Is Conservatism just NeoTraditionalism these days?

[Harbal]

I am truly sad to find myself "disgarceful" to you. I will, henceforth, be more "garceful" as often as I can.

Oxford English Dictionary - Disgarceful: like "disgraceful", but worse.

As I say, I will try to comport myself with more "garce." As soon as I know what it is.

We'll see.

[Gary Childress]

But "Socialism-from-above" is all they ever get! And that's the important question we cannot dodge: why does Socialism-from-below always turn out to be dictatorship from above?

And since it does, what sense does it make to advocate something that has abundantly proved itself to be nothing but the straight road to failure, tyranny, murder and economic ruin?

As I explained above, the same thing happens with any kind of market.

It doesn't. Is your America a Socialist dictatorship-from-above? If you think it is, you'll have to explain that to me, somehow. I don't see it. It looks like a republic, with democratic institutions...albeit a flawed one. Explain why you think it's "the same thing" as dictatorship.

Some will do better than others. I'm sorry you don't like my answer, however, that is pretty much a blatant truth of economics.

Who said I don't like that answer? I think it's realistic, whether we like it or not. But under Socialism, NOBODY but the dictator and his cronies does "better." So again, why would you and I want that?

I'm not saying it's the same as "dictatorship" (or perhaps 'tyranny' is more the word). I'm simply saying that there is always hierarchy or difference in outcome. That was the original point being discussed in the "from above" comment I had assumed. No one wants tyranny except if it's their own, I suppose.

[Immanuel Can]

Oxford English Dictionary - Disgarceful: like "disgraceful", but worse.

As I say, I will try to comport myself with more "garce." As soon as I know what it is.

We'll see.

Don't hold your breath. I kind of like you, and don't want too see you turn blue and pass out.

[Skepdick]

Statistical variance is the same thing as freedom.

No, actually, it isn't at all. We don't even know if statistics have a relationship to human behaviour. You're mistaking a numerical generalization for an explanation of the volitional freedom of individuals. Statistics only tell us about averages, not outliers, which by definition "outlie" the predictions of statistics.

What would you like for dinner? Chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken or chicken? That's zero variance.

How much freedom would you say you have?

[Impenitent]

off the top of my head: fried, baked, barbeque, soup, a la king, a la orange, General Tso...

you can make chicken hundreds of ways

freedom is a tricky thing

-Imp

[Immanuel Can]

Statistical variance is the same thing as freedom.

No, actually, it isn't at all. We don't even know if statistics have a relationship to human behaviour. You're mistaking a numerical generalization for an explanation of the volitional freedom of individuals. Statistics only tell us about averages, not outliers, which by definition "outlie" the predictions of statistics.

What would you like for dinner? Chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken or chicken? That's zero variance.

How much freedom would you say you have?

I confess that the indirectness of the analogy you seem to have in mind defeats me. I don't at all understand the point you're aiming at.

I have lots of freedom. And chicken is a boring meat. I'll take steak.

[Consul]

True conservativism recognizes that the blueprint of humanity is etched in stone.
Our firmware is burnt into its chips. It is immutable. The degree of freedom that it affords, is much smaller than what is possible in the fantasy of liberals.

"Conservatives believe that human beings are essentially limited and security-seeking creatures, drawn to the known, the familiar, the tried and tested. Human rationality is unreliable, and moral corruption is implicit in each human individual. Neoliberals nevertheless embrace a form of self-seeking individualism."

(Heywood, Andrew. Political Ideologies: An Introduction. 7th ed. London: Red Globe/Macmillan, 2021. p. 56)

"In many ways, conservatism is a ‘philosophy of human imperfection’ (O’Sullivan, 1976). Other ideologies assume that human beings are naturally ‘good’, or that they can be made ‘good’ if their social circumstances are improved. In their most extreme form, such beliefs are utopian and envisage the perfectibility of humankind in an ideal society. Conservatives dismiss these ideas as, at best, idealistic dreams, and argue instead that human beings are both imperfect and unperfectible.

Human imperfection is understood in several ways. In the first place, human beings are thought to be psychologically limited and dependent creatures. In the view of conservatives, people fear isolation and instability. They are drawn psychologically to the safe and the familiar, and, above all, seek the security of knowing ‘their place’. Such a portrait of human nature is very different from the image of individuals as self-reliant, enterprising ‘utility maximizers’ proposed by early liberals. The belief that people desire security and belonging has led conservatives to emphasize the importance of social order, and to be suspicious of the attractions of liberty. Order ensures that human life is stable and predictable; it provides security in an uncertain world. Liberty, on the other hand, presents individuals with choices and can generate change and uncertainty. Conservatives have often echoed the views of Thomas Hobbes in being prepared to sacrifice liberty in the cause of social order.

Whereas other political philosophies trace the origins of immoral or criminal behaviour to society, conservatives believe it is rooted in the individual. Human beings are thought to be morally imperfect. Conservatives hold a pessimistic, even Hobbesian, view of human nature. Humankind is innately selfish and greedy, anything but perfectible; as Hobbes put it, the desire for ‘power after power’ is the primary human urge. Some conservatives explain this by reference to the Old Testament doctrine of ‘original sin’. Crime is therefore not a product of inequality or social disadvantage, as socialists and modern liberals tend to believe; rather, it is a consequence of base human instincts and appetites. People can only be persuaded to behave in a civilized fashion if they are deterred from expressing their violent and anti-social impulses. And the only effective deterrent is law, backed up by the knowledge that it will be strictly enforced. This explains the conservative preference for strong government and for ‘tough’ criminal justice regimes, based, often, on long prison sentences and the use of corporal or even capital punishment. For conservatives, the role of law is not to uphold liberty, but to preserve order. The concepts of ‘law’ and ‘order’ are so closely related in the conservative mind that they have almost become a single, fused concept.

Humankind’s intellectual powers are also thought to be limited. Conservatives have traditionally believed that the world is simply too complicated for human reason to grasp fully. The political world, as Michael Oakeshott put it, is ‘boundless and bottomless’. Conservatives are therefore suspicious of abstract ideas and systems of thought that claim to understand what is, they argue, simply incomprehensible. They prefer to ground their ideas in tradition, experience and history, adopting a cautious, moderate and above all pragmatic approach to the world, and avoiding, if at all possible, doctrinaire or dogmatic beliefs. High-sounding political principles such as the ‘rights of man’, ‘equality’ and ‘social justice’ are fraught with danger because they provide a blueprint for the reform or remodelling of the world. Reform and revolution, conservatives warn, often lead to greater suffering rather than less. For a conservative, to do nothing may be preferable to doing something, and a conservative will always wish to ensure, in Oakeshott’s words, that ‘the cure is not worse than the disease’. Nevertheless, conservative support for both traditionalism and pragmatism has weakened as a result of the rise of neoliberalism. In the first place, neoliberalism is radical, in that it has sought to advance free-market reforms by dismantling inherited welfarist and interventionist structures. Second, neoliberal radicalism is based on rationalism and a commitment to abstract theories and principles, notably those associated with economic liberalism."

(Heywood, Andrew. Political Ideologies: An Introduction. 7th ed. London: Red Globe/Macmillan, 2021. pp. 54-5)

[Consul]

The origin of the terms "left" and "right" goes back to the French Revolution where the French national assembly split their chamber up so as to minimize squabbling between individuals on the floor, keeping the groups separate. All those in favor of the monarchy sat on the right side and those opposed to the monarchy sat on the left. Of course, in the Western Hemisphere there aren't much in the way of true monarchies anymore, so now people split over a myriad of other things.

Yes…

"The modern use of the term ‘left’ derives from the French Estates General of 1789, when the nobility sat on the king’s right, and the ‘third estate’ on his left. It might have been the other way round. Indeed, it was the other way round for everyone but the king."

(Scruton, Roger. Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left. London: Bloomsbury, 2015. p. 1)

So, originally, who was "left" and who was "right" was just a matter of perspective.

[Gary Childress]

The origin of the terms "left" and "right" goes back to the French Revolution where the French national assembly split their chamber up so as to minimize squabbling between individuals on the floor, keeping the groups separate. All those in favor of the monarchy sat on the right side and those opposed to the monarchy sat on the left. Of course, in the Western Hemisphere there aren't much in the way of true monarchies anymore, so now people split over a myriad of other things.

Yes…

"The modern use of the term ‘left’ derives from the French Estates General of 1789, when the nobility sat on the king’s right, and the ‘third estate’ on his left. It might have been the other way round. Indeed, it was the other way round for everyone but the king."

(Scruton, Roger. Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left. London: Bloomsbury, 2015. p. 1)

So, originally, who was "left" and who was "right" was just a matter of perspective.

What do you mean? From what I understand those who sat on the left supported the concerns of the commoners and those who sat on the right supported the monarchy. Is Sir Roger Scruton in disagreement with that? Or what is meant by "it might have been the other way around"?

[Consul]

"The modern use of the term ‘left’ derives from the French Estates General of 1789, when the nobility sat on the king’s right, and the ‘third estate’ on his left. It might have been the other way round. Indeed, it was the other way round for everyone but the king."

(Scruton, Roger. Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left. London: Bloomsbury, 2015. p. 1)

So, originally, who was "left" and who was "right" was just a matter of perspective.

What do you mean? From what I understand those who sat on the left supported the concerns of the commoners and those who sat on the right supported the monarchy. Is Sir Roger Scruton in disagreement with that? Or what is meant by "it might have been the other way around"?

It is meant that the nobility might have sat on the king's left and the commonalty on his right. From the king's actual perspective the representatives of the nobility were the political right and the ones of the commonalty the political left, but from the perspective of those facing the king it was the other way round. The latter is the perspective in the following picture, where you see the nobility on the left and the commonalty on the right:

[Gary Childress]

So, originally, who was "left" and who was "right" was just a matter of perspective.

What do you mean? From what I understand those who sat on the left supported the concerns of the commoners and those who sat on the right supported the monarchy. Is Sir Roger Scruton in disagreement with that? Or what is meant by "it might have been the other way around"?

It is meant that the nobility might have sat on the king's left and the commonalty on his right. From the king's actual perspective the representatives of the nobility were the political right and the ones of the commonalty the political left, but from the perspective of those facing the king it was the other way round. The latter is the perspective in the following picture, where you see the nobility on the left and the commonalty on the right:

OK. So I guess had the opposite been true, the nobility would still be supported by supporters of the nobility and the common people would still be supported by supporters of common people, they would just be called "left" and right" respectively instead of "right and left". Or is that supposed to have some other implication?

[Consul]

OK. So I guess had the opposite been true, the nobility would still be supported by supporters of the nobility and the common people would still be supported by supporters of common people, they would just be called "left" and right" respectively instead of "right and left".

Correct.

Or is that supposed to have some other implication?

No.

[Gary Childress]

OK. So I guess had the opposite been true, the nobility would still be supported by supporters of the nobility and the common people would still be supported by supporters of common people, they would just be called "left" and right" respectively instead of "right and left".

Correct.

Or is that supposed to have some other implication?

No.

OK. I agree to that.

[FlashDangerpants]

Who at this site are we supposed to consider a Conservative these days? I don't really see any.

The central thesis of Conservatism - as I always understood it anyway - has been that our traditions and customs are not to be discarded without a care as though they never brought any value. Rather customs and traditions represent the distilled wisdom of the ages and ought to be treated with a modicum of respect and subjected only to well thought out reasonably paced reform.

Thanks for this thoughtful summary.

This is quite a fair way to put the case for conservatism, relatively speaking. One caveat, maybe: it's not that "customs and tradition" are valued because they're old, but because time tends to act as a kind of 'filter,' in which weak and foolish ideas tend to get syphoned out more readily than strong and practical ideas. A conservative believes, for example, that Socrates or Shakespeare can tell us things that matter today; so anytime a new program of reform is proposed, conservatives tend to ask, "How does this fit in with the concepts and ideas that have already proved their durability, practicality and general worth?"

So conservatism isn't really a creed as such; it is rather an impulse to check the past for wisdom, rather than to rush blindly into some proposed "future" that may or may not be good. So the using of the capital "C" implies something that the conservative disposition does not actually represent. It's not an ideological package of some sort: in reality, it's a disposition toward the past, just as you've noted...and today's liberal becomes tomorrow's conservative, unless he/she is committed to the kind of radical past-rejection that typifies ideological Leftism.

Now, there may be such a thing as large-C "Conservatism." But if there is any such, it's manifestly an extreme that, in practice, is rarely found. The Left, however, seems to project its own ideological structure onto conservative voices, and to assume that underneath the reluctance to throw away everything from the past is a sinister desire to maintain the "structures of power" of the present. This is generally not the case among conservatives, as you note: they really tend to be fine with a "reasonably-paced reform," as you so aptly put it.

It seems we're unusually agreeable thus far. I would say that there's fairly widespread use of the term with a big C and I would say that if we wish to have monolithic terms such as "Liberalism", "The Left" and so on, then "Conservatism" should probably qualify with a similar set of caveats to those others. I don't detect excesssive caution in your use of one of those particular terms.

And in this, it differs quite radically from Leftism. Leftism rejects the past wholesale. It views the past as inevitably flawed, oppressive and regressive, and advocates an unstopping process of perpetual "revolutions." It rushes headlong into a perceived "future" that does not ever come, but does so by a kind of trusting of (large-H) "History," meaning a kind of god-substitute. This "History" is blithely assumed, by Leftism, to be heading inevitably in a direction known only to Leftists (such as "the just society," "the end of History," or "the triumph of the proletariat," to use their terms); so all they feel they have to do is trust the process of History, and things will work out as they ought.

I think you are overlooking some stuff there. Certainly it is for radicals (left/right, doesn't really matter) to try and bend history into a deterministic pattern, and apply the Procrustean forces that requires.But Conservatives aren't at some opposite end of the spectrum here, they just like their beer a little weaker. Instead of the historical science that Marxists adore, Conservatives tend more towards such explanations of historical tendency as Manifest Destiny, Protestant Work Ethic, perhaps with a little dash of the Invisible Hand of the markets. Liberals originally would have laid claim to that last one, and really it was Thatcher and Reagan who might be said to have pinched it from them, so I will take that one back to my team if you aren't into Adam Smith. After all, nobody is really free of the whole directional history deal, it's more a matter of degree.

...the whole value comes from a process of very slow evolution over long periods of time during which the collection of beneficial traditions happened by accident as people, now long dead, discovered without the need for any big plan to do so (big plans to do such things being the work of Radicals not Conservatives). It is supposed to age like a fine wine.

Not quite.

Unlike the Left, the conservatives do not have a blithe trust in some "History" to get things right. Things don't "age like fine wine." Rather, conservatives tend to believe that things have to be managed, and managed deliberately, cautiously and progressively, rather than radically and violently overthrown. The tendency among conservatives is also to point to the failures of history, not just the successes, and to point out that radical, violent change (think the French Revolution, for example) rarely turns out well, because people are fallible, foolish and flawed on many occasions. And this is why conservatism also places such emphasis on things like rights, constitutions, checks-and-balances, logic, rationality, scientific testing, historical knowledge, plain language, and so forth...these are assumed by conservatives to offer some bulwark against foolish, radical impulses that are so prevalent in mankind and so evident in history. (You'll also note that these same things -- rights, constitutions, checks-and-balances, logic, rationality, scientific testing, historical knowledge, plain language -- are all under vigorous seige by the Left today, which proclaims them the false tools of the "oppressors," and instructs us to be very ready to dismiss them all).

rights, constitutions, checks-and-balances ... those were radical ideas when created, opposed by traditionalists who were largely monarchists who saw their Kings as rulers by divine right as was his role prescribed within the traditional notion of the Great chain of being. It would take generations, civil wars and large amounts of bloodshed for the traditionalists to accept a notion such as a constitution with checks and balances. Multiple kings got their heads chopped off for that stuff.

Now technically we could perhaps see precursors to those ideas you list in the Mediaeval period. The excommunication of Henry IV, Magna Carta, and the restriction of the right of king to raise taxes in support of wars can all be seen as sort of Conservative rebellions in that they reinforced existing rights for privileged groups (1st and 2nd Estates by and large), but in general your list there is something of a reach IMO.

More latterly though, I would agree that modern Conservatives would be expected to have the highest regard for institutions that check the power of the excutive and so on. Mike Pence for instance is about as Conservative as any man alive, in all probability he nears the logical maximum, I fear that anybody who finds a way to have less personality than he does would no longer qualify as alive. When he refused to claim radical new powers in order to overthrow the biggest of all checks and balances (an election) he was probably being one of the most Conservative persons ever to not wear a crown. The people who attempted to thrust such power onto him were, by contrast, revolutionaries. Alhtough hardly of "The Left", you should take care not have such an obvious blind spot over your right shoulder.

The Conservatives on this site don't match that description at all. They mostly want to roll back the clock a really long way, like they don't seem to have noticed how long ago the 1950s actually were.

This is probably the first moment when I see something actually not quite right in your summary. There may be some people who long for the '50s, but I think they're the same people who have forgotten history and become naively nostalgic. They're not really manifesting the conservative disposition, because that dispostion emphasizes the proper knowing and sifting of the past. That's exactly what the '50s dreamers do not do. Their "conservatism," if any they have, is of an unthinking and unserious kind.

Yeah, I see Wizzy calling himself a Conservative and it makes me throw up a little as well.

But here we come to another reason that conservatism is harder to pin down than Leftism: conservatives, not being ideologically driven but rather committed (for different reasons, perhaps) to a general impulse toward the sifting of the past for wisdom and the controlled progressing of the present, do not form a single ideological group. It's not like the Left, which can trace its entire pattern of thinking back to people like Marcuse and Gramsci, or beyond them to Marx or Nietzsche, and to their founding manifestos. Being an impulse rather than an ideology, conservatives do not mass and mob with the same sort of alacrity that one finds in the Left. Even the most radical "Conservatives" only manage to form small groups, because the interests within the broad scope of conservatism are too diverse, and there is no single ideological package to pull them all together.

Again with that blind spot. There are radicals who stand against Conservatism who aren't The Left, in fact they hate The Left and consider themselves Conservatives. But you just sort of refuse to see them.

For example, my conservatism is confessedly "relgious" in nature: I'm a conservative person because I believe in the Biblical account of human nature and the purpose of things. But many conservative persons are totally unreligious, so their motives are not the same. One might say that Randians, Libertarians, free-marketers, antiquarians, cultural traditionalists, scientists, logicians, nationalists, and so on are all "conservative" in their orientation: but one could hardly say any of them is motivated by "religious" considerations. So there's no pinning the motives of conservatives to one set of simple things, really...everybody within that broad category tends to have his/her own reasons, and to be much more slow than the Left ever is to risk combining these disparate motives into one political movement, and thus of failing properly to "conserve" their own particular concern.

So yes, conservatives are harder to locate. No manifesto, only a rather general and foggy ideological basis (you mentioned Burke and Thatcher, but they are very different individuals, obviously, and neither really consolidated a "large-C" Conservatism out of anything), no central authority, no organizing principle, and only a sort of desire to preserve different aspects of the past tie them together at all. The Left is far easier to trace, because it's really only the Left that is committed to a single core ideology, rather than to a mere general impulse.

So far, so good?

Not terrible.

[Immanuel Can]

I would say that there's fairly widespread use of the term with a big C and I would say that if we wish to have monolithic terms such as "Liberalism", "The Left" and so on, then "Conservatism" should probably qualify with a similar set of caveats to those others.

I don't think so, and I did say why. The Left has a particular, identifiable set of ideological derivations and theories. They've got their Marx, their Foucault, their Gramsci, their Freire, etc., all penning manifestos of what kind of Socialism they aim to create.

Conservatism, by contrast, is a sort of general impulse that binds widely disparate groups together, and has no central ideological commitments. They have no singular manifestos, and for anybody one might name as the progenitor of conservatism, one would find most of the field would disagree with that. Conservatism's just a kind of "mood" or "impulse" to preserve some legacy but it's a little thin on saying what the specific legacy is that should be "conserved." With regard to content, it's highly variable, actually.

That also explains why rounding up any single "conservative movement" is like trying to herd cats. They're not naturally inclined to stick together at all. But Socialism seems to be the glue that keeps the Left a monolythic ideological entity.

Instead of the historical science that Marxists adore, Conservatives tend more towards such explanations of historical tendency as Manifest Destiny, Protestant Work Ethic, perhaps with a little dash of the Invisible Hand of the markets.

I don't think they really do. "Manifest Destiny" is an ideological curiosity very peculiar to America, not to conservatives. The Protestant work ethic is actually a construct of Weber, which he premises on a minority religious position known as "Calvinism," and not even most Christians are Calvinists: secular conservatives are certainly not. And the idea of that the market has an "Invisible Hand" is a weird one from Adam Smith. A person could easily be a conservative while believing in none of these things at all. That's what I mean about "herding cats."

Not quite.

Unlike the Left, the conservatives do not have a blithe trust in some "History" to get things right. Things don't "age like fine wine." Rather, conservatives tend to believe that things have to be managed, and managed deliberately, cautiously and progressively, rather than radically and violently overthrown. The tendency among conservatives is also to point to the failures of history, not just the successes, and to point out that radical, violent change (think the French Revolution, for example) rarely turns out well, because people are fallible, foolish and flawed on many occasions. And this is why conservatism also places such emphasis on things like rights, constitutions, checks-and-balances, logic, rationality, scientific testing, historical knowledge, plain language, and so forth...these are assumed by conservatives to offer some bulwark against foolish, radical impulses that are so prevalent in mankind and so evident in history. (You'll also note that these same things -- rights, constitutions, checks-and-balances, logic, rationality, scientific testing, historical knowledge, plain language -- are all under vigorous seige by the Left today, which proclaims them the false tools of the "oppressors," and instructs us to be very ready to dismiss them all).

rights, constitutions, checks-and-balances ... those were radical ideas when created,

Yes, they were. And I have pointed out, to Gary in particular, that the terms "right" and "left" politically are not the same as during the monarchist era. They've moved considerably. Nowadays, "Left" means Socialistic, and "right" means a huge spectrum running from the center of what used to be called "liberalism" (i.e. classical liberalism) all the way to radical nationalism and such, and catching up everything in between.

Cats again.

More latterly though, I would agree that modern Conservatives would be expected to have the highest regard for institutions that check the power of the excutive and so on.

Well, they're not keen on institutions, and tend to have less belief in the intrinsic goodness of government than the Left does, for sure. But I would argue this stems from them tending to have a more realistic and less naive view of basic human nature, and a stronger belief in personal liberties than in the possibilities of human social engineering.

But here we come to another reason that conservatism is harder to pin down than Leftism: conservatives, not being ideologically driven but rather committed (for different reasons, perhaps) to a general impulse toward the sifting of the past for wisdom and the controlled progressing of the present, do not form a single ideological group. It's not like the Left, which can trace its entire pattern of thinking back to people like Marcuse and Gramsci, or beyond them to Marx or Nietzsche, and to their founding manifestos. Being an impulse rather than an ideology, conservatives do not mass and mob with the same sort of alacrity that one finds in the Left. Even the most radical "Conservatives" only manage to form small groups, because the interests within the broad scope of conservatism are too diverse, and there is no single ideological package to pull them all together.

There are radicals who stand against Conservatism who aren't The Left, in fact they hate The Left and consider themselves Conservatives.

Of whom are you thinking?

Not terrible.

Good. I'm gratified we're finding grounds for a pleasant, civil conversation on this particular issue. It's very nice.