Dizzy and the subversion of British Conservatism

Posted by Guessedworker on Sunday, 06 February 2005 21:45.

This post is a rather roughly thrown together response to John’s interesting trawl through David Gelernter’s piece in The Weekly Standard, The Inventor of Modern Conservatism.

There is no disputing that Gelernter is correct about Benjamin Disraeli’s status as an inventor, as are all the many historians and students of politics who have wiseacred to the same end. The issue is not one of historical accuracy nor even one, solely, of etymological accuracy. I am not claiming that Disraeli’s invention lies in the ascription of the word “Conservatism” to his new politic of the right in mid-Victorian England. I am claiming that he invented the historical precedents by which he could carry-over the terms and conventions of Conservatism into his own new Establishment. In so doing, he indeed became the first neoconservative. But in substance it was an act of anti-Conservatism and an act, as Martin Hutchinson emphasises in his truly exceptional and recently published opus Great Conservatives, of legerdemain.

Disraeli was an historical revisionist, operating no less purposively in a private cause than any of the gentlemen opposed by Abe Foxman and Deborah Lipstadt today. He has had many helpers along the way. As Martin points out at the opening of his (rather brief) Disraeli chapter:-

Disraeli is often hailed by modern “Conservatives” as the founder of their Party. Unhistorically, they disdain to look back beyond him to the rather Edward Heath-like Peel, let alone the indisputably Conservative and highly successful Pitt, Castlereagh and Liverpool. By quoting Disraeli as their mentor, the ‘moderate’ wing of the “Conservative” Party is able to justify almost any left-wing policy, on the grounds of Disraeli’s early Radicalism and 1867 ‘leap in the dark.’ Thus the slide towards Socialism has been abetted by men using Disraelian compromises, made in entirely different political and social circumstances, as an excuse. Far from being the descendants of Pitt and Liverpool, many modern “Conservatives” are closer to the politics of Robespierre, and Disraeli deserves some responsibility for their actions.

By way of examples of Disraelian “responsibility”, consider the socialist bindweed which grew from these supposed Conservative acorns:-

Disraeli’s

Reform Act of 1867

built on the great and unnecessary disaster of 1832. Disraeli eschewed all attempts to rationalise plural voting in such a way that control of the democratic process be not handed over to the working classes. In speeding the development of one-man-one-vote Disraeli destroyed the natural balance of Constititional interests that had served the country for generations and, since they were the basis for genuine (as opposed to Disraelian) Conservatism, destroyed that too.

Disraeli’s

Trades Disputes Act of 1875

bestowed upon the unions that immunity from civil action which, within five decades, widened their field of action to full-scale industrial warfare. It endured for a further six decades and destroyed Britain’s industrial base. Of the Act itself Martin writes that it “… marked out, above companies, partnerships, charities, government departments and the individual, one and only one form of organisation to be immune from legal action, a form whose social benefits were questionable at best.” What innate Conservatism was there in that?

As well as by grand political consequence, Disraeli can be judged directly by the Conservatism, authentic or otherwise, of his actions in his own time and, as I have set out initially to demonstrate, by the dexterity with which he retired genuine Conservatism from British political life. Upon the former I shall not dwell, except to say that his primary motivations were expediency and immediate political advantage. Of the latter one need only consider “Coningsby”, published in 1844.

I am sure there must be perfectly innocent, even laudable reasons why Jewish thinkers are driven to dream up political confections for our perpetual pleasure and enlightenment. Marxism … Marxist-Leninist Communism … Trotskyism … Cultural Marxism … Post-Modernism … New-wave libertarianism … Second-wave Feminism … Neoconservatism … Communitarianism … there is, seemingly, no end to the utopias wished upon us. But why a single European falls for these engines of national and cultural destruction is by far the greater mystery. Perhaps we are so irredeemably blind and stupid that we really need all the constant reminders that three or four million Jewish victims of Nazism = Very Bad. Avoid Nazism. And twenty, thirty, maybe fifty million Russian victims of Marxist-Leninism equals ... Heavens, don’t know anything about that one. Haven’t been told to care. Anyway, wasn’t it all Djugashivili’s doing? And wasn’t he a Georgian nationalist? An evil old Conservative, really?

So … invade Eye-rack, did you say? For no visible British national purpose? Love to, of course.

But to return to Coningsby, it’s no surprise, then, that the Inventor of Modern Conservatism, Victoria’s favourite, managed to pull off the grand stunt of reclassifying our long Conservative heritage. It was, in fact, an exercise of Orwellian ‘Minitruth’ proportions. He reached back before Conservatism’s first stirrings in 1485, back into the dark, bucolic depths of feudal England. A clever place to begin the subversion, laying claim to that from which the great first Tudor broke.

From there he skittered fleet of foot across the village pond on stones that exhibit no Conservative hue. Charles II was missed out altogether, as was Chatham. The other great men of Conservatism were ‘flawed’ (Pitt the Younger, of whom it can be said that he invented the Conservative Party) or were the ‘Arch Mediocrity’ (Lord Liverpool) or ‘ignorant’ (Castlereagh). By contrast he praised men of little Conservative substance so as to tread a path to his style of politics and declare the once and future Conservatism as his own. And in this stratagem, extraordinarily, a generation of failed Conservative politicians (excepting Salisbury) acquiesced, leaving their successors neatly excised from their political birthright.

Whether through his Radicalism or his racial loyalties Disraeli administered the coup-de-grace to post-1832 Conservatism. He did not create the Party but subtly manoeuvred it out of existence. Perhaps it had nothing left to contribute once Reform had destroyed the old Constitutional system. But Disraeli’s meddlings left the matter in no doubt. Not only are we not blessed with a living Conservatism today, and have no political means of expression other than one or another form of liberalism, but we cannot even look with a clear eye to our own past.

As to all we have lost, I’ll finish with another quote of Martin Hutchinson’s, this time not from Great Conservatives but from a letter. Of his book he wrote, “Its thesis is that Conservatism played the major role in the outstanding British achievements of the Industrial Revolution and the Empire. From this viewpoint, British history is not a steady Whig progress towards social democracy, it becomes a story of rise, triumph and decay. By examining the careers of eight “Great Conservatives”, and through “digressions” examining other major historical events through a Conservative lens, the past takes new shapes, and dark corners of history are illuminated.”

I leave it to the reader, as always, to decide whether David Gelernter is a more reliable guide to MY people’s history. I’m pretty certain Martin lays no counter-claim to that of his, though, and neither do I.

Tags: History

Comments:

Posted by Geoff Beck on Sun, 06 Feb 2005 23:25 | #

Guessedworker:

A valiant effort is your rebuttal, but it matters not.

Like a child curious about his evacuation, Jon Ray only wishes to smear excrement, to see if it smells the same afterwards

The idea of someone being a ‘founder’ of conservatism is preposterous. Conservatism isn’t found in some manifesto compiled by some egghead or politician.

But isn’t that the image that Jon Ray projects… that of an egghead ideologue. Oh that that prattle about “ACADEMIC JOURNALS”. Oh, and the pretentiousness of <u>DISSECTING LEFTISM</u>. Every time I see that link I must chuckle; those endless pedestrian comments about Hitler. Hasn’t he heard of Daniel Pipes? So confident of his intellect he proclaims:

I seem to be doomed to challenging conventional ideas about the nature of the political spectrum

A legend in your own mind.

Posted by ben tillman on Mon, 07 Feb 2005 00:15 | #

The idea of someone being a ‘founder’ of conservatism is preposterous. Conservatism isn’t found in some manifesto compiled by some egghead or politician.

My thoughts exactly.

Posted by Geoff Beck on Mon, 07 Feb 2005 00:54 | #

Wintermute has been silent in all this?

Posted by Guessedworker on Mon, 07 Feb 2005 01:24 | #

Three questions in that, really, John.

a) Was Conservativism doomed by 1832?

b) Was Disraeli’s “invention” the only form in which Conservatism might go forward?

c) Intentionally or otherwise, did Disraeli merely guarantee liberalism for the future?

To (a) I would answer that the Reform Act did not gift the country a working solution to the problem of enfranchisement of a working class growing in wealth and education. There was a dynamic at work here. In actuality, it may not have been antipathetic to that maintenance of balanced Constitutional interests upon which Conservatism depended. But the issue was never put to the test.

It should have been. Even with a widened franchise the evidence in the years after 1832 for the electoral death of Conservatism is pretty thin. A basis for survival might have been created in the 1850’s and again in 1875, had anyone but Disraeli been in the driving seat.

Since it was Disraelii in the driving seat, it’s all too easy to assume that question (b) answers itself, much as Blair’s New Labour is seen as the only form in which the old Labour Party could march again, post-Thatcher. He who has control of the history books writes the history, and who wonders anymore what a Labour Party of John Smith might have looked like.?

There is never only one possible answer to such a question.

The answer to (c) is a decisive ‘yes’. This is the central thrust of the case against Disraeli. The birthright was sold for a mess of potage that, from 1902 to 1979, offered no Conservatism worthy of the name. Thatcher was only Conservative in limited areas, and seems never to have understood the metapolitical victory of liberalism.

Today, in any case, the Disraelian compromise is in its turn very weak ... possibly dying. The sap of that ancient tribalism which you so dislike, John, is rising. The old interests of class and property are being slowly reborn in a new form to which the left cannot minister. If this development remains wholly informed within what I keep banging on about as a liberal zeitgeist, the consequences could be negative (narrowly nationalist). An opportunity is approaching - in maybe two decades time - to change the political water again. I hope, away from liberty this time and towards a more holistic politic of the right. One has to be optimistic at my age.

Posted by wintermute on Mon, 07 Feb 2005 02:16 | #

Wintermute has been silent in all this?

Bemused, more like.

Was there something of substance to respond to? Another of Gelernter’s laughable claims?

Six months ago he was telling us all how both Greece and Judea were important for the development of the West, but that in a pinch, we could discard the Greek inheritance.

Two weeks ago, he was describing his new ideology, Americanism, which - wouldn’t you know it - also seems to be heavily dependant on Judiasm. He was working on a Thanksgiving Hagaddah, so that us clueless goyim could have some understanding of the country we built.

Now John J. Renfield, fresh from plastering this site with propaganda regarding Iraqi elections from the demonstrably unbalanced Stephen Schwarz, continues his work as water carrier/ all around golem by proclaiming Gelernter’s dizzy theories far and wide, free from what would undoubtedly be a stinging encounter with critical thought.

What more is called for than a laugh?

Posted by Arcane on Mon, 07 Feb 2005 05:15 | #

I guess conservatives aren’t allowed to make compromises to halt more extreme forces from destroying everything. In that respect, I guess Bismarck wasn’t a conservative, since he created various social welfare programs to stem the tide of socialism in Germany. As a result, Germany never became socialist. The closest it ever came to being socialist was the creation of the “social market” model by the CDU which is still practiced today, and there isn’t much that is socialist about the “social market.”

So, like Bismarck, Disraeli made some compromises. I don’t see the problem with that, since politics is all about compromise. If there is no compromise, there is no peace, so in a world where you guys would never compromise to stem more extreme forces, you wouldn’t practice politics; you’d practice war. Only in war can you have total victory and total defeat. In politics, you can have both victory and defeat, and still be happy about the outcome.

Posted by Guessedworker on Mon, 07 Feb 2005 08:10 | #

Arcane,

Conservatism developed into a party political force over a period of three centuries. It was not an inflexible dogma but a sound basis upon which people might be loosed into their own hands for the purpose of their own increase.

As such it contained the Lockean principles of liberty and the consent of the governed. The crisis it faced in the early decades of the 19th Century was, broadly, that the mushrooming demand for liberty threatened the consent of the governed.

It is a matter of conjecture as to whether the natural capaciousness of, say, Liverpool’s Conservatism would have been sufficient to absorb that demand and maintain that consent. The politicians who had succeeded him were, in any case, practising a weak-tea Conservatism that was capable of absorbing nothing. It was made a simple matter for Disraeli to abolish the whole shooting match and write his own historical fantasy in favour of defeatism and radicalism at home and adventurism and empire abroad.

That isn’t compromise. Gelernter is right in linking Marx and Disraeli. They were both revolutionaries.

Posted by Effra on Mon, 07 Feb 2005 15:49 | #

Salisbury despised “the democracy” and abominated Dizzy’s Whig-dishing extension of the franchise on much the same grounds as my favourite mid-19C Liberal, Robert Lowe.

Although Dizzy was waspishly “nice” to Salisbury, procuring the Garter for him when he got it himself after the Congress of Berlin, Salisbury on becoming PM set out to tone down Dizzy’s Tory democracy. He allowed himself, privately sneering, to become a patron of the Primrose League and seemed to bless from on high efforts to capture the petit bourgeoisie and Crown-and-cottage, Alf Garnettesque working class for the Conservative Party. But at heart Salisbury was pessimistic about how Dizzy’s gaudy opportunism had poisoned the wellsprings of Tory England and (to vary the metaphor) introduced a fatal ratchet-effect syndrome into domestic politics.

Henceforth both big parties would nervously watch the vote-furnished proles for signs of independent organisation (e.g. Lib-Labs and the ILP) and would try to outbid each other for the votes of the great unwashed with schemes for “improving the condition of the people”. Dodging ever-rising taxes would preoccupy the traditional, landed governing class. It would become selfish and distrait, and politics would pass into the hands of middle class careerists and demagogues on Dizzy’s own model.

Salisbury was the last true Conservative prime minister, and his Cassandra-like foresight (quoted extensively in Andrew Roberts’s biography) reads all too true a hundred years later.

In fairness to Dizzy, it could be said that the Toryism of the old country party died when Peel split it, and “Conservatism” (a neologism of William IV’s time IIRC) was always an implicit and dangerous compromise with post-1832 England’s novelties. Whereas Salisbury harked back to Pitt and Wellington, Dizzy recognised and rode that wave as the Lloyd George or Harold Wilson of his day. Trying to find an ideology or set of principles in his shenanigans is like trying to build a mountain of mercury with tweezers.

Posted by ben tillman on Mon, 07 Feb 2005 17:59 | #

What David seems to overlook was that the alternative was the complete ascendancy of liberalism/socialism.

Have we not already realized that alternative?