist sentiment … not the stolid love of the status quo, indeed any old status quo … not the avowed enemy of some mad, collectivist tyranny. Conservatism is a rather unexciting political lodestar, as political lodestars go. It just happens to be the one that works for men of all stations, sandwiched between two others – feudalism and liberalism – that plainly don’t.

There was nothing in Pitt’s Conservatism that does not still make wise Conservative heads nod in agreement. A check-list of its defining features would certainly include such liberal notions as religious tolerance, laissez-faire economics, property rights, meritocracy, an emphasis upon the individual – and the free individual, to boot.

But a Conservative freedom is not an overblown thing filled with hopeless dreams and demands. It flows from the humble realisation that social stability is the greatest good. This is something Conservatives must revere or they cannot call themselves such. The rule of law, a constitutional balance of interests, a strong political system productive of a strong executive, enlightened self-interest abroad … these are the firm foundations upon which the people can be freed to increase their estates, for Conservatism has few wants and desires above that.

In terms of increase, incidentally, its extraordinarily brief, fifty-year ascendency was fabulously successful. It gifted the country the Industrial Revolution and Empire – the pair of which, in different ways, later brought about its demise. But it is revealing to note that during its ascendancy both Whig and Tory Ministries practised Conservative politics. Indeed, had the Tories found a way by 1832 to enfranchise the working class and yet maintain a functioning balance of interests there is no reason to suppose that liberalism would have grown so horribly strong, and come to possess the entire political theatre as it does today.

The weak point in Conservatism, then - the point of no reply - was this problem of an advancing working class which quite properly insisted upon suffrage. The result - equality in democracy - turned out to be a guarantor that politics would become a sinking game. High-minded talk of freedom, justice, fairness and what-have-you may still inspire the dreamer and the “poor”, such as they are. But the political reality is one of growing tyranny, destruction of nation, tradition and family, personal anomie and the pursuit of new and ever more exotic equalities. This is the liberal zeitgeist. This is the environment in which some of us, confusing right liberalism with Conservatism, prate about our convictions yet never quite see that the world prohibits such things. Conservatism is prohibited precisely because it cannot exist alongside liberalism. The two are mutually exclusive and today, therefore, we are no better than would-be Conservatives. We are perfectly insulated from any similitude to practical Conservatism. To all effects we are liberals.

Can anything be done about it? Well, there is a dire need to try. Liberalism is a dynamic. It pursues a vision of freedom which is psychologically flawed and cannot possibly be realised. And that, Jewish particularism aside, is the reason liberal philosophy never stands still but regularly moves on to address hitherto undreamt of forms of social, cultural or economic oppression. There is no end to the inventiveness of liberal philosophers it seems, nor to oppression.

The great drift towards the destruction of race and nation in the West is liberalism’s current trajectory. Said destruction is the method by which liberals mean to set you and I personally free as self-selected identities. It is a pathological process for which the only long-term cure is stability … a return, in other words, to genuine Conservative principles and politics (and not, for example, the economically and socially liberal Conservatism of Thatcher and Reagan). Perhaps it isn’t unachievable. Perhaps it is unlikely. But if you want to talk really seriously about Conservatism this is the point to which you should be brought. Otherwise you are not taking liberalism sufficiently seriously, are you?

Tags: Conservatism

Comments:

Posted by Martin Hutchinson on Thu, 19 May 2005 01:51 | #

Spot on, and most eloquently put. Are you one of the tiny band of my readers? (not that you have to be for me to agree with you, of course!) I would give equal credit to Lord Liverpool too, though, who guided Britain through some very nasty years indeed after 1815 and coped with a number of problems and conditions that the world had never seen before.

For any MR readers who come across this, and don’t already know, I’m author of “Great Conservatives” which you can find out about on http://www.greatconservatives.com

Posted by Geoff Beck on Thu, 19 May 2005 02:18 | #

Martin:

On some previous thread you posted a very concise definition of conservatism, something like:

“...the social and economic circumstances of late 18th century Britain. A conservative being a person that wishes imitate and recreate those circumstance, or holds them as the exemplar moment”.

Do you recall your definition? I happen to agree with it. Can you restate it for us?

BTW, in that respect I suppose I am a conservative. But generally I’m dropping the label ‘conservative’ since there is nothing I wish to save in life today (perhaps other than life itself).

To be a conservative today is a very radical thing.

Posted by Martin Hutchinson on Thu, 19 May 2005 02:37 | #

This article set out my thoughts on the subject:

http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/563/

This was the definition you’re looking for, I think:

“It (Conservatism) means the preservation and where necessary restitution of the constitutional, economic and social policies of the Tory governments of 1783-1830, and in particular of the two great Tory prime ministers William Pitt and Robert, Lord Liverpool.”

This definition only works if you take the word “Conservatism” as a term of art, effectively copyrighted in the January 1830 Quarterly Review, where it was first used. If you do this, then problems about not wanting to conserve the arrangements we have at any given time fall away.

Posted by Geoff Beck on Thu, 19 May 2005 03:43 | #

Yes. I think that is a excellent definition. Such a definition forces the thinker to consider a real time, place, and events.

And without some definition a person that has a Trotskyist foriegn policy and a Leninist domestic policy can call himself a conservative. (I’m sure many of us can name such people.)

Posted by Mark Richardson on Thu, 19 May 2005 08:13 | #

There’s much I agree with in Guessedworker’s account of conservatism.

However, I don’t agree with his description of the historical trajectory of conservatism.

To put things very roughly, I think liberalism emerged in recognisable form during the Renaissance and began to challenge the traditional forms of culture and human “connectedness”.

Conservatism arose as an attempt to “conserve” such forms of human connectedness, although unfortunately it never distilled itself into as coherent a philosophy or movement as was needed.

Nonetheless, there was a critical period of contest in the seventeenth century which finally ended with a victory to liberals with the accession of George I.

Since then I think that conservatives have, at best, managed to stall things rather than to set the political agenda.

Posted by Phil Peterson on Thu, 19 May 2005 09:27 | #

Guessedworker,

Eloquent post. This should be our touchstone.

There is no end to the inventiveness of liberal philosophers it seems, nor to oppression.

Indeed. It started with voicing the legitimate interests of the working class, then moved to female suffrage, then to “feminism”, then to eradicating “racism and “homophobia”, then to promoting libertinism and the destruction of family, then to race replacement, then to arguing in favour of “gay marriage” and the list goes on.

The Liberal army marches on, destroying everything in its path and utterly remaking us against our collective wills.

Posted by Guessedworker on Thu, 19 May 2005 11:03 | #

Martin,

Your book is an inspiration. I would like to see you write one on the history of English liberalism.

Mark,

The Conservatism I perceive was progenerative of liberalism - albeit it unintentionally and, obviously, in a less significant way than the early Renaissance.

In England, and for want of knowledge I must restrict myself to there, Henry’s settlement between the Houses of York and Lancaster and his reigning in of the barony had a wonderfully vivifying and far-reaching consequence. Men of ability were released to become men of substance. This was the foundation on which all later dreams of freedom reside. But it was an essentially Conservative foundation, for its purpose was not to send men chasing after ever more suspect notions of liberty but to stabilise the kingdom and the Crown.

So I do not see Conservatism in its roots as being reactionary in any form. It was highly creative. The reactionary and suppressive nature of later Conservatism flowed from the inability of its advocates to deal with the conflict between vested political interest and a rising working class.

Today we could perhaps square the circle by arguing successfully that:-

1) Giving the vote equally to everyone gives power to no one, but merely concentrates it in a permanent and anti-nation, anti-racist political class. To stabilise our future we must boost the political expression of those in whose interest stability lies.

2) There are other moral bases for a secondary and even tertiary franchise - taxation, property ownership, business directorship, share ownership etc. OMOV is not the only moral basis on which to distribute the franchise.

But that’s only my view and I am no one. It is the Conservative Party which must be convinced to embark upon such adumbrations, since only the Conservative Party has the national reach to argue a solution to advanced liberalism.

Mark, I would be very pleased to see you contribute your own view of Conservatism to this discussion, should the whim take you.

Posted by Guessedworker on Thu, 19 May 2005 11:15 | #

John,

I didn’t say Pitt was the last. I said that Conservatism had an ascendency of fifty odd years, ending with the Reform Act.

The private language of which you speak did exist - and was invented by Dizzy (whom I understand you admire). In his time he may have had few viable options. But nonetheless Dizzy made himself the model for all the future political relativists of the right. These people are still trying to treat the symptoms of their electoral disease, not understanding that the disease is of the electorate.

Change the electoral basis from OMOV, change the political future from one of advanced liberalism.

Posted by Effra on Thu, 19 May 2005 13:13 | #

The essence of my conservatism is Christian pessimism: a low opinion of human abilities and intelligence, and a complete lack of faith in the power of anyone to improve his situation down below (let alone mend ‘society’) in any important respect. In short, flat rejection of the ludicrous idea of progress. Things can only *not* get better.

Any supposedly conservative doctrine or programme that promises the same results as other political ideologies but by kinder, gentler means—more GDP, more pleasure, more ‘freedom’, more fooling around with the trivia of material existence—is liberal crap, thinly disguised.

The beginning of wisdom is to agree with the Red Queen that ‘it takes all the running *you* can do to stay in the same place.’

One epoch is no better or worse than another. One place is no better or worse than another. We are no wiser, happier, more pious, more artistic or more sexually attractive than our remote ancestors—only different. And since such differences are imposed on us by circumstances internal and external—mutating genes and environments—we have nothing to congratulate ourselves for in changing. Nothing improves in the process, net; and since change is generally uncomfortable, we should refuse it and try as hard as possible to stay in the same place as long as possible.

‘The pursuit of happiness’ is the most moronic idol ever erected. The object of life on earth is to fit oneself for Heaven—nothing else. Any soi-disant conservative who urges or promises the amelioration of life on Earth is a godless ignoramus or consciously blasphemous charlatan. And the reactionary, who invents some Golden Age in the past and pretends to revert to it, is as big a fool or hypocrite as the pedlar of progress.

That said, I heartily concur with Guessedworker’s encomium of Henry Tudor, the most underrated sovereign in England’s history. He belongs in my pantheon with Franco, Lord Salisbury, Bernadotte, W.T. Cosgrave, Coolidge: the Fortinbrases of politics, hard-headed men who clear up the mess and calm things down so that the wretched victims of other, more ‘charismatic’ leaders’ wars and follies can get back to normal. A pox on heroes, give me fixers.

The greatest of all statesmen was in this mould, and the exemplar of conservative common sense—Octavian.

Posted by ben tillman on Thu, 19 May 2005 16:07 | #

It flows from the humble realisation that social stability is the greatest good….

And it is a testament to how thoroughly corroded our humanities have become that, aside from political philosopher & economist Hoppe, the only reflection of this realization in the academy is among evolutionary biologists: David Sloan Wilson’s “bidirectional control”; Kevin MacDonald’s “hierarchic harmony” and “muted individualism”; T.D. Seeley’s “stratified stability”; Christopher Boehm’s “muted egalitarianism”.

Posted by ben tillman on Thu, 19 May 2005 16:21 | #

It is a pathological process for which the only long-term cure is stability …

In contemplating how to attain and preserve such stability or “natural order”, we will benefit from reference to the works of evolutionary biologists—particularly David Sloan Wilson—who examine the requisites for the transformation of lower-level biological units (groups of individuals) into a stable unit at a higher level of complexity (groups as individuals).

Posted by DissidentMan on Thu, 19 May 2005 18:08 | #

Any soi-disant conservative who urges or promises the amelioration of life on Earth is a godless ignoramus or consciously blasphemous charlatan.

Hmm, I plead guilty to being agnostic and occasionally I enjoy a bit of concious blasphemy. As for what can be done with life on earth, I reckon it can be improved a bit, oto no one listens to the likes of me any way so no one will be able to prove that my suggestions for improving life on earth are wrong.

Posted by dissidentman on Thu, 19 May 2005 18:20 | #

As a postscript to what I just wrote a few minutes ago, let me point out that I think that people claiming that their desires are not selfish (when they really are) is an oft repeated error which may result in a lot of suffering.

Posted by Effra on Fri, 20 May 2005 12:25 | #

dissidentman: “the pursuit of one’s own happiness (no matter what form it should take) is a thoroughly worthy end.”

It is a vain pursuit, not an end at all. Happiness is a byproduct of doing and being good, not something you should or can achieve as a conscious goal. I have been around rich, so-called successful people enough to see that for myself.

Not that happiness is guaranteed us even as a byproduct. A Christian may spend his entire life being ‘unhappy’ according to the world’s (i.e. the Devil’s) slobbish standards, but be redeemed because he was in quest of something better.

That is why most modern religion, esp. the Moronican GOP variety, is empty. It is a device for making people feel better about themselves. Why should they? We have no right whatever to feel good about ourselves. We are fallen, sinful, guilty worms in God’s sight. Nothing we do can please him—as Isaiah puts it, our best endeavours are ‘filthy rags’.

A real conservative knows all that in his bones, and makes his political dispositions accordingly. A US Republican who claps and yells at a drive-in cathedral once a week worships the State and War—those old idols—in mistake for God.

Posted by dissidentman on Fri, 20 May 2005 19:43 | #

It [happiness] is a vain pursuit, not an end at all. Happiness is a byproduct of doing and being good, not something you should or can achieve as a conscious goal. I have been around rich, so-called successful people enough to see that for myself.

I understand that I may be throwing words around and my own ideas concerning how things are may not be terrifically clear. Let me reiterate, the pursuit for heaven (whether heaven is indeed a real possibility or not) is one form of the pursuit of happiness, and it is true that its pursuers are happy to pursue it in the present moment because the thought of pain-free heaven occuring in the future may give someone some degree of happiness in the pain-filled present, in the same way someone digging with the expectation of finding future treasure, would be happy to do so even if the work were extremely laborious.

Furthermore I did not intend to imply that material wealth would bring about lasting happiness, though it certainly can bring about temporary hapiness. (Witness the jubilation of lottery ticket winners.) As a Buddhist I tentatively believe that material wealth is transitory and although it will certainly be pleasant while it lasts it will buy one at most a short reprieve from inevitable sickness and death. If indeed death is the end of the individual then of course hedonism followed by suicide (upon the imminence of sickness) would make perfect sense (from a happiness-maximisation standpoint), and while I cannot prove and do not know for a fact that rebirth and the law of karma are real,—as with Pascal’s wager—if they are real, then the rewards of belief in them could be great. Likewise, if they are not real then the cost of belief is not significant.

Furthermore its simply a tautology that our actions are directed by whatever it is we happen to want. Only if we can experience the wants of others as our own can we make a claim upon selflessness. (Clinton once claimed to “feel the pain” of others but I did not believe him.)

Posted by dissidentman on Fri, 20 May 2005 19:54 | #

We are fallen, sinful, guilty worms in God’s sight. Nothing we do can please him—as Isaiah puts it, our best endeavours are ‘filthy rags’.
As with the subject God and so on I have to remain agnostic about any possible purpose of life or the ultimate worthiness of any endeavour, but I hope you realise that by declaring everything to be worthless you are practicing value-relativism. Was Jesus a fallen, sinful, guilty worm? What about his disciples? I certainly hope not that the answer is no. The sort of thinking you are engaging in may result in protestant guilt-tripping too, which has contributed to western decadence in no small way. Do we have to repent for being born? for seeing? hearing? breathing? Let us instead repent for those evils we have done and not repent for those evils we haven’t done.

Posted by Effra on Wed, 25 May 2005 22:12 | #

“Was Jesus a fallen, sinful, guilty worm?”

No, he was the Son of God and perfect Man.

“What about his disciples?”

They were imperfect men.

“I certainly hope not [sic] that the answer is no.”

Your hopes are irrelevant. These are facts.

“The sort of thinking you are engaging in may result in protestant guilt-tripping too”

Too bad. Let’s stop eating in case we overeat!

Posted by Sally on Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:39 | #

“There was nothing in Pitt’s Conservatism that does not still make wise Conservative heads nod in agreement. A check-list of its defining features would certainly include such liberal notions as religious tolerance, laissez-faire economics, property rights, meritocracy, an emphasis upon the individual – and the free individual, to boot.”

Leaving aside the question as to whether the term “conservative” is a useful or harmful category of discourse in the present time, I want to pick out the term “meritocracy” for special criticism. Meritocracy, as a category of discourse, is an open door to the wonderland of faux-enlightenment projects. As a term, it does not belong in the checklist above.

Meritocracy, like glorified debates and terms about IQ, depends entirely on what the Queen of Hearts says it is to be measured by. It was the claim (or meme) on which ambitious Jews breached most of the walls that guarded the institutions developed entirely by the white American peoples. It has come to mean advancement of highly unstable thinkers, emotionally damaged folks, and haters of the institutions and values in place.

Meritocracy is a Jewish doctrine to promote tikkun olam in its host societies, and rewards Wall Street traders, subprime mortgage manipulators, and high level financial thieves. How so? Because these people have been “successful,” and thus obviously the ones with the merit to dominate college admissions and financial institutions.

No, meritocracy is not a conservative meme by any stretch of the imagination.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:49 | #

Excellent points by Sally which I for one had never thought of in that way before. Thanks to Sally for that important comment.

Posted by Guessedworker on Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:43 | #

Conservative discourse has been corrupted by new-wave libertarianism. Return to the political roots, however, and it is apparent where meritocracy springs from: namely the restraint placed upon the barony by Edward VII after his ascession in 1485, and the release of the merchant class to increase its estate according to its own capacities.

I do not disagree that Jewish-authored forms have entered the debate, but let us not allow its lineaments to be altered just because of that.

Posted by Prozium on Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:42 | #

Christopher Lasch wrote a scathing critique of meritocracy that hits upon many of the same points. I have no objection to bounded meritocracy, but the adoption of meritocracy as it exists today by American universities has produced a catastrophe for American natives.

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