The “conservatism is dead” claim

The view that seems to be most passionately held among those that frequent this blog is that attachment to one’s Volk (or “ethny” in Salter’s terms) and its traditions is the essence of conservatism and that therefore conservatism in the Anglosphere died out sometime in the 19th century. So what is called conservatism today is really just a variant of liberalism or individualism. Mark Richardson is a particularly insistent advocate of that view.

I think most readers of this blog know that I see such a view as so unutterably wrongheaded that I tend to ridicule it rather than answer it. That is obviously unfair of me however so I want to say a few words here about why I think it is wrongheaded. For a start, the most notable advocate of such views in the last 100 year was a socialist—Herr Hitler. That does not mean that such views are necessarily wrong, any more than Hitler’s vegetarianism means that vegetarianism is wrong, but it surely undermines the claim that such views are peculiarly conservative.

And probably the most notable champion of such views in the 19th century was Disraeli. No-one claimed to love English traditions more than Dizzy and Dizzy was not exactly a nobody. He was undoubtedly the most prominent, influential and successful conservative of his time. He was long the chosen leader of the Conservative party and served for years as a Conservative Prime Minister. He was arguably as influential in the 19th century as Reagan was in the 20th. And his emphasis on conservatism as standing for the nation as a whole is still constantly trotted out at election time to this day. But Dizzy was a flamboyant and proud Jew who was in many ways a vigorous liberal reformer. So where was the loyalty to their Volk when the Conservatives chose and continued to support a Jew as their Prime Minister? Where was their loyalty to tradition in supporting his great and almost unprecedented reforms—reforms that did more to upset the traditional order in England that perhaps anybody before?

So conservatives do indeed respect tradition and what has gone before but that is obviously far from basic to conservatism. It is a starting point, nothing more. What IS basic is what I have set out in my 1500 year tour of English history here—a respect for the individual and a presumption in favour of individual liberty. And I have often given the quotes that show Ronald Reagan as seeing that as basic to conservatism too. And if the most popular and influential conservative of the 20th century was not a conservative then those who claim as much are using a private language.

So I look at conservatism with a historian’s eye. I look at what Conservatism has actually been in politics. Mark and others can of course present various writers who define conservatism in a way congenial to them. The idea that conservatitism is purely an attachment to Volk and a respect for tradition is a not uncommon mistake among intellectuals. It is not however HOW CONSERVATISM IS PRACTICED.

But in the end the disagreement between myself and most others here is manipulative. Each party wants to claim the mantle of “conservatism” for themselves. My definition is an attempt to extract from history what is general to what is usually called conservative. The Richardson camp want to use the label to give some respectability to their own views—views that are highly deviant views in the modern-day Anglosphere. It would be more informative and less confusing to outsiders if they referred to their views as “Traditionalism” or some such.

There is however one aspect of the Richardson-type views that is indeed shared by all conservatives that I know of—the view that “human nature” or the hereditary given is both essentially immutable, hugely influential and “fallen” in the Christian sense. That view is certainly not “dead” and never has been. No conservative of any stripe would dispute it but again that is only a starting point. And from that starting point views about the central importance of individual liberty flow very easily—as indeed do views about the importance of the Volk. Which of those views has been politically important among conservatives, however, only history can tell us.

So as I see it, the view of human nature as a fairly fixed thing has been important and influential in the past and continues to be important and influential among conservatives today. And likewise for the view of individual liberty as centrally important. But the view of the Volk and tradition as being centrally important is essentially eccentric today—and that shows conclusively that it was never central. Politics is largely hereditary and the conservative half of the gene pool has not suddenly vanished. The Richardson view may well be right but whatever it is, it is not real-world conservatism.

Posted by jonjayray on Monday, June 27, 2005 at 07:14 PM in Conservatism
Comments (9) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Posted by Mark Richardson on June 27, 2005, 11:34 PM | #

John, if the right-wing party in Australia calls itself the “Liberal Party”; if its founding members made it clear they were not conservative but liberal; if its political philosophy is classically liberal; and if it has failed to act to “conserve” such fundamentals as the family and the national identity - then why should we term it a “conservative” party?

Your answer: because it is conventional to do so. My response: this only perpetuates a confusion.

As to your claim that mainstream “conservatives” see human nature as fairly fixed in contrast to the left: let them prove it!!!

For instance, the left believes that there is no fixed masculine and feminine nature, and that therefore we need to be liberated in our individual choice by overthrowing gender “stereotypes”.

Have any of your right-wing parties ever stood up and said: “this is rubbish, the reason there are more male engineers and boardroom members is because of our natures as men and women”.

No! Even the most right-wing members of the right-wing parties, like our own Prime Minister, support the leftist (i.e. the liberal) viewpoint and insist on creating gender “equality” by funding special scholarships for female engineering students or head-hunting women for public service boards and so on.

Your Hitler reference is also wide of the mark. Most ordinary people in the 1930s supported a traditional ethnic nationalism (as probably still do most people in the world today).

The Australian soldiers who faced the Germans at Tobruk were not rainbow sash wearing multiculturalists. Back then a traditional ethnic nationalism was a given for most people. Even the left-wing Australian Labor Party in the 1930s subscribed to a traditional ethnic nationalism. Why then advance Hitler as a sole representative of this view?

One final point. I don’t think the British Conservative Party of the nineteenth century was a terribly reliable vehicle for traditionalist conservatism.

I intend to post an item on this a little later which will make this abundantly clear.

Posted by John S Bolton on June 28, 2005, 12:30 AM | #

Conservatism may very easily be particular to a country and an age; but the right is always and everywhere the same. The left’s symbol is a raised fist, and they all stuporously rally to this, since it is the essence of their goal, which is freedom for aggression. Botticelli’s Pallas and the Centaur could symbolize the right of all ages and everywhere.

Posted by jonjayray on June 28, 2005, 02:39 AM | #

“As to your claim that mainstream “conservatives” see human nature as fairly fixed in contrast to the left: let them prove it!!!”

All advocacy of capitalism proves it

Posted by Mark Richardson on June 28, 2005, 04:33 AM | #

All advocacy of capitalism proves it.

So when Tony Blair advocates that the EU follow a more laissez-faire approach to the economy this must prove, in your view, that he has an essentially conservative view of human nature.

In fact, most modern leftists advocate some form of capitalism. So all of a sudden there are very few non-conservatives left for you to dissect. You’re putting yourself out of a job! The Western political class is overwhelmingly conservative by your definition.

Personally, I don’t think so. I think you can advocate capitalism and still run a typically liberal blank slate view of human nature. To do so you just view people primarily as economic agents - as Economic Man - pursuing their own “rational” economic ends.

Posted by JW Holliday on June 28, 2005, 09:41 AM | #

In another thread Geoff wrote, “I’m starting to understand Effra’s decision better.”

I’ve understood his decision all along. One wonders what a casual obsserver of MR thinks if he (or she) happens to view the blog in the midst of one of John’s posting volleys. Probably that what we have here is another neoconservative blog in which “conservatism” is defined as unrestrained capitalism, replacement immigration, defending Israel as a foreign policy priority, constitutional patriotism, etc.

It probably need not to be said again that I am unconcerned about political labels, which bring politics down to the American level of a contest between two football teams. I am not a conservative, as John Ray or George Bush - or even others at this blog who are more paleo - would define it. The name of the blog is “Majority Rights”, so it would seem to be concerned about the rights of ethnic majorities - if I am wrong about this, then please correct me.

I find this whole situation quite bizarre.

Posted by Geoff Beck on June 28, 2005, 09:48 AM | #

JW,

John Ray is a pill, that is for sure. Nobody generates more controversy around here. John’s version of events seem to be ascendent in the wider world, at least in the USA.

I’m sure he thinks he is correct, nothing seems to be able to dislodge that notion. But the same could be said of me.

Posted by john fitzgerald on June 28, 2005, 09:53 AM | #

Big Macs conservatism of fools could just as well apply to John Ray.
http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/books-derbyshire.html

Posted by Amon on June 28, 2005, 10:15 AM | #

I thought “conservatism is dead” meant that, since many Western countries are being taken over by high-birthrate immigrants who will always vote for “liberals,” conservatives will no longer have a chance of winning elections.

Posted by Guessedworker on June 28, 2005, 11:01 AM | #

I agree with you, JW, that there is a certain sterility to our never-ending debate as to who has what definition of Conservatism and why. Does it all matter? Only if you believe that the useless, moribund bag of nerves that is Conservatism throughout the West today is the only functioning vehicle we have for the restitution of our birthright. And if the Party mechanism is rusted and scarcely repairable, the people who man it are not. They are merely slaves to liberalism - temporary slaves, we must hope.

How did they ever become so?

Well, we need to pull back aways to see that. The very broadest, all-encompassing view of our times, from a distance sufficient that all duality and appearances thereof are swallowed up within the greater whole, can be communicated to an interested party only by a tiny handful of terms. Liberalism and modernity certainly succeed in that respect ... capitalism perhaps ... democracy just possibly. But I challenge anybody to propose other equally successful, equally “global” descriptions of the political West today.

It is at this rarified altitude that all divisions and debates, particularisms and petty agendas recede into a wide-angle political view. From here, though the detail may be lost, one may readily make out a singular truth.

Modernity is the inevitable creation of liberalism

. By any measure, our age is the product of, essentially, anti-Conservative forces identifiable as long ago as the mid-17th century.

Political life is the battle of ideas. Political history reveals how those ideas have fared in battle. It is a plain fact that the triumph of liberalism became absolute when the common man achieved suffrage on an egalitarian basis. That swept away the balance of constitutional interests which underpinned Conservatism in the life of society, and pressaged the age of politics as a bidding war for the common man’s approval. In my little country Conservatives responded with Disraelism ... One Nationism ... me-tooism. Actually, defeatism. But even so, it did not save them - they were and are defeated.

With regard to blood and soil, Conservatism has no meaning unless it proceeds from the connection of a people to its homeland. Conservatism that is economism or individualism is gutted and fit only to play the whipped cur to its liberal master. It doesn’t have the physical courage to say: This is our land and we will own it, as is our birthright. It even lets this Prime Motive be ripped from its heart by marxists and chucked over the hedge. Nationalists may have picked it up - Hitler picked it up. But that is of no consequence. Love of kind and love of country are Conservative loves. If our people are deserted by politicians of the right and our country regarded as little more than a place where individuals work and play, that is because those politicians are NOT Conservative.

This is what we must change - or we must eventually become nationalists with all the dangers and uncertainties that portends.

That is my view which readers may contrast with John’s and decide which of us is nearer the truth.

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