On conservatism
Oct. 18th, 2008 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerI lifted this quote from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bayushisan, commenting in filkertom's journal, as being as close as I've seen to a broad statement of what conservatism ought to be:
Most conservatives simply want the government to leave them alone and let them live their lives, so long as no one is hurting anyone. They tend toward approving of smaller government and want everyone to be free to pursue success beyond their wildest imaginations.
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Wanting the government to leave you alone and let you live your life is a harmless and understandable desire, and I can see the logic in it. Nobody likes to be interfered with by meddling, uninformed bureaucrats hired at vast expense to the taxpayer (that's you) to tell you how to run your farm or bring up your kids. After all, you're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself.
This may be true, but it ignores the possibility of the existence of large numbers of people who for good and sufficient reasons can't take care of themselves. In wanting smaller government, the conservative wants to leave these people, as well as himself, without support. There are various justifications for this: the job of helping people ought to be given to private concerns who can make a profit out of it; people who need help should pull their socks up, get on their bikes, follow their bliss and jolly well make a go of it; Darwin said the strong survive and the weak go to the wall and that's the way it should be; and so on. I could address these one by one, but this is getting long, so let's just leave them there for consideration and move on.
"So long as no-one is hurting anyone." But people do get hurt, for reasons that have nothing to do with them. A highly-paid accountant is caught with his fingers in the till, a company collapses, and five hundred people aged between twenty and fifty no longer have a regular income. Who looks after them? A hurricane hits a city whose flood prevention systems have been skimped for years, and thousands of people are suddenly homeless. Who looks after them? The conservative gets to say "it's none of my business; I didn't fire them or cause their houses to fall down, why should I be forced to pay to support them?" But there comes a time when personal responsibility is not enough. There come disasters into people's lives that they cannot rise above, that they cannot turn into opportunities, that they cannot take in their stride. There come illnesses, old age, accidents, broken marriages, criminal assaults, war. There needs to be government to deal with these things, and it needs to be big because there are an awful lot of people and most of them are suffering.
Everyone should be "free to pursue success beyond their wildest imaginations." Well, that sounds wonderful, doesn't it? I can't argue with that. In fact, I'd go further. Everyone should have success beyond their wildest imaginations. Every nation should be a net exporter of goods. Everyone should have a chicken in their pot, twenty acres and a mule, and a brand new Cadillac with wire wheels. But of course it doesn't work. In a nation where everyone is free to pursue success beyond their wildest imaginations, the majority are in fact free to become intimately acquainted with failure, and this is indeed what happens. A few make it to the sunlit uplands of reasonable comfort, and the rest flounder in the mire, working their guts out just to be allowed to stay where they are, stamping desperately on the heads of those who are in fact under the muck and fighting for a breath of air, grabbing at the ankles of those who have found a slimy outcrop of rock and are scrabbling to get themselves a little higher up on it. You need a pretty wild imagination even to conceive of success in the middle of that struggle. And that is the conservative ideal.
I'm a liberal, and I think that there are enough people in the swamp to gather tree trunks and make a raft. It will involve some people getting down off the rock and into the slime, and it will involve the people who are underneath being allowed to come up and help, and ideally it will involve the people on the sunlit uplands as well, because they can see where the best trees are and they're the most likely to have tools...but if everyone stops competing and works together, and those who have advantage can be persuaded to share some of it with those who have none, it would be possible to build platforms that would float on the surface of the swamp, and have enough room for everyone. And then, when there was time and space to breathe and think and look about us, then we could start to think about getting everyone out of the swamp and finding more sunlit uplands. And that, as I see it, is the liberal ideal. And the fundamental point about it is that it involves thinking, in the most general terms, about people other than oneself.
The conservative ideal, as stated in the quote above, doesn't. The only players in that game are the individual and the government, contentedly leaving each other alone. Which is not to say that conservatives are all selfish--obviously that's nonsense--but it does seem to mean that when they think politically, they think only of people like themselves, who need nothing from government, who have enough to be going on with, who can take care of themselves. They either don't seem to see, or don't seem to care about, the swamp or the people struggling in it.
The liberal ideal tries to encompass all kinds of people, with all kinds of needs, and says that if you have more than you need then you are in a position to help those who have less. It acknowledges the swamp, and the need for as many people as possible to be out of it, before the nation can congratulate itself on everyone being "free to pursue success beyond their wildest imaginations." Because imagination is a wonderful thing, but real life is where people need help, and that's what governments are for if they're for anything at all.
And that's why I'm partisan. That's why I think all governments should be fundamentally liberal (though I think their policies should certainly be enforced and kept in check by conservatives--liberalism is just as capable of going off the rails as we've seen conservatism is) and that's why, whenever I vote, my conscience tells me to vote for the most liberal, or least conservative, option available. And that's why, whatever his faults may be, if I were entitled to vote in an American presidential election, I'd be voting for Obama.
bayushisan, commenting in filkertom's journal, as being as close as I've seen to a broad statement of what conservatism ought to be:Most conservatives simply want the government to leave them alone and let them live their lives, so long as no one is hurting anyone. They tend toward approving of smaller government and want everyone to be free to pursue success beyond their wildest imaginations.
Thanks for clicking.
Wanting the government to leave you alone and let you live your life is a harmless and understandable desire, and I can see the logic in it. Nobody likes to be interfered with by meddling, uninformed bureaucrats hired at vast expense to the taxpayer (that's you) to tell you how to run your farm or bring up your kids. After all, you're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself.
This may be true, but it ignores the possibility of the existence of large numbers of people who for good and sufficient reasons can't take care of themselves. In wanting smaller government, the conservative wants to leave these people, as well as himself, without support. There are various justifications for this: the job of helping people ought to be given to private concerns who can make a profit out of it; people who need help should pull their socks up, get on their bikes, follow their bliss and jolly well make a go of it; Darwin said the strong survive and the weak go to the wall and that's the way it should be; and so on. I could address these one by one, but this is getting long, so let's just leave them there for consideration and move on.
"So long as no-one is hurting anyone." But people do get hurt, for reasons that have nothing to do with them. A highly-paid accountant is caught with his fingers in the till, a company collapses, and five hundred people aged between twenty and fifty no longer have a regular income. Who looks after them? A hurricane hits a city whose flood prevention systems have been skimped for years, and thousands of people are suddenly homeless. Who looks after them? The conservative gets to say "it's none of my business; I didn't fire them or cause their houses to fall down, why should I be forced to pay to support them?" But there comes a time when personal responsibility is not enough. There come disasters into people's lives that they cannot rise above, that they cannot turn into opportunities, that they cannot take in their stride. There come illnesses, old age, accidents, broken marriages, criminal assaults, war. There needs to be government to deal with these things, and it needs to be big because there are an awful lot of people and most of them are suffering.
Everyone should be "free to pursue success beyond their wildest imaginations." Well, that sounds wonderful, doesn't it? I can't argue with that. In fact, I'd go further. Everyone should have success beyond their wildest imaginations. Every nation should be a net exporter of goods. Everyone should have a chicken in their pot, twenty acres and a mule, and a brand new Cadillac with wire wheels. But of course it doesn't work. In a nation where everyone is free to pursue success beyond their wildest imaginations, the majority are in fact free to become intimately acquainted with failure, and this is indeed what happens. A few make it to the sunlit uplands of reasonable comfort, and the rest flounder in the mire, working their guts out just to be allowed to stay where they are, stamping desperately on the heads of those who are in fact under the muck and fighting for a breath of air, grabbing at the ankles of those who have found a slimy outcrop of rock and are scrabbling to get themselves a little higher up on it. You need a pretty wild imagination even to conceive of success in the middle of that struggle. And that is the conservative ideal.
I'm a liberal, and I think that there are enough people in the swamp to gather tree trunks and make a raft. It will involve some people getting down off the rock and into the slime, and it will involve the people who are underneath being allowed to come up and help, and ideally it will involve the people on the sunlit uplands as well, because they can see where the best trees are and they're the most likely to have tools...but if everyone stops competing and works together, and those who have advantage can be persuaded to share some of it with those who have none, it would be possible to build platforms that would float on the surface of the swamp, and have enough room for everyone. And then, when there was time and space to breathe and think and look about us, then we could start to think about getting everyone out of the swamp and finding more sunlit uplands. And that, as I see it, is the liberal ideal. And the fundamental point about it is that it involves thinking, in the most general terms, about people other than oneself.
The conservative ideal, as stated in the quote above, doesn't. The only players in that game are the individual and the government, contentedly leaving each other alone. Which is not to say that conservatives are all selfish--obviously that's nonsense--but it does seem to mean that when they think politically, they think only of people like themselves, who need nothing from government, who have enough to be going on with, who can take care of themselves. They either don't seem to see, or don't seem to care about, the swamp or the people struggling in it.
The liberal ideal tries to encompass all kinds of people, with all kinds of needs, and says that if you have more than you need then you are in a position to help those who have less. It acknowledges the swamp, and the need for as many people as possible to be out of it, before the nation can congratulate itself on everyone being "free to pursue success beyond their wildest imaginations." Because imagination is a wonderful thing, but real life is where people need help, and that's what governments are for if they're for anything at all.
And that's why I'm partisan. That's why I think all governments should be fundamentally liberal (though I think their policies should certainly be enforced and kept in check by conservatives--liberalism is just as capable of going off the rails as we've seen conservatism is) and that's why, whenever I vote, my conscience tells me to vote for the most liberal, or least conservative, option available. And that's why, whatever his faults may be, if I were entitled to vote in an American presidential election, I'd be voting for Obama.
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-18 10:57 am (UTC)I would also add that the current President of the US, and most of the powerful members of the Republican Party, do NOT live up to this conservative ideal, rather using it as an excuse to do dangerously radical things, such as spend money on an unnecessary war and legislate against two consenting adults getting married.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-18 11:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-18 11:42 am (UTC)1) That quote is from one person. You may think that it represents all 'conservatives' but I see no evidence of that. Whether "most conservatives" think it, I don't know; certainly it describes most libertarians I know; it may also describe "most liberals". I suspect that it probably describes most people, whatever party they support.
2) You seem to be interpreting that statement as meaning that it is all that 'conservatives' want. I don't believe that for a second. I think that most of them also want to take care of their families, friends, community and others. I believe that most of them, like most other people, would (and probably do) give generously to those in need (there's even a 'selfish' motive for that, if they give to those less fortunate then when they or those they care about are in trouble others will help them), to the extent that they have anything left over after more than half of what they earn has been taken by force in taxes.
3) The labels 'conservative' and 'liberal' are useless. They no longer mean anything like the actual derivations of the terms, and almost everyone has a different view of what they do mean which makes them useless for communication. The quote you use describes "classical liberalism" (and 'liberal' is from Latin 'liber' meaning 'free') but it is being used to describe a group opposed to what you seem to think is 'liberal'. 'Conservative' means to follow tradition, to keep the status quo, but many of the policies of so-called 'conservatives' seek to change things. I actually agree with your statement in the last paragraph: "That's why I think all governments should be fundamentally liberal (though I think their policies should certainly be enforced and kept in check by conservatives--liberalism is just as capable of going off the rails as we've seen conservatism is)" -- but I interpret 'liberal' and 'conservative' in the opposite way to you (and so probably vote the opposite way as well)!
4) Any generalisation like "that is the conservative ideal" is guaranteed to be wrong. The thing which bayushisan was saying, as I understand it (after I eventually found the comment) was that the majority of people don't necessarily agree with the extremist views. I don't know or know of anyone who is 'pure' Markist, or 'pure' capitalist, or 'pure' anarchist, etc., they all have some views which deviate from the 'ideal' positions.
5) The inevitable strawman. 'Everyone should be "free to pursue success beyond their wildest imaginations." Well, that sounds wonderful, doesn't it? I can't argue with that. In fact, I'd go further. Everyone should have success beyond their wildest imaginations. Every nation should be a net exporter of goods.' You can "go further" if you like, but it is meaningless. It's silly. "Every nation should be a net exporter of goods" is so obviously impossible, and is nothing like what the original poster wrote, and can't be derived from it, and so it renders any conclusions you draw in the rest of the paragraph highly suspect.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-18 12:50 pm (UTC)That quote is from one person.
Most quotes are.
You may think that it represents all 'conservatives' but I see no evidence of that. Whether "most conservatives" think it, I don't know; certainly it describes most libertarians I know; it may also describe "most liberals". I suspect that it probably describes most people, whatever party they support.
I see no evidence of that. I took it as the opinion of someone who identifies as conservative by inclination as regarding the most moderate and inoffensive expression of the political and philosophical stance that is called "conservatism," and on the basis of other comments I have seen from self-identified conservatives I believe it's a fairly accurate rendition of at least part of that stance.
And, um, you seem to be saying that it's just one person's opinion and that you suspect it's probably everybody's. Let's compromise and agree that it's some people's.
You seem to be interpreting that statement as meaning that it is all that 'conservatives' want. (a great deal about how conservatives are nice people too, and a complaint about taxes)
No, I'm not, as you would see if you read the post. I am saying that it is all they want from government. I specifically state that it is nonsense to believe that conservatives are by nature selfish, and that I am only talking about their political thinking.
And taking care of family and friends is nice, and giving to charity is also nice, but I believe that leaving the care of those in need to individual discretion would not even dent the problem, and what we want is to solve the problem.
The labels 'conservative' and 'liberal' are useless.
Well, I've set out fairly unequivocally what they mean to me, and what I think about the philosophies that I take them to mean, so I don't think they can be entirely useless. And I believe, from my reading, that my opinion on their meaning is roughly in line with that shared by most of the people reading this. I could say "left-wing" and "right-wing" if you prefer, but that can always be taken to mean the most extreme positions on either side, whereas "liberal" and "conservative" in the generally understood meanings that I have used do not imply extremist views.
(continued in our next)
no subject
Date: 2008-10-18 12:50 pm (UTC)If you interpret "liberal" and "conservative" in the opposite way to me then you do not agree with my statement. In that sense, it is you who renders the labels useless. And I'm not sure where the Monster Raving Loony Party stands on the liberal/conservative axis.
Any generalisation like "that is the conservative ideal" is guaranteed to be wrong.
That is the ultimate end of the conservative ideal as I have seen it expressed in many, many statements over the years, of which
The inevitable strawman
Is that like the abominable snowman? In fact, it's not much of a strawman, as I demolish it myself in the next sentence but one that you don't bother to quote. But preposterous claims like these are the way conservatives gain votes, saying that unrestrained competition means that everyone has the chance to be rich if they just work hard enough. It doesn't. "Pursuing success beyond your wildest imaginations" (and the phrase, you will note, is not mine) simply means pursuing something that you will never have. I may be fond of fantasies and dreams and myths and so on, but I do not believe that unrealistic aspirations like these do anyone any good in the real world.
I know you don't agree with my view of these things, because you've made that abundantly clear in the past. You know I don't agree with yours, for the same reason. Can we possibly leave it at that for the time being? These vambraces are digging into me something rotten, and I've got shopping to do.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-18 01:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 02:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-18 01:25 pm (UTC)Let me buy you a beer some time.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-18 01:37 pm (UTC)A conservatove wants the govermnemt to help ME but leave US alone.
A liberal wants the govermnemt to help US bue leave ME alone.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-18 03:53 pm (UTC)A conservatove wants the govermnemt to help ME but leave US alone.
A liberal wants the govermnemt to help US bue leave ME alone."
Gosh, that's good! Your own or did you steal it?
Irrelevant! I'm stealing it now!
(Query: A 'conservatove'? Are they slithy?)
M.Cule
Pedant
no subject
Date: 2008-10-18 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 12:26 pm (UTC)And yes, it's a good and pithy summation.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-18 04:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-18 04:37 pm (UTC)"Leaving me alone" doesn't necessarily mean I don't want to do my part in supporting those things best handled by the body of a nation. It means that as long as I am not hurting anyone, government should not regulate what I'm doing.
You also conflate "social justice" with "government action". Conservatives believe in fixing social issues. They just don't necessarily believe government is the best provider of solutions, in particular because most government actions have to be pretty much "one size fits all" - which it never does.
As part of this, please understand that I believe the Republican party left the conservative train a long, long time ago. Using arguments that "Republicans did this or that" won't matter because that's the wrong target for this discussion.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 03:29 am (UTC)I do conflate social justice with government action, because I don't believe that everyone is as good a person as you are. Some people will try to fix social issues because they want to. Some people will never try to fix social issues because they don't care. And in between, I think, lie the majority of people, who will contribute to fixing social issues if the issues are brought to their attention and a way is organised for their contribution to be made useful. And that, to me, is where government comes in. Charitable organisations can do that for specific issues, but why have lots of different bodies (some of which seem to be prone to the idea that they ought to be making a profit) to address these problems when we should be able to do it with one organisation of which the profit consists (or should consist) in the fact that it exists?
I take your point that government actions have been less flexible and efficient than they could or should be. I don't think it's a problem with the institution itself, just with the way it's been implemented. Certainly as our information-handling abilities grow it should be possible to make a more responsive apparatus for government...but that does not necessarily equate with "smaller." On the contrary, in fact.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-18 05:00 pm (UTC)The problem, of course, is figuring out when your actions start harming others. If you object to the idea of my having sex with another woman, am I harming you? If I apply for the same job as you do and get it because I'm more qualified, am I harming you? In some sense, sure. But presumably not in a sense that should be prohibited. Direct harm is easy to understand; indirect harm is more difficult.
(I won't be back to read comments/responses, but I thought I'd throw in some philosophical background.)
no subject
Date: 2008-10-18 05:35 pm (UTC)A conservative can be divided into 6 key principles:
1. Belief in natural law
2. Belief in established institutions
3. Preference for liberty over equality
4. Suspicion of power—and of human nature
5. Belief in exceptionalism
6. Belief in the individual rights
1. the belief in natural law, means simply that conservatives believe in a higher order of things. Good and evil, justice and injustice, rights and responsibilities are not subjective concepts to conservatives. Human beings do not make the laws of morality, nor are rights conferred upon us by governments but rather by a higher power.
2. The second of these defining principles is a belief in established institutions. American conservatives, for example, believe passionately that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are works of profound genius, and that they provide the best system of law and government possible. More broadly, conservatives believe in the Anglo-Saxon tradition of rule of law and good government.
3. The preference for liberty over equality is the most difficult part of the definition of conservative for most people to understand, particularly since liberty and equality are almost used as synonyms in our times. Put simply, all societies face a fundamental choice between emphasizing freedom or emphasizing equality.
4. The fourth principle that defines conservatives is their suspicion of power and their hatred of big government. In his First Inaugural Address, President Ronald Reagan declared,
"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?"
5. The fifth and sixth beliefs of conservatives are closely related. Conservatives believe in exceptionalism because they do not believe in perfect equality. Conservatives realize that some people inevitably have superior abilities, intelligence, and talents, and they believe that those people have a fundamental right to use and profit from their natural gifts.
6. Finally, conservatives believe in individualism. As Barry Goldwater explains, "Every man, for his individual good and for the good of his society, is responsible for his own development. The choices that govern his life are choices he must make: they cannot be made by any other human being, or by a collectivity of human beings."
Within the Conservative movement there are three basic types: 1) Social Conservatives, 2) Fiscal Conservatives, and 3) Libertarian Conservatives.
1. Social Conservatives: Their definition of conservative is influenced by their faith. While they slightly prefer liberty to equality, they despair that liberty also means the freedom to make poor choices; while they believe deeply in individualism and exceptionalism, they insist that as a society we must maximize virtue, sometimes even at the expense of freedom.
2. Fiscal conservatives: are sometimes described as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." These conservatives are classical liberals, who have become disenfranchised from liberalism, which they see as radicalism for the sake of radicalism. Their own definition of conservative emphasizes the political and economic freedom of the individual, as they believe the individual's spiritual life is outside the realm of government and vice versa.
3. If libertarian-conservatives have a motto, it is that government is no one's mother. Government, these conservatives insist, should not be in the business of saving people from themselves. Moreover, they believe, an enforced morality is utterly meaningless. Human beings cannot be virtuous if they are not free to choose virtue, but rather have it forced upon them.
Many of the ideas of Conservatives have been heavily influenced by the writings of Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom. All liberals should read this just to get a good idea of what the conservatives agenda truly is. As attributed to Machiavelli: "One should keep one's friends close, and keep one's enemies closer."
no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 03:08 am (UTC)I've never felt that liberty and equality were synonyms, or that they were in opposition. Liberty and *security* could be seen as mutually exclusive, poles on an axis analogous to chaos/order...but to me, liberty and equality are on two separate but complementary axes. (Which begs the question of what's the third...I'll have to think about that too.)
The only other thing I'm not sure about is the fifth principle. Do conservatives really confuse "equality under the law" with "equality of ability"? To put it another way, do they really think that, say, a person in a wheelchair should have a different legal status from a person with two functioning legs? I wouldn't have thought so.
Again, thank you.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-18 06:46 pm (UTC)I would like to add that governments don't just improve the lot of the poor; they improve the lot of all of us.
They provide things we rely on every day and take for granted, like roads, public (in the U.S. sense of the word) education, and the rule of law which makes it possible for us to accumulate wealth without having to fear that it will be stolen from us.
The U.S. government funded much of the research that invented the technology that made the internet possible. The technology underlying the internet came from ARPANET, which was funded by the Department of Defense. The first commercially successful web browser, Mosaic, was funded by the Al Gore Computing and Communication Act. Largely as a result of this government funding, Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, and Meg Whitman are fabulously wealthy, and you and I can order books and CDs from the comfort of our homes.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 01:54 am (UTC)Well -- in practice, that turns into something more like "if you have more than you need, then you are obligated to help those who have less.
I can see why some would have a problem with this. I don't, at least not on general principles.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 03:40 am (UTC)The second group I have no time for. The first group...I can understand the feeling, because I've felt it myself. It's the same feeling you get when someone tells you to do something you were going to do anyway, and you think what kind of idiot do you think I am? and just for a second the thought crosses your mind that you could deliberately not do it just for spite.
But when I have that feeling, I know it's a small and mean and unworthy feeling, and I try to put it behind me. I wouldn't make it one of the basic elements of a political position.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 03:47 am (UTC)The thing is -- I can't explain why I feel that it is the government's job to keep people from starving to death but it is emphatically not the government's job to keep people from cheating on their spouses.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 03:53 am (UTC)