Category: Conservatism

Follow-up to Far Rightists as Far-Leftists

My post on this subject has been linked to on Conservative Philosopher so I thought it might be useful to reproduce here what has transpired in the comment boxes there so far:-

Nice post by John. An arcane quibble about:

“conservatives’ modus operandi is to go by what can be shown to work for the good of people over the long haul, rather than going by any theories”:

that commits conservatism to constrained consequentialism. But conservatives can uphold rights people have not to be treated as a mere means to maximize the happiness of the greatest number, as well. It’s not just that communism just happens to fail to work for the good. Even if it did work, it would be unjust to many people used as mere means to the good.

Posted by Jim Ryan  

Continued...

Posted by jonjayray on Friday, February 4, 2005 at 08:58 AM in Conservatism
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Another new conservatism

It’s not uncommon to find thinkers within the Australian Liberal Party who want to create a fusion between liberalism and conservatism.

The former Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, is one such figure within the Liberal Party who has argued for such a fusion. In his book Common Ground he claims first that,

“As its name implies, ours is a liberal government holding liberal principles.”

He then sets out a typically right-liberal view of liberal principles, in which the market is held to be a better regulator of society than the state. He rejects the idea that “because something is considered desirable it should be provided by the state”, preferring that it be provided “by voluntary action on the part of individuals joining freely together, and by the mechanism of the market”.

So, if Mr Fraser believes in right-liberal “principles and values”, what role is left for conservatism? His answer is significant. He explains that,

Continued...

Posted by Guest Blogger on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 at 07:21 AM in Conservatism
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Good fun!

A University of Central Oklahoma student group is planning what it calls “Straight Pride Week” on campus. Members of the College Republicans said despite objections from some, they have every right to celebrate. “The general gist is that if you are a straight student on campus be proud, be loud, this is your time to shine,” said college Republican Kyle Houts. The group has posted fliers on campus that read, “we’re here, we’re conservative, we’re out.” Members of the Gay Alliance for Tolerance and Equality say they consider the College Republican’s celebration an attack on gay and lesbian students. “What is there to say about it, ‘I’m proud, and I’m straight and I guess white,’ I don’t know?” said GATE member Jennifer Rodriguez. “I think they definitely are being discriminatory because there’s probably a lot of gay Republicans out there.”  University officials have given the College Republicans permission to put up their fliers, but say their approval does not constitute an endorsement.

Source

Posted by jonjayray on Monday, January 31, 2005 at 05:50 PM in Conservatism
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Revolutionary Conservatism – Part 2

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).

Continued...

Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, January 21, 2005 at 11:33 AM in Conservatism
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Is conservatism no more than belief in a fixed human nature?

This post has been cross-posted from “Dissecting Leftism”

Mark Richardson is an Australian conservative who has a definition of conservatism that excludes most people who would normally be called conservatives.  He has a blog here and one of his recent articles is here.  There has always been a tendency on the extreme Right to see almost the whole world as against them and even I seem to be an extreme Leftist to such people!  Mark is however not part of the fruitcake brigade.  He has a well-articulated position which amounts to saying that all advocacy of freedom is Leftist (or “liberal” as he calls it)  and what makes a conservative is belief in certain hereditary givens—such as belief in the selfishness of human nature, the tribalism of man and the instinctive and ineluctible rightness of the traditional family.  As a rough summary, we might say that Mark believes conservatism to consist of a belief in strong genetic limits on what we can do and become.

Continued...

Posted by jonjayray on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 at 05:53 PM in Conservatism
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Revolutionary Conservatism – Part 1

Yesterday morning, when I started up my PC and opened OE, I found there a veritable barrage of mail from just one correspondent.  Let me say at once that he is no low-life spammer.  He is a currently self-absented reader and commenter and, to be sure, an interesting and determined fellow.  Although the subject matter of his e-mails was diverse there was, it must be said, a common thread running through them.  As threads go, some might consider it, on occasion, overly common.  No doubt, it will re-appear eventually on this page.  But I am not going to short-circuit that process now.  Anyway, one of the orphaned communications spoke of something more interesting to me - not Jewry but Conservatism, and dead Conservatism at that.

So, with thanks to Wintermute for this link to a seemingly funereal but, in the end, uplifting OQ article by the late John Attarian I am going to kick around a few Conservative notions and notions of Conservatism – not at all the same thing -  and, hopefully, spark off some interesting comment.  I shall do so in two parts.  This first one will commend realism and try to sketch out what that might amount to.

Continued...

Posted by Guessedworker on Saturday, January 15, 2005 at 08:02 PM in Conservatism
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The Surprising Irving Kristol - A Righteous…

Irving Kristol is trenchant thinker who deserves consideration,

“Perhaps one can say that the secular, “libertarian” tradition of capitalism - as distinct from the Protestant-bourgeois tradition - simply had a too limited imagination when it came to vice. It never really could believe that vice, when unconstrained by religion, morality and law might lead to viciousness. It never could believe that self-destructive nihilism was an authentic and permanent possibility…”

and also,

“In the end, you can maintain the belief that private vices, freely exercised, will lead to public benefits only if you are further persuaded that human nature can never be corrupted by these vices, but rather will always transcend them. The idea of bourgeois virtue has been eliminated from Friedman’s conception of bourgeois society, and has been replaced by the idea of individual liberty. The assumption is that ‘in the nature of things’ the latter will certainly lead to the former. There is much hidden metaphysics here, and of a dubious kind”.

Interestingly, Mr. Kristol is the only Neo-Conservative that accepts that appellation….

Continued...

Posted by leslie on Monday, January 10, 2005 at 07:31 PM in Conservatism
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Jay’s conservative nationalism

I always like finding examples of genuinely conservative thought in history. It makes a nice change to be able to present these gems, rather than to be always a critic of liberalism.

So I was pleased to find the following piece of writing by John Jay, who was a Founding Father of America and the first Chief Justice of the United States. Jay wrote that,

Continued...

Posted by Guest Blogger on Monday, December 27, 2004 at 10:42 PM in Conservatism
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What’s wrong with right-wing hand-wringing?

OK, let’s get it over with.  It can’t be a surprise anyway.  So, here goes.  I am that perennially dissatisfied, lip-pursing, inflexible animal, that teeth-grinding, curtain-twitching, unwilling observer of the willingly self-destructive, that moral fish out of water, that antique … a social conservative.  Variously known as a behaviour fascist, authority freak, anal retention expert, fun Hun and all-round intolerant bastard.

There.  Now I’ve said it.  Doesn’t feel any better though.  Whoever said confession is good for the soul, or whichever Viennese doktor said whatever Viennese doktors used to say on such horizontally confidential matters, was l-y-i-n-g.

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Posted by Guessedworker on Monday, December 20, 2004 at 08:03 PM in Conservatism
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Auster and Richardson

Lawrence Auster made the following brief comment on my recent post about his writings: “I thank Mr. Ray for his sympathetic and thoughtful overview of my writings. However, regarding his main criticism of me, I don’t think I ever said that the belief in individual liberty was not part of the American conservative tradition. The difference is between those who understand liberty as being within a moral and constitutional order, and those who see liberty, or rather freedom, as essentially free of any constraints”.  Mark Richardson is another writer who often makes that sort of point. 

I find such a view incomprehensible.  I know of NO conservative who denies that “rights connote duties” and I know of NO conservative who denies that we are in at least some ways constrained in what we do by “human nature”.  So the claim that there are conservatives who believe in some sort of absolute liberty is a total straw man.

Posted by jonjayray on Sunday, December 19, 2004 at 07:12 AM in Conservatism
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