… it must be identical to the old shoe:
I don’t like change. Change is what destroys societies, and changing my shoe is what destroys my feet.
Change be damned!
Devilstower at Daily Kos misrepresents conservatism
Liberalism grew as a response to the changes in society brought on by the industrial revolution and the rise of industrial corporations. Workers were no longer apprentices working directly with the people whose position they expected to hold some day. Instead they were separated from the owners of these new industries by many levels, and often their work gave them no experience useful for moving up in this structure. Liberalism formed around efforts to mend this new rift in society by using government as an instrument of egalitarianism.
Conservatism holds the opposite end of the field. From its foundations in 18th century Europe through the violent sex fantasies of Ayn Rand, the position of conservatism has been the same: stop liberalism. Rather than attempt to smooth out the inequities of society, conservatism seeks to maintain these chasms, and where possible to open them wider. The whole basis of conservatism is that this structure — a wealthy elite holding the reins — is the natural, desirable state.
I accept his explanation of liberalism, although I dispute some of the facts—working class of Industrial Revolution were by no means comparable to skilled artisans of earlier times; they were more like subsistence farmers; Industrial Revolution may have made some fabulously rich, but it did not make anyone poorer than they would have been otherwise, save by comparison to those who are now fabulously rich—I just wish he could have the same sense of fairness for conservatism. I will save you the rant about necessity of representing opposition in its strongest possible form as a prelude to any civilized discourse. However, I do need to clarify the term: given the context, I assume by “conservatism”, Devilstower means American conservatism, as there is a significant difference between, say, European conservatism and American conservatism. I know nothing of European conservatism, especially one that sought to protect the monarchy and aristocracy, and I don’t care to defend them. I do wish to defend American conservatism against the liberal misrepresentation.
Nothing that stands only in opposition to another lasts. John Birch Society is a good example: it had little to define itself save by its anti-communism (and these days, anti-globalism, anti-etc.). I would not be a conservative if I thought conservatism could only be defined as opposition to liberalism—what a miserable existence it would be, where the defeat of my opponent also means destruction of my self-identity!
Conservatism does stand by itself, independently from liberalism or any other political philosophy, and in terms of specific principles, not such generalities as “oppose change” (although that is the semantic meaning of the English word “conservatism”, as a political term, it is inadequate). In as few words as possible, conservatism is the classical liberalism, and little else—after all, we are conservatives; “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken” is our motto.
In particular, the single most important principle in conservatism is individual rights: we hold that individuals have rights that are natural, in the sense that it is not granted by a government (artificially) and that a just government is obliged not to infringe upon them. “Life, liberty, and property” are these very basic, fundamental rights which a government is empowered only to protect, never to infringe. Other rights (such as freedom of speech and right to arm oneself) we consider essential in U.S. can be derived from these fundamental ones—in fact, libertarians go farther in the other direction and derive everything, including life and liberty, from property rights, but I’ll save you the details.
Holding these individual rights more important than any social institution, conservatives reject causes such as egalitarianism or social welfare as justification for infringement of these individual rights, especially that of property rights, although life and liberty are implicated as well, as you might have experienced if you tried withholding your property from the IRS.
So, if I consider the anchor, “propelling neither society nor the economy”, whose “whole reason for being is to slow change of all sorts and keep the current situation in place for as long as possible for those who benefit most from the current system”, as an inadequate metaphor for conservatism, what else could conservatism be?
I propose the sail. It is true conservatism doesn’t seek to “propel” anything on its own—we conservatives do not tend to agitate; we are a pretty happy lot when we are left on our own—however, at the same time, we embrace the natural laws of society as a sail embraces the wind. And the wind takes us where it might. Although we might tack against the wind at times, as you can with a sail, we don’t pretend that the wind, which is the natural laws of society, is not there. In opposition to conservatism, the metaphor I nominate for liberalism is the row. Take what you will from the metaphor, but I would like to point out that somebody has to be working the row, and they are not always willing participants.
Aside from our staunch defense of individual rights, we are primarily concerned with the natural laws of society I referred to before. No one knows all these laws—the same way no one knows all the natural laws of this physical world—but some things seem to happen again and again. Some of these laws are encapsulated in maxims such as “power corrupts” (hence our distrust of governments, single largest concentration of power), “there ain’t no such thing as free lunch” (hence our distrust of … utility of taxes and other government actions in the face of actual scarcity of resources), and so on. Even the liberals agree to many of these maxims. Our difference is that we conservatives keep these laws in mind, while liberals ignore them—or at least do their best to overcome them.
But what is not one of these natural laws is this: “those in power tends to stay in power.” A case in point: every empire eventually falls, if not by external threats, then by internal disintegration. Although conservatism is sometimes misunderstood as defense of the rich and the powerful, that is not the case: in the U.S. today, those who hold the most influence in the academia (university professors) and in the culture (Hollywood) are overwhelmingly liberal, not conservative. It is not even strictly defense of the corporations. Because corporations more often works by voluntary contracts than coercion (whereas with the government the opposite is true), conservatives hold more favorable view of corporations than government, but corporations themselves stand on the side of liberalism as often as they do on the side of conservatism. Just look at the current health care reform debate and how all the corporate players are for the admittedly liberal reform, even as conservatives vehemently oppose the bill.
I personally believe in conservatism because I am an individualist—I do not want to have anyone beholden to me, nor do I wish to be beholden to anyone else. Do some use conservatism simply to hold onto their power? Probably. But then, even though some use liberalism for their own selfish purposes, as in “something for nothing” welfare state, for the welfare recipients, or the monopolists whose monopoly depends on an enlarged government and its power, it would be dishonest for me to claim that that’s all that liberalism amounts to. Just as it is dishonest to claim that conservatism exists only “to maintain these chasms, and where possible to open them wider”.
I live a depressing life of a conservative, trapped in a liberal den: college—or, worse yet, UC Berkeley. I am occasionally delighted to find that some of the people closest to me share my conservative ideals and oppose collectivism in all its forms—including communism and the liberal fascism. But, more often, I am distressed that some people I care about are, well, liberals.
It is my hope that some of these people consider themselves liberals not willfully and consciously, but because they haven’t given the matter a good deal of thought—and because many people who had access to their malleable minds—i.e. teachers and professors—were liberals and didn’t have the sense not to corrupt the youth.
In this hope, I write here how I became a conservative. Perhaps some will see the validity of my point, and why, for the good of the greater whole, conservatism is a better philosophy than liberalism.
To be completely frank, I have not seriously considered my political identity until, well, until my junior or senior year in college. But I think a couple experiences in my youth laid the foundation for future decisions and thoughts. The first was a conversation with my youth pastor. It happened so long ago that all I remember now are, well, the conversation took place either when I was a sophomore or a junior in high school, and it took place when he was giving me a ride home from some church event. I don’t even remember why the topic came up, but he described the difference between Democrats and Republicans (and incidentally, why he’s a Republican): Democrats want to fix the society’s every problem with more government programs (and more taxes), and Republicans want to leave it to individuals (as well as their money). I don’t know if this made any sense to me back then, but this description—and it is a true description, I doubt even the hardcore liberal would dispute this characterization—was somehow impressed on my mind.
Then the other thing was the high school (well, it was AP) economics courses. I took both the microeconomics and macroeconomics. The one thing that laid the foundation for my conservative leaning was probably the effect of taxes covered in microeconomics course—how the tax, regardless of how it is levied, will be distributed according to elasticity of demand or supply curve, and how it will always result in dead weight, i.e. lost productivity. The macroeconomics course wasn’t so favorable to conservatives: it bashed Reagan’s supply-side economics and tax cuts as “Reaganomics” and offered very little criticism of Keynesians—not that I understand these topics fully now, given that I had no formal economics education since then.
Well, it looks like it will take rather long to finish this story, so I’ll just close for now with this thought: if you want to decide whether you are a conservative or a liberal, focus on this one issue: taxes. Are you willing to pay higher tax to benefit someone else—someone else that you do not know—or would you rather donate that same money to charity (or not at all)? If you choose the former, you may be a liberal. I would like to convince you that taxes are bad, even when the intentions are good, but, well, each to his own. If you choose the latter, you might be a conservative—please keep an open mind. Watch out for media and academic biases (these are fields that tilt heavily to the left, with notable exceptions like talk radio and some economists), trust your own logic above anything else, and verify all supposed facts with multiple sources.
Both words in the label “conservative pragmatist” are important. McDonnell is indisputably a conservative — a Reaganite whose social-conservative credentials are impeccable (just ask the Washington Post, which has been crusading against him for these views, expressed pungently in his long-ago graduate-school thesis). But he’s also a wonk who has focused on crafting policy to address the everyday concerns of Virginians.
There isn’t enough in this column to give me a good picture of what Mr. McDonnell believes in a host of issues (i.e. litmus test), but the word “social conservative” gives me a pause.
Given how … alienated they are, I would imagine it would be relatively easy for a demagogue to woo and win the Religious Right, the conservative flavor of statists. They are by no means friends to liberty (at least no more than liberal Democrats are) and I am afraid too many of them use the label “social conservative” to describe themselves.
It seems to me, if a conservative is stooping to a host of statist agenda (such as welfare and government subsidy of higher education), it sounds like it’s not pragmatism; it’s opportunism.
It’s pragmatism to give up hardened, illogical socially conservative positions—especially the ones, at the end of the day, have little to do with individual liberty of persons living in this country. It’s pragmatism to make occasional compromises for the greater good—such as when President Jefferson overstepped his presidential authority in allowing the negotiated terms of Louisiana purchase (more than what the Congress authorized, but still a bargain given how much land we got).
It’s opportunism when you sell liberty for political capital.
Update: Mrs. Palin endorses McDonnell, so he can’t be all that bad …
Update 2: he bothers me on some of the issues, such as the … micromanaging of education, but then, I guess as long as he’s focused on the economy, lowering of taxes, and getting the money out of the bureaucracy, there’s more I can support him on than be suspicious of him.
Shane Corsey lays out the case for what some may call “common sense conservatism”:
One of the reasons I am a proud conservative is because it comes closest to the belief of what our Founding Fathers had in mind for this country, and the values of that system give an equal shake to anyone who wishes to come here.
Unlike Mr. Corsey, I believe in God and I believe him to be something more than a mere Watchmaker. But he and I agree on the fundamentals: live and let live. Even the Bible agrees with this: “Ἀπόδοτε οὖν τὰ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι καὶ τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ τῷ Θεῷ” (and numerous other passages which espouse essentially the same idea: a Christian’s battle is spiritual and personal not worldly and political).
Some say conservatives should find a better name than “conservative”, because, well, in a twist of historical irony, it is the present-day conservatives who represent the classical liberals of the enlightenment era the best—I don’t think the Founding Fathers could even imagine the monstrosities present-day liberals concoct here and abroad daily.
In fact, some liberals exploit this apparent misrepresentation of labels by claiming that “liberal”, in essence, means “someone who advocates for change” and that “conservative”, in essence, means “someone who opposes change”. This is semantically correct, but in a political context, utterly inadequate—and misleading, as it deceives more people to declare themselves as “liberals” than they might have (everyone wants some sort of change in their lives), if they knew the true meaning of “liberal” and “conservative” in political context.
In the end, I like the name “conservative”, so I propose a counter definition, which, I hope, stays semantically correct and politically relevant. I would claim that a “liberal” is someone who either advocates changes for change’s sake or is unafraid of unintended consequences of changes he advocates. A “conservative”, on the other hand, is someone who would oppose new changes until it is proven to him that the change would be beneficial for him—or sufficiently beneficial for others that he cares about that he can accept the loss on his part.
The definition for “conservative” that I propose is also, I think, what some people might call “common sense conservative”. After all, if you gave someone (with common sense) above definitions for “liberal” and “conservative” and asked him to choose one or the other as description of himself, which one would he choose?