What is Conservatism to you?

[404.livejournal.com]

I have started on Dr. Alitt's excellent primer on the Conservative Tradition, through The Teaching Company (available @ http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=4812 for those who are interested, it costs money though, but not too much, especially when compared to university level classes), and it got me thinking about what I feel Conservatism as a political philosophy really is. Obviously given from the word that is used: Conservative, which denotes careful planning and rational development, but is that all it is? I am curious in what y'all think it means. Maybe this will spark a conversation that does not break down into name calling, but we shall see.

Comments

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

Phil Agre has a notable, vigorous long critique that speaks to this question: “What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?” (http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/conservatism.html)

Liberals in the United States have been losing political debates to conservatives for a quarter century. In order to start winning again, liberals must answer two simple questions: what is conservatism, and what is wrong with it? As it happens, the answers to these questions are also simple:

Q: What is conservatism?
A: Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.
Q: What is wrong with conservatism?
A: Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world.

These ideas are not new. Indeed they were common sense until recently. Nowadays, though, most of the people who call themselves “conservatives” have little notion of what conservatism even is. They have been deceived by one of the great public relations campaigns of human history. Only by analyzing this deception will it become possible to revive democracy in the United States.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

And the other part of the problem is that people who call themselves "liberals" are not either.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Something about ignoring the plank in one's own eye could be said here. If modern conservatism ever moves away from the quasi-worship of inherited wealth and status, it may become relevant again.

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

Well, Agre's claim is that the worship of wealth and status (inherited or no) is the fundamental definition of conservatism, even if most conservatives would not describe it that way. A modern political movement which does not support some kind of upper class would not be “conservative” in this sense.

I think that contemporary conservative philosophers would claim that their root philosophy is the cultivation of public liberty and virtue. While I think that conservatives are perfectly sincere in that conception, I don't find it so persuasive as Agre's read. Conservatives themselves have a long intellectual tradition of wrestling with the tension between liberty and virtue, and we can easily find examples of folks in the conservative current demonstrating a willingness to sacrifice one to the other.

As a parallel, liberals regard their root philosophy as the cultivation of public liberty and equality. Again, there is a tension there. Any contemporary liberal will admit that the vigorous pursuit of perfect equality has proved catastrophic to liberty ... while also failing to produce equality. But liberalism contends that the two are not fundamentally incompatible, and that the purpose of public policy is to deliver as much of both as possible.

Put another way — and in this I think we can see what unites both the political and the cultural usages of “liberal” and “conservative” — liberals and conservatives are united in seeing status stratification as being the tendency of human society, but they are opposed in what they regard as the just response to it. Conservatives see justice as the correct distribution of status: that the right people benefit properly. Liberals see justice as the mitigation of the distribution of status: that public policy reduce inequities in the distribution of benefits as much as possible.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Sums it up nicely I think.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Saying a person deserves to accumulate wealth isn't worshiping it.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

No, but enshrining said inherited wealth in protectionist tradition is close enough. I understand it's basic human nature to want to keep what's ours and say screw everyone else but we aren't living in a board game so there are costs to that as a general life approach.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'I understand it's basic human nature to want to keep what's ours and say screw everyone else '

Yea, but that's like saying "I like freedom of speech and screw anyone else".

The demonization of inheritance is just stupid. Someone inherits money and you didn't. Sucks for you... in fact, it really doesn't matter to you any more than someone else getting to bang the prom queen. Others made their free choice and you just have to deal with it.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Wait two posts and someone probably will say "I like freedom of speech and screw anyone else". But I get your point.

Demonization of wealth is stupid - as is portraying it as noble.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'...as is portraying it as noble."

And who did that?

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

So you're talking about televangelists. The branch of theology most known for being shysters.

Where most Christian conservatives don't hold to such thought as God giving people material wealth on Earth as a reward. Really I think you're confusing "what most conservatives think" with "what you think most conservative think".

But what about Liberation theology that teaches that God will reward people on this world by removing income inequality among the faithful? A theology that is widely adopted among the left-wing Christian movement?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

But what about Liberation theology that teaches that God will reward people on this world by removing income inequality among the faithful? A theology that is widely adopted among the left-wing Christian movement?

Right from Glenn Beck's lips to your keyboard. Here's a free clue: what you typed would make Pope Benedict a "left wing Christian," given the Vatican's comments about excess wealth being a mortal sin especially when its at the expense of others.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

A certainly shallow understanding of theology you have there.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Not really Perry. Not really.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

That wasn't me asking for your opinion. That was me stating that you really don't understand contemporary theological camps and their underlying premises. Pope Benedict is very critical of liberation theology. But you are cutting things around to make a point that is nonsensical once it's explored in depth.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

That wasn't me asking for your opinion.

You got it anyway. :-)

That was me stating that you really don't understand contemporary theological camps and their underlying premises.

YOU MEAN UNDERLYING PREMISES? NO WAY!

Pope Benedict is very critical of liberation theology.

Wow, NO KIDDING??????? ARE YOU LIKE A VATICAN OFFICIAL, OR SOMETHING?!

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Well you tried to insinuate otherwise. Glad you went with snark instead of reasoned rebuttal.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Except that this presumes that all societies see conservatism and the like on an axis solely geared towards the West. Let me ask you this: is the Islamic Republic of Iran Right-Wing or Left-Wing? In cases like the Third World what amounts to conservative nationalism and Right-Wing impulses to that society can come across to the USA as against its interests and therefore Left-Wing radicalism. But guys like Mossadeqh and Saddam Al-Majid were not necessarily Leftists so much as nationalist and cultural puritans on completely different axes.

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

I don't see in that as a failing of Agre's definition of “conservatism;” rather, you've demonstrated that the ever-problematic left-right axis is a dull instrument with which to understand politics outside the West — or rather, an even more dull instrument than it is in understanding the politics of the West.

I certainly agree that the US tends to misread nationalist movements in the Third World as reflecting some kind of alignment or opposition to what American commentators regard as our interests. The signal example of this is of course the Cold War framing of Third World politics as either pro- or anti-communist ... a perspective persistent enough that we still see national and sub-national liberationist movements misidentified as “leftist,” as you say.

You ask about the Islamic Republic of Iran, and I don’t claim to be well-equipped to unpack the nuances there. I do know that Iran sees itself as turning to Muslim law as a nationalist alternative to Western traditions. Being a child of the Western Enlightenment myself, I tend to see that move as throwing out the open society baby with the colonial bathwater, which is perhaps a bit conservative in Agre's sense, as it reïnforces the institutional power of the clergy et cetera and the social power imbalances along lines of religious and political affiliation and gender. But I also recognize that the current political order born of the ’79 revolution is a significant liberalization when contrasted with the authoritarian society under the Shah ...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Where I do is that Agre's definition of conservatism is rooted entirely in that of the liberal democracies. In the case of both the Islamic Republic and the USSR in its final days one sees conservatives and progressives whose definitions vary immensely from that of liberal democracies.

I think we certainly are agreed that the USA had a tendency to misinterpret national liberation movements and attributed their turning to the USSR for aid as ideological rigidity when in fact it had as much to do with trying to find *someone* who would back the movements.

My point about the Islamic Republic was that while in some ways Khomeinism was very much a conservative movement of Shia Islam it was also a radical revolutionary movement even for the time. When groups like Turkish Kemalists or the Shah's dictatorships create forced areligion the long-term results poison all of the society there. As the Islamist movements will gain adherence of most of the population and will carry at the best case scenario prejudice against religious minorities and at the worst.....and will associate references to secularism with the harsh dictatorships that were really puppet states of distant foreigners. Thus a vicious feedback loop is created.....

[surferelf.livejournal.com]

Liberals have not been losing political debates to conservatives. They have been losing elections. Until recently, that is. And that is largely because of brand poisoning on behalf of the conservatives, and the fact that there is no other place for voters to go. In fact, the political landscape has been completely devoid of debate for as long as I can remember. No one is actually interested in what the other side has to say.