“The stupid party.”
John Stuart Mill.
Russell Kirk, author
of “The Conservative Mind," admitted there were
innumerable dull and slow-witted adherents of conservatism, which Edmund Burke likened
affectionately to cattle under a great oak ignoring the buzzing flies calling
for innovation. But the intellectual history of conservatism, from roughly 1790
onward, is a story of great and learned men who thought deeply about the nature
of God, man, and government. Conservatism is a coherent philosophy, a way of
life and thinking that, despite being instinctual for most, has led mankind to
the greatest happiness over the long course of history. Despite this truth, the
liberal axiom about conservatives is they are either a) Dumb, a collection of poorly-educated,
superstitious, rigid, and boring people, b) Despite conservatism’s complete
disconnectedness from race, adherents are, nonetheless, largely white, and hate
brown people, and c) Evil, sometimes brilliant Machiavellis in the vein of Richard
Nixon.
Tragically, our current political labels have been so thoroughly
twisted and abused, they function more to blur and obfuscate than explain. They
serve political purposes, not linguistic ones. Part of the confusion is that the thing American conservatives are trying to conserve is classical liberalism. American conservatives are sort of a hybrid of the two great ways. How so? First, we must understand classical
conservatism, and hopefully, boiling down 429 pages of Kirk’s
genius into two will not overly dilute the Great Idea.
Abraham Lincoln once quipped, “What is conservatism? Is it
not the tried and true against the new and untried?” It is that but more. Kirk proposes
six canons of conservative thought:
1. Belief that a divine intent rules society. Kirk
writes, “Politics is the art of apprehending and applying the Justice which is
above nature.” The society we live in has been fashioned over time through
Providence. God has created an order, and to blow it up for the purpose of
experiment and faddish innovation, is to challenge the will of God. Successful
governance relies on a cosmic humility, and conservatives accept the mystery
behind life as it is. “…there are great forces in heaven and earth that man’s
philosophy cannot fathom or plum,” says Keith Feiling.
2.
We are lovers of variety and personal freedom. Conservatism
is enjoyment of life as it is. It contends against the forces of uniformity and
equalitarianism. The word “unity” induces terror. “The people?” Rousseau’s
“collective will?” No such things, only individuals, fearfully and wonderfully
made in the image of God, with unique dreams and goals. Are Americans as one? Are
Africans? Are the desires of the Masai bushman the same as the strongman in
Zimbabwe or the civil engineer in Kinshasa? Conservatism is independence,
freedom, and paradoxically, alongside the stuffiness and conformity sometimes
displayed by we who love order, eccentricity. The messiness of capitalism lives
inside this concept. Woodrow Wilson dreamed of society as a hive, bees buzzing
around in orderly fashion according to complex rules and plans designed by “the
experts.” To a conservative, however, this conjures images of cattle herded through
chutes by the electric prods of bureaucracy.
3.
Civilized society requires orders and classes.
Inequality itself is neither good, nor bad. Kirk writes, “The only true
equality is moral equality; all other attempts at levelling lead to despair.”
Society will have its leaders. Better they be chosen by ability, by education,
and natural talent. Conservatives like Alexis DeToqueville gave full-throated
defenses of aristocracy. They defended monarchy and titles. Burke and others,
however, recognized the flaws in inherited nobility. Burke loved the
responsibilities and demands aristocracy placed on elites to care for and
protect their lieges but hated the incompetency and corruption that inherited
or titled aristocracy often led to. Hence, Burke emphasized a “natural
aristocracy” built on merit. Greater privileges for the talented did not offend
Burke, and he saw failure as inevitable if positions are filled based on
identity. Undeniably, chattel slavery fits within the conservative tradition, but
I would ask, why would this particular form of bondage be considered so vile
while the enslaving of an entire civilization under Communism, which fits
squarely inside the Progressive tradition, be considered acceptable? It seems that decent people recognize both as
unmitigated evils.
4.
Freedom cannot exist without property rights. Property
rights undergird and support all others. Destroy this right, or merely whittle it
away, and there is nothing government cannot take from a citizen. Shall not people
benefit from the fruits of their own labors? If you cannot keep what you earn
or benefit your family and leave the results of your toils to your children,
what is the incentive to work or advance the cause of society at all? Ever
present in conservatives’ minds is the “Tragedy of the Commons,” the observed
phenomenon that when all are responsible for something, the result is rank
neglect. Private land is almost always better managed than government land, and
is it not self-evident that unearned wealth, be it through legislated redistribution,
lottery, or inheritance, is not appreciated as much as what was earned?
5.
Human sin is real. The failures of mankind lie not
in ignorance or institutions but the structures of the human heart. Liberals
must answer the question posed by St. Paul: “Why do I do what I do not want to
do, and do not do what I want to do?” In
summarizing Nathaniel Hawthorne, Kirk writes, “…the real enemy of mankind is
not social institution, but the devil within us…Man may diminish the influence
of original sin, but this struggle requires nearly his undivided attention…Only
one species of reform really is worth attempting: reform of conscience.” The
Bible says the human heart is “wicked.” John Adams claimed the reason man
cannot rule himself is not wickedness per se, but weakness. Potato, po-tah-to. It seems blindingly obvious to conservatives
that amongst the many happy and generous thoughts in the human race, lay fear
and selfishness, and we must control our appetites, for man is ruled more by
emotion than reason.
6.
We are skeptical of innovation. “Change is not
reform,” noted John Randolph. Change must happen, of course, for reform is the
very mechanism by which the body politick preserves its lifeblood. Neoterists, however—lovers
of change for its own sake—do little but set fires to haystacks. Peace and
prosperity are unnatural, and conservatism protects and preserves the good. The
most dangerous species is the Technocrat, the compulsive tinkerer who
experiments blithely with the lives of real humans. Kirk expends great energy
railing against Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarianism, the belief that society can be
scientifically managed, that everything can be broken into parts, sifted,
measured, and rearranged like blocks to create something functional. To a
conservative, society is a living organism, and Benthamites would sooner take
the legs off to see if they work better as arms. Utilitarianism is the enemy of
the good, the true, and the beautiful, and if conservatives are for anything at
all, it is those things; They have been available to man since he left the
garden. Goethe said the thing revolutionaries love most is their own ideas. But
if you examine history, you will find all their bright and shiny ideas, already
having been tried, and already having failed. All is vanity. There is nothing
new under the sun.
Next time, I will explore how American conservatives depart from their classical brothers and how the various branches and eddies of modern conservatism have shaped the American right of the last century.
BTW, it is impossible to overstate how stupendous is "The Conservative Mind," a truly remarkable, expansive, and beautifully written work.
