Since the Tories have been in power in the UK (albeit in a coalition), I have been wondering about conservatism. If I look it up on the exceptionally academic website Wikipedia, I get a load of stuff about preservation of tradition and slow change. But in practice what I see of conservatism is best summed up in Family Guy when the leader of the Young Republican Club says ‘We help those who already have the means to help themselves’.
Now, I’m not looking for a load of political opinions (this is right, that is wrong). What I would like to know is what actually is conservatism? How is the modern-day Conservative party of the UK related to Edmund Burke’s original philosophies, for example? Why do conservatives (not necessarily British ones) believe what they do?
England is an interesting case-study because the pre-existing higher classes adopted capitalism fairly early on, as opposed to countries on the Continent where the landed nobility tended to fight against capitalism. This is in part due to the fact that England has a long and awkward relationship with the concept of Divine Right, so the upper classes need some other justification for their place in the world. Free-market capitalism offers a great way to do that, since there is a great degree of theoretical social mobility (which reduces societal strain) coupled with actual constraints (such as the class an individual is born to). This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that is great for those in power. The biggest line from Burke to now is Burke’s notions on property. Basically, our value lies in our property and our ability to hold property ought be unrestricted. Which basically boils down to the notion that it is OK to own people, either directly or indirectly because the inability to own people would be an infringement on the most essential right (to own property) of the most essential class (those with the most property).
As for what conservatives are. The problem with that or many political words is who you ask. An anti-conservative will say what Chris said, a conservative in America might say they just want to preserve the values of the american dream. But then what is actually going on varies on the person, some might be conservative in the good way… but then it seems there are those who in preserving the old ways want to preserve things that are silly, outdated, or rather simply not good… So if one is a conservative about everything that would be a bad thing, because then they would want everything good and bad to be conserved…same goes with liberal a perfect complete liberal would be bad if they wanted people to be free to do anything as that would mean that those who didn’t want freedom would be free to prevent freedom… So i would think it is best to be conservative on some things and liberal on others, and to say it is blanket bad one way or another is silly.
So in reality one might call many of the ultra right wingers of America, for example, constitutionally-lowtax-conservative corporate-liberals… or something…
This has nothing to do with reality whatsoever. The idea of what it means to be a conservative has nothing to with liberals at all and never did. Many Americans who call themselves “conservative” these days have no concept of what it means to harness resources and shepherd them conservatively. In fact, the ones who claim the conservative brand are the very people responsible for looting the treasury and other financial safety nets while at the same time spending vast amounts of phantom money which has driven the economy to ruin, put millions out of work, and forced us into a debt based system that simply cannot work.
I expect the rightwingers are now beginning to see the fruits of their mighty labors to impoverish the masses and put them in their place as people becoming more and more desperate and hopeless grow in number to a critical mass such that tensions are easily ignited. What class based violence ensues might well be determined by how the conservative right reacts. If it turns out to be more than the police state against the people, it will turn into a widespread conflagration of cities in turmoil and chaos as rightwingers with the mindset of someone like Breivik decide to join the fray to “help” the police. This is going to be a very bad business, that’s for sure.
But yeah the idea of conservative has been lost, it would have originally been more about ‘efficiency’ or prevention of loss of energy (not just electricity) technically they should be the one’s saying that it is bad to do too much cutting of forests, or too much use of energy, or too much use of gas, or to turn the lights out at night, and so on…But rather their the ones who while claiming we shouldn’t be spending government money want us all to keep wasting the resouces of planet earth and are thus effectively taking away the livable conditions away from future generations.
exactly it has become a meaningless word due to over use by so many variants. That yet still hold seeming meaning to some enough so to manipulate the views of some I guess…
OK, so the label conservatism has become too broad to really mean anything concrete. There are some hints above as to what it was or ought to be. Can we expand on some of these? There’s the idea of conserving (sounds more like conservationists) - is this from Burke? The conserving tradition is possibly the core - but it’s always sounded to me (as someone unfamiliar with conservatism) that the only thing being conserved is the social order - old boy’s network at the top, everyone else down below. Surely it can’t be as simple as that, can it?
I haven’t the faintest idea to be honest. I can picture Meg walking into the Young Republicans’ Club at school, but after that I start to confuse it with the lesbian group she hangs out with in one episode. The quote, however, stuck, as it’s a gem.
