Most conservatism seems misrepresented by those modern movements which take the name of conservatism, which largely seem to have lost conservative approaches to conservation, trust, truth, and virtue. Neoliberalism has eaten conservatism.
I have a number of slightly weird, and possibly contradictory, political positions, as anyone who has read this blog will probably know, but there are some common threads. In some ways, I’m a more or less traditional conservative, ie Burkean, Coleridgean, Ruskinean. That means I don’t have much in common with most people who claim the Conservative label nowadays, but there is no reason we cannot have ‘left’ conservatives, especially if you think the post WWII boom was probably a good time to live, and a time which held promise.
Roots of Conservatism
The root of conservatism is conserving the best of our past while slowly improving it – the ‘slowly’ is often important, as I hope will become clear as we go along.
The two most important processes to conserve are: The Land, and Tradition or Culture.
The Land
The land needs to be conserved because life in whatever is our Country depends upon the Land. Humans relate to the Land, it is in their nature. Despoliation of the Land shows disrespect for our ancestors and traditions, and can put us in the place were we can no longer be self-reliant on the Land for food. Wild Land is important, because it reminds us of the grandeur of nature and power of God. There should be land in which people can be alone, and gain inner strength and self-reliance. We may need to keep predators that can challenge us, so that we don’t become human predators.
Preserving the Land, also preserves the particular beauties that are associated with our country and that helps shape the souls of those who live in our country. Despoliation of land is equivalent to despoliation of the ‘national soul’.
Of course cultivated land is good (I say this because people often fall into false dichotomies), but cultivation again should not mean despoliation. And ideally the land should be small holdings, supporting families in dignity, rather than large land holdings which turn the people away from care for their surroundings, into wage labour, or even serfdom or slavery, and an inability to self-support.
Tradition and Culture
Tradition is important, that is what shapes our culture and our way of life. It can often be related to the Land. Customs, habits and ecologies fit together in mutual support – this is what anthropologists used to call functionalism – everything, no matter how apparently irrational has an important social function. Disrespect for tradition is an attack on our way of life. However, tradition changes. It always changes. If we are careful we can improve tradition. Thus while an 18th Century conservative may well have approved slavery, a modern conservative should not, because we know it was a stain on the social fabric, an incidence of inhumanity and a corruption of spirit for both slaves and slave-owners, and it was counter to the trend of our Religion.
However, because of the delicate balance of these ‘systems,’ we need to be slow and careful when we make changes. We need to find out whether unintended consequences arise from removing checks and balances. It is often the case that while we think we are doing good, we are destroying what we seek to preserve.
Care and observation should the basis of conservatism, as well as respect for those who know, work and study.
Elites, Virtue and Art
All conservatives respect elites of some sort or another, but this can be a bit complicated.
All societies have elites, this is the nature of humanity, and sometimes elites can be destructive. However, the conservative idea is that society should be governed by the best people available, who are then held responsible by the people in general.
Elites should be trained and experienced, but not restricted to an ‘aristocracy’. Elites should ‘circulate’, that is they should admit the best people, whoever they are, and drop those who are no longer ‘up to it’. There should be social mobility. Effort in many different skills should be rewarded, so as to give people something to strive for.
When people have no visible chance of social mobility, then they may well support dangerous demagogues and revolutionaries. What other option do they have? This support will destroy social balance, harmony and tradition, so it is no solution, but it feels like one.
The populace will tend to emulate the elites – this again is human nature – so the better the elites, the more virtuous the elites, the better are the population and the better the nation becomes. If the elite are braggarts who seek their own wealth, power and exemption from the law, then that is what the populace will seek as well, to their own and society’s detriment.
This is why elites need stronger discipline than the populace. It is why a traitor among the elites is worse than a traitor amongst the people.
The point of the elites is that they should govern for the good of all, hence the importance of inculcating virtue and training. As soon as an elite starts governing for its own advantage, society begins heading for collapse.
Elites are not just responsible for governance, but for supporting the best religion, art, culture and beauty – not only traditional but new. They have the power to do this, or the power to neglect this, but it is an obligation, just as it is an obligation to be virtuous.
Again, the aim of this support, is to improve the souls of the people, to make them turn from the ugliness of sin, and cherish bountiful aspirations, and relationships. The elite need to be generous. Most good art should be public art. This does not mean that elites do not support art for their own glory as well, but the glory should be directed both ways to the people and the elite. Again this is building connection, which builds society.
Art is not secondary to money in terms of building tradition and social well being.
Unfortunately, elites may sometimes need to lie to govern, or to defend the Country. They may want to use what Plato called the ‘noble lie’. This is unfortunately sometimes necessary. However, lying needs to be discouraged. Elites need to respect truth, and to be honest whenever possible. Lies for a noble strategies’ sake, easily become lies for selfish ingroup, or personal, benefit. Lies break relationship, leading to the liar feeling falsely superior to the deceived. When lies are uncovered, the people cease to trust the elites. Elites have to be able to be held to account, and staying with the truth, as well as it is known, is the best way whenever possible.
Elites are privileged, and their privilege is only justified by the example they set, and their care for others ‘beneath’ them. Without this care, and this relationship, elites almost certainly become destructive.
Elites should put themselves on the line. They have a responsibility to be the first in combat, the first to take salary cuts, the first to give for their country, the first to step out of comfort and help others in distress. That is, they set the example. They become what the people will emulate.
Conservatism encourages relationships between the classes, as a society is built upon relationships (preferably personal not contractual, monetary or compelled), and relationships carry obligation and responsibility. If relationship, obligation and responsibility is denied or sabotaged, then society fragments and becomes factional. It is on the way down.
A society built on extensive cross-cutting relationships, will have ‘networks’ of support and responsibility, it is more likely to endure crisis. It is more likely the elites and the people will be connected, and governance will be for all.
The issue of elites becomes even more complicated, when we recognise ‘wealth elites’ or ‘capitalist elites’
Capitalism and its elites
Real conservatives, while accepting capitalism as a potential force for good, are also cautious about it. Capitalism does not respect tradition or Land, or good government for all.
If tradition and virtue can be corrupted to make a buck, then capitalists will corrupt them without any thought of the future. If despoiling Land makes money in the short term, then Land will be despoiled. The same with everything else of value.
Capitalism tends to reduce all virtue, all relationships and all government to money. All value becomes monetary value.
Capitalists, if not watched, will tend to set up an aristocracy of wealth, without any loyalty to anything other than making themselves more wealthy. Capitalism easily becomes plutocracy.
It is not conservative to think that markets will always deliver the best result for everyone and for the country. That is special interest lobbying.
We should remember that Edmund Burke spent a large proportion of his career and effort into attempting to curtail the East India Company’s actions in India because its business was not good for the subjects of Empire. Modern conservatives pretend business is always good. Real conservatives do not.
Conservatives know that that virtue is the basis of society and should be beyond money and purchase. Conservatives know that society is based in relationships and not money.
Money is useful, but money is not a god. You cannot worship both God and Mammon. If you try, you will loose God. You will get religions which insist that wealth is the only mark of virtue and that God wants everyone to have money (God probably ‘wants’ everyone to have spiritual wealth, care for others, and contentment).
These capitalist prosperity religions make the poor sick at heart. They say to everyone, “if you are not rich then you are not godly” and “if you are godly then you are rich”. This is not only blasphemy, but it is destructive of society. The poor may always be with us, but they can aim to be saints. Saints embrace poverty. Poverty is not necessarily a good thing, and we should do our best to help relieve it, but it is bearable while people have dignity and respect, and are not repeatedly informed they are without God, talent, virtue or use. Traditional Christianity strongly recognises this.
However, capitalism has no respect for truth. PR, advertising, cronyism and hype seem to be an essential and everyday part of its life. It cannot be left to seek its own level of falsehood, or society will be swamped in malevolent fantasy, which is only solved by collapse.
Capitalism, if not watched and cared for, as we would watch and care for a tiger, is dangerous as well as splendid.
Real conservatives realise this. Rule of the country should never be handed to the wealth elite alone, for they will rule according to greed, and according to the money they can make. They will destroy all the balances, and all the finer things of the soul, that make a country great.
That, again, is simply reality.
Division of Powers
Consequently, conservatives will encourage as many competing powers as possible, to ensure the Country is not taken over by one group alone.
Organised religion should be a power, but not the only power as it easily becomes tyranny, and suppressive of all other religions and religious variants.
Workers should be a power. Unions developed to save workers from capitalist greed. They are part of our Tradition and should not be bought out or destroyed to give capitalists more power. However, again, they should not be the only power.
The courts should be separate from the government and act as a check upon the government.
The military is a power and (sadly) necessary, but should always be subservient to the governors, in terms of not declaring war itself. War should be declared by Parliament not the executive. The military must be held to high standards of virtue and discipline, or else it can shelter barbarism and cruelty. The military should never approve war crimes, as this reflects badly on the rest of society and mutual trust.
Science should be a power. It is the best guide we have to the truth of the world. Hence scientists annoyingly give different advice as the evidence and understanding change. This is why they are advisors and not governors. People who condemn scientists, when listening to them would be inconvenient, are foolish at best. Scientists should be trained to respect both the truth and relationship.
Business should be a power, but not the only power. We need to understand what generates prosperity and nobility in the long term, and that may not come from business alone.
Civil Society organisations should be powers, to provide input from those who might be ignored.
Public servants should be a power, they have accumulated wisdom and experience, but clearly the bureaucracy should not rule alone, as one of it’s purposes is to check and regulate rule.
Everyone knows that any group can become self-interested, but the more groups involved in governance, the less chance we have of being taken over by one limited self interest.
Liberty
By respecting this variety we encourage liberty, not directed by the one group, so it is real liberty.
But conservatives remember that liberty is not the freedom to do everything you want. Liberty is constrained by consideration for others.
Without virtue, liberty becomes tyranny. This is the basis of the law. You are not free to steal, you are not free to murder, you are not free to defraud others, you are not free to slander with no regard for truth, you are not free to poison people or the Land, you are not free to betray your country and so on.
Conclusion
To conclude, and I could go on and on, I’ll repeat that conservatism is about conserving the best of the past (culture and traditions), changing things slowly, looking for unintended consequences, and preserving the Land.
It is not governing on behalf of one group alone.
Any politics which does not realise this, is not Real Conservatism, as far as I’m concerned.
Tags: politics
Climate, technology and chaos Blog 
Leave a comment