Notes on Ball & Dagger text, Chapter 4:  Conservatism

INTRODUCTION TO / OVERVIEW OF CONSERVATISM

Conservatism is another "deep current" of our politics.  Like Classical Liberalism, it comes out of a basic impulse — in its case, for stability of present (or lost) forms of life.

Like "liberalism", the term "conservatism" is confusing because of the number of specific beliefs associated with the term and also because of the term's many cognates:

• conservationist
• conservator (preserves the old for show & edification)
• classical (Burkean) conservative
• neoconservative (tax cuts, social conservatism [esp. re. welfare], national interest-oriented foreign policy)
• reactionary conservative
• modern conservative

According to the Ball & Dagger text, there are three major types of conservatism.   We will take a day or two for each one. Here they are:

• reactionary conservatism  [de Maistre]:  emphasizes a return to the previous (monarchical) regime;  emphasizes "the nation", which is assumed to exist and to be good and to which people are subordinated;  a "reaction" to the French Revolution.  De Maistre, at least, repeatedly commits the naturalistic fallacy by assuming that what has (factually) existed previously ought (normatively) to exist in the future.  [I don't consider de Maistre a conservative;  his philosophy belongs more properly under "fascism" — which, if I were a conservative, I would be reluctant to claim.  Conservatives have much better developed and more defensible ideas than the fascists.]
• "Burkean" or "classical" conservatism  [Edmund Burke]:  emphasizes organic growth of society and the inadequacy of Reason in understanding it and particularly in radically altering it.  ("Reason" led immediately to "Classical Liberalism".)  It emphasizes people's embeddedness in a social framework.  Leadership by "natural aristocracy" (which looks suspiciously like an alliance between the hereditary aristocracy and the wealthy).  "Art is man's nature" — meaning that human beings have no "inherent" nature, as the classical liberals seem to be saying, but rather are the products of their society.  This does not make existing society absolute, however.
• modern / individualist conservatism [Margaret Thatcher;  Jacquetta Hawkes]:  classical liberals emphasize the individual actor with rights protected by government — a minimal government, to minimize intrusions or potential intrusions of the government on the fundamental rights of life, liberty, and property.

And here is a table listing what I see as some specific political goals that the three strands of conservatism share (more or less):

I believe, however, that the similarities among these three are illusory, and that only classical conservatism is true conservatism.  I believe this because I see reactionary conservatism as essentially fascist — a very different animal —, and modern conservatism as essentially classical liberal.  They have become lumped together because they share certain political goals, but their philosophical bases are quite distinct.  Here is a table listing what I see as their distinctions:

Let me point out directly that while Burkean conservatives and modern conservatives both want to preserve a system of private property, their justifications for this are quite different and can lead them into conflict.  Burkean conservatives want a system of private property because it gives stability to the community;  having property (e.g., owning a home or a business) gives people a stake in the community.  However, modern conservatives want a system of private property but focus more on the free market that can arise from that, not on the property itself.  They justify this in terms of freedom and growth, so that people have a stake not so much in society as it exists but rather in the possibility of making one's fortune.  They are willing to accept rapid growth and great social disruption as a consequence.

This tension is found in the readings, with James Madison giving a Burkean justification for the Federal Constitution and Jacquetta Hawkes giving a justification for free market principles.

Burke:  Whigs in the United States.  In England, "old Whigs" vs. "new Whigs".  French Revolution.

Potential quiz questions:

• Name & briefly define any one of (what the text sees as) the central tenets of conservatism.

Thought questions:

• In which of the three camps of conservatism would you place members of the so-called "religious right"?

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