Conservative Philosophy

Great Debates
1

I think there’s been a lot of ignorance on this topic recently, and I’ve been contemplating starting a thread to hopefully dispel some of it.

If you break it down to it’s most basic components and fundamental beliefs, conservatism as a philosophy believes that there is inherent value in the status quo. This value accrues simply because to one degree, or another, the status quo is working.

When change is instituted to a society, one of three things can happen:

a. It can get better
b. There can be no net value effect.
c. It can get worse.

Logic suggests that the odds are somewhat weighted towards b. and c. Why? Because of the evolutionary nature of society. Society has tried many different things, and many different ways of doing them. Successful societies tended to thrive while unsuccessful societies tended to fail. As a whole then, our society consists of practices that tend to be beneficial. There is a complex interaction between the practices that make a society, and not all ramifications of change can be forseen. Furthermore, it is the height of arrogance to think that there is anything new under the Sun, and that any new idea hasn’t been tried and abandoned for unforseen circumstances at some point in the past.

For example one of the great living chroniclers of American Society, Thomas Wolfe, cut his teeth by describing the budding hippy culture of the 1960s. He describes Ken Kesey and his Merry Prankster’s attempts to start society anew, from the beginning, by questioning everything. They renounced the ideas of personal property and even the most basic social mores (at least in principal.) These ideas caught on to an unprecedented degree in the San Francisco area.

Before long, Wolfe notes Doctor’s in the San Francisco area were getting rather busy. Suddenly a lot of new and baffling ailments were turning up. In reality, there was nothing new about these ailments. It’s just that modern day Doctors weren’t used to treating diseases like “mange,” “trench foot,” “the creeping rot,” the onslaught of gingivitis, lice, VD, dysentary, and various and sundry infections in modern society.

As it turns out there are some very good reasons not to share the same toothbrush, underwear, sexual partner, etc. with a large and changing group.

At least some of status quo nonsensical morality had its roots in very legitimate and sound principles. It is not to be disguarded lightly.

Perhaps the greatest example of this occured under Mao-Tse-Tung in China shortly after the Communist revolution there. Mao instituted a state of “constant revolution,” and recquired his followers to challenge everything. Revolutionaries descended on farms to show the farmers politically correct ways to grow crops. They slaughtered “worthless and wasteful” draft animals as being capitalist in nature by encouraging laziness and sloth since the people could do the work themselves. They ostracized the intellectuals, publically humiliated and in some cases killed them.

The farms of course becam unproductive. Food shortages occured. Millions starved, and China descended into a modern day dark age from which it is only now emerging.

As a philosophy, conservatism suggests that just because a good reason does not seem apparent for the way something is, doesn’t mean there is one. Any change needs to be examined with skepticism for its unforseen consequences, and implemented slowly so that allowances can be made for the network of interconnections that make up society, and the effects that will reverberate through it.

As a philosophy, it is similar to modern medicine or science. Theory is not good enough. One must prove one’s theory in the real world under real world conditions before it can be implemented, just as one must prove the efficacy of a new drug, and chart its side effects before it is used to treat patients.

Oftentimes on these boards, I have been told what a Conservative is. The father of Modern Conservatism, Barry Goldwater, worte a book titled the conscience of a conservative. Most often, what I am told I believe, and what I actually do are at odds. When I reread that book, I am saddened by the small minority of Conservatives who have perverted some of these ideas, and that their thoughts and actions Have become as falsely representative of conservative thought as Jesse Jackson has of liberal.

The biggest myth that I see about conservatism is that it seeks to preserve discrimination and inequalities. In large part I believe this is due to the fact that those that benefit from unequal standards wave conservatism’s banner of respect towards the status quo to seek to preserve these inequalities for their own benefit. Extremists on the other side may come to believe that identification with conservative ideals suggests bigotry in and of itself because of this.

In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. The ideas of equality and individual rights go back at least thousands of years. As a pragmatist a conservative understands that a productive meritocracy of equals is everyone’s best interest. A true conservative abhors discrimination. Sadly, few of us, regardless of our political beliefs live up to all of our ideals.

Lest you doubt this, consider the following. Being gay is conservative. Homosexuality has been a part of the human makeup for as long as there have been humans. The idea of gays in the military, and as loyal patriots goes back at least as far as ancient Greece. There the “Sacred Band,” and army of homosexual males became one of the fiercest and most feared fighting forces the world has ever known. Men who loved each other as much as any husband and wife, fought side by side, and any army facing them knew that this kind of loyalty would never allow them to shirk the fighting.

Barry Goldwater himself testified on the role of gays in the military.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/scotts/bulgarians/barry-goldwater.html
For these same reasons a conservative holds such institutions as family, traditional morality, religion, etc. in high regard, and is suspicious of mandatory and unwarranted change.

I would be glad to discuss any topics of interest, or answer any reasonable questions.

2

I don’t think conservatism so defined really qualifies as a “philosophy”, because it has no independent content or set of ideas. It’s more of a tendency or a character trait. I don’t see how one can consistently ascribe any particular set of ideas to the belief that “there is inherent value in the status quo”. Scylla says that “a conservative understands that a productive meritocracy of equals is everyone’s best interest”, but a person of conservative inclinations who lives in a society which has an established hereditary aristocracy will defend hereditary aristocracy against meritocracy (as in fact conservatives did in the days of hereditary aristocracies). A conservative may even be a Communist–Soviet Communists in the Brezhnev era were hardly wild-eyed radicals, despite the lip service they paid to the Great Revolution. The people who believed in individual rights, private property, religious freedom, and limited government–i.e., the people who believed in ideas characterized as “conservative” in the modern United States–were radical dissidents who were basically saying, a la the '60’s radicals, “the ‘System’ is totally corrupt–the ‘System’ is not even worth reforming–it should be thrown out completely.” American conservatives are, by and large, conservative Liberals; i.e., they hold to a more old-fashioned idea of 18th or 19th Century Liberalism; our “liberals” are progressive Liberals who may also trace their ideals in some sense to the ideas of Enlightenment Liberalism–a secular state, government by the consent of the governed, individual rights–but whose ideas have evolved and changed (or, more correctly, have evolved and changed more than their conservative brethren)

The character of conservatism will therefore greatly vary depending on the nature of the society in which it exists. In the United States, genuine conservatives will defend individual rights, republicanism (with a small “r”), and capitalist economics. Anyone who advocates hereditary aristocracy, absolutist monarchism, or state socialism is of course a radical, but in 18th Century France, 19th Century Russia, or the Soviet Union in the 1970’s, defenders of those positions would have been conservatives.

The disputes over affirmative action show how fast conservatives and progressives can change places. Conservatives now use the language once used by progressives or even radicals a few decades ago–one man, one vote; juding people “according to the content of their character”, and in general a strict “color blind” society. A few decades ago, of course, conservatives opposed ending legal segregation and Jim Crow because that was, after all, the established order of things.

There’s also a difference between genuine conservatism–not a philosophy, but only an inclination towards prudence or caution–and various philosophies or ideologies which may have been established in some time or place, and were therefore defended by both ideologues and those who are merely conservative by nature. A racial supremacist who lives in a racist society is conservative; if that society becomes color blind, he’ll become reactionary–seeking to turn back the clock, not merely preserve the status quo–eventually, if he still doesn’t change his views, he may become a radical, and seek to overthrow the existing order of things. The same applies to a theocrat in a theocratic society versus a secular one. Support for school prayer or slavery or restricting abortion or the divine right of kings or laissez-faire economics can’t be described as either “conservative” or “progressive” without reference to what the status quo is (although it may be possible to determine if those positions are liberal, socialist, republican, libertarian, etc.) No doubt Scylla is right that conservatives will come eventually come around to defending gay rights, just as they have to defending laissez-faire economics against state interference, or individual rights versus racially conscious legal and social policies. Of course by that time they’ll be passionately opposing clone rights, or android rights, or the rights of extraterrestrials, or something no one has even thought of yet.

All of us are conservative about some things, and no doubt conservatism is a valuable tendency in a society–not all change is good. But without some countervailing tendency towards progressivism or even radicalism, we’d all still live in caves.

3

Scylla, one thing you have to remember is that societies are never stagnant, but are always in flux - regardless of the prevailent political philosophy. New ideas, technological developements and power foci will always appear, whether we want them or not, and a conservative society is often a society which refuses to adapt to changing situations. Besides, no society is an island - there are always other, competing societies, which always throw new challenges into our faces. Doing the same thing as we’ve always done is no way to win the game.

Think of it in military terms - no general ever won by fighting “by the book”. There have been no successful conservative military leaders, only competant ones.

4

“The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.”
–Mark Twain

5

On the issue of gays in the military you have contradicted yourself. There is a reason the military does not allow openly homosexual soldiers. You may not agree with the reason but there is one. As a conservative you must prove that the military with open homosexuals is a more effective than one without. If you can not to do this you should respect the rules as they are.

6

what is that reason?

stoid

7

So the empirical justification for conservatism is nothing more than crude social Darwinism? The notion that “socieities that work tend to survive” has been so utterly demolished in the past fifty years that it hardly bears mention any more. Are there other conservatives on the boards that base their esteem of the status quo on such shaky intellectual ground?

MR

8

The reason stated by those in charge of the military is it would aversely affect unit cohesion and overall morale. Whether this is true or not I do not know and I am not really interested enough in the subject to find out. I do think that it is likely that those in charge of the military know more about than I do and I am wiling to trust their judgement.

9

I just wanted to say that although I am not of the articulate enough mindset or smart enough to give any truly insightful or productiev input on this topic – that I have thoroughly enjoyed absorbing what I have read so far. Thank you guys for giving me this opportunity…even if I can’t actively participate. Please know that someone is gaining something worthwhile just by reading this exchange. Keep it up!

:smiley:

10

They may know more, but this in no way implies that they are using this knowledge fairly.

Here is an interesting illustration. I have discussed this issue with a conservative former army officer turned policeman. He has argued that there is virtually no evidence in the modern world that gays in the military can make it more effective. He also claimed that the cost of tampering with the military would be extremely high, and the extremely destructive possible effects of gays in the military outweigh any possible benefits.

Ok, let’s pretend that I believed this.

Our conversation then turned to school vouchers. I argued that the data consistently demonstrate that vouchers failed. He claimed that there wasn’t enough data to make those kinds of judgments, and that more voucher experiments should be performed.

This was exactly the line taken by conservative think tanks and conservative researchers present at the New York City voucher conference yesterday.

So conservatives want to tamper with our children’s education in order to drum up more data but refuse to implement the same kinds of changes in the military to effect the same kinds of changes? I am having a real problem reconciling these two positions.

What gives?

11

The difference between the gays in the military issue and the school choice issue is that while the American military is generally considered the most effective in the history of the world the American public school system is somewhat less than that. The arguement that openly gay soldiers would increase the effectiveness of the military is what that is not heard very often though it may be true. What school choice advocates argue is that school choice will improve education and that our public school system is in such a state that it desperately needs improvement.
Also the means to conduct a gays in the military experiment do not seem plausible. Take one company with no gays and one company with open gays ahve them invade Cuba and see how many in each group come out alive? Conversely the experiment in school vouchers is much easier. Take two groups of kids in schools that have abysmal test scores, which should not be hard to find. Give the one group vouchers and let them pick their schools and leave the other one in the public school. After a period measure the results.

12

Which makes my point exactly. There is room to play around with the military since it already kicks major ass. But do we really want to take the risk of making the school system worse?

That’s funny…that military did not have to go through such hoops before admitting women. What gives?

This is deceptively simple. Standardized tests are not the objective measures of school performance as some would have us believe. Furthermore, isolating the necessary variables over the course of several years in order to prove that there is a clear and necessary relationship, not just a correlation, between charter schools and improved performance is an extremely tall order. Finally, all we have to do is look at the New Zealand voucher disaster. Vouchers almost ruined the public education system in NZ. Is that not data enough?

13

The same arguments against gays in the military were used when blacks were integrated and when women were let in. The truth is that of course this introduces new problems. There is still racism and sexism after all. We just deal with it when it happens and work to minimize it as much as possible. The same will hold true when gays are allowed in, which is coming sooner or later, although we may need a younger, liberal crop of Supremes before it gets done.

I have been a member of the military for 14 years now, and to be honest, I certainly would have been uncomfortable in my basic training and barracks days if I knew that I was sharing a bedroom and gang showers with gay airmen, just as I would if I were sharing it with a very unattractive heterosexual woman who might be able to kick my ass. But really, it doesn’t matter. As it turns out, 2 of the guys in my basic training flight got out because they were gay, so it turns out I was showering with them. <Shrug> Any misgivings I had though, were my issues to deal with, and allowing gays to serve is fundamentally a question of simple fairness. Anything beyond that is mere rationalization.

14

In fact, though, different armies with gay-excluding and gay-accepting policies can be compared. The Israeli Defense Forces accept open gays (they accept every able-bodied citizen, whether they want to be accepted or not ;)), and have never lost a war, even when vastly outnumbered. There unit morale and cohesion are second to none. That is a record that the U.S. armed forces cannot match.

15

As much as it pains me to say it, Maeglin has a point. I find it hard to buy into an entire blanket political philosophy based on a notion of the status quo. ANd the idea that one should only intentionally change things in order to improve them seems pretty rampant for all political philosophies. After all, who believes that we should change things to make them worse or the same?

I would prefer, as a p3/4 time conservative to be labeled on teh issues. After ll, How do I support Gay marriage, and argue against revising the Constitution or infringing on the 2nd?

I think the brush is too broad and the terms too ill defined.

Now back to arguing about making the military a liberal social experiment…

16

I have to agree with MEBuckner’s view. I can’t square Scylla’s version with what’s being proposed/practiced by so-called conservative politicians.

Perhaps a clarification of the conservative view of the status quo, if not ‘the existing condition or state of affairs’ would be a good place to start.

17

There are several things about Scylla’s description that I agree with…

  1. Conservatives tend to hold to the “Tried and true” method.

  2. Conservatives tend to have a “Big-picture” view of the world.

  3. Conservativism in and of itself does not promote discrimination.

The problem is, the “Political Spectrum” is not one dimensional. There is more to it than just Right-wing and Left-wing. Religion, skepticism, cynicism, naivete, and activism takes prominent roles, and distorts either political belief to different ends. For example, how dissimilar is Religious Liberalism from Environmentalist Liberalism?

I find Scylla’s description to be accurate, although I would like to remind him that there is no Universal Conservative Philosophy, nor Liberal or Moderate or Libertarian or Green or Anarchist philosophy. Each person translates their own beliefs differently… which is why a KKK Grand Dragon (or whatever they call themselves) is so different from Colin Powell.

While some statements are accurate to describe a general feeling in a political group, I find that when someone says “Conservatives do THIS” or “Liberals do THAT” are seeking only to enhance themselves and/or their own political beliefs be bashing the largest perceived “enemy”. This is folly, I believe, as one cannot fairly or accurately judge a large group with negative labels.

After all, isn’t the statement “All Republicans lie, cheat, and steal” on par with the statement “All homosexuals are pedophiles”?

18

I have to say that this thread has received the best and most thoughtful responses of any I’ve ever started. Thanks (I don’t understand why I didn’t get this level of discussion in my “Gore is a scumsucking inertebrate” thread, go figure.)

The conservatism I’m describing is pretty much Goldwater, or modern conservatism. I’ve started with some of the very basic thought

MEBuckner

One of your major observations seems to be that conservatism is a philosophy devoid of context. Indeed, to some degree this is true. Conservatism is more of a methodology, a way of doing things, than it is a conglomeration of principles. In a way though, conservatism creates its own principles in much the same way science does. Science has no inherent belief in, say, the theory of gravity. It is something that science has discovered and holds to because it works. If it were replaced with another, better theory, science as a whole would be improved. When I say “a conservative understands that a productive meritocracy of equals is everyone’s best interest”, I don’t say that as a matter of principle, but as a matter of discovered fact.

This brings us to the next point which was excellently raised by:

Alessan

Change?

It is a falsehood, though an understandable one, that a conservative fears and fights against change. Certainly the conservative right attracts such, but it is not inherent in the philosophy.

The taditional argument in this area is that of the slavery situation in 19th century North America. Wouldn’t a conservative seek to preserve slavery?

Not necessarily. There are reasons to believe that “that peculiar institution” was doomed with the advent of the industrial age. This may or may not be true. Personally I believe that the economics of slavery were becoming quite unfavorable. Granting the abhorrent nature of slavery was it prudent or even morally permissable to allow it the time to die it’s own death, or was war necessary?

Let’s consider the radical situation, which was in fact instituted. War. A divided country. The death of hundreds of thousands of people. The destruction of the Southern economy, and much of its culture. Carpetbaggers. The reconstruction. Finally, a lasting emnity between North and South, and racial tensions that are felt to this day.

My intention here is not to discuss or question the morality or justification of the Civil War which is much more complicated then I have made out in my oversimplification,) but consider how much better things might have been had a less radical approach been taken to the problem.

In further examples, one can contrast the horrors of “revolution” as they occured in France during the Terror, in China, and even during the Bolshevik revolution to the relatively more gradual changes that occured in Great Britain, Sweden and elsewhere.

There is value in most any society, and to throw it away and start over does not necessarily imply a better one. A more gradual, thoughtful, and cautious change is more likely to preserve the good qualities of a culture and prevent the replacement of bad qualities with equally if not more repugnant alternatives.

There is such a thing as a conservative approach to change.
An example might be today’s welfare quandary. A conservative may question such an institution though it is established. The grounds might be that it provides a quick fix rather than a lasting change to a problem, drains productivity, and may even serve to promote poverty. One of more liberal views might (with some justification,) suggest allowing people to starve and become homeless is an unacceptable price to pay to create an incentive to productivity. Furthermore, a liberal might even question the humanity and morality of a person willing to suggest such a thing.

In fact, this is not a fair asessment. As a conservative, I don’t believe that people in need should starve or die.

A liberal favors a program that prevents needless death and suffering, and allows people in trouble to get back on their feet.

A conservative is against a program that promotes and rewards chronic proverty, and spends billions of dollars a year without making any inroads into a growing problem.

The conservative attack on entitlements is founded on making poverty uncomfortable. Yes, the hungry need food today, but tomorrow they need opportunity, and the motivation to seize it.

A conservative and a liberal can share the same goals while disagreeing on how best to accomplish them. A conservative can seek change, and does based primarily on pragmatism. Things are not always what they should be. We are however forced to deal with the way they are.

In uglier discussions this pragmatism is often interpreted as selfishness, or lack of compassion.

It is for this same reason that Barry Goldwater, the founder of modern conservatism was so much in favor of gay integration of the military. Gays in the military has been a fact for as long as there has been a military. He cites studies showing the effectiveness of gays within military units and one that even suggests that gays tended to be more patriotic and lower security risks. Recognizing this longstanding fact is both conservative and progressive. Those who would argue against it are not conservatives. They are bigots. Barry Goldwater himself was a proponent of black integration in the military, led a black unit, and was active in Civil rights before it became fashionable and “liberal” to believe such.

Change is a part of conservative philosophy. It focusses on progressive rather than arbitrary change, based on pragmatism rather than theory.

puddleglum

I’d suggest you reexamine the earlier link I provided, and you might find that I haven’t contradicted myself. Respecting the status quo, doesn’t mean that one has to accede to intolerance and discrimination. What one seeks to preserve are the good qualities of an institution. One need not throw out the baby with the bathwater. One need not indict and question the existance of the military due to one failing. A conservative seeks to change the failing without destroying the positive aspects of the institution.

I have felt similarly about the Red Cross. Their stance on gay blood donations is quite frankly outmoded. It is likely to change in the near term, but I don’t support a blanket indictment of that entire institution based on this failing.

Stoid

You took the words right out of my mouth :slight_smile:

Maeglin

That’s a gross oversimplification of my point. One can recognize certain similarities between evolution and a society’s development without being a social darwinist. Any misconstrual on this point is probably my fault for using an unclear anology.

Resistance to gay integration of the military is not a conservative standpoint, any more than Jesse jackson’s call to revolution is a liberal one. It’s unfortunate extremism and fanatics, and not what I wish to discuss. As for school vouchers, I don’t wish to hijack this thread over the efficacy of any one political dividing point and will therefore ignore the question of their efficacy. The problem is more complicated than liberal/conservative, and I believe that the conflict concerning school vouchers is largely arbitrarily a dividing point between cons/libs, and not necessarily inherent to either party’s beleifs. I would guess that the issue is divided as it is due to the reductionist aspects of conservatism as they apply to the size of government and also to rallying points of “personal freedom and responsibility.”

Danimal

An excellent point. The longstanding fact of gay excellence in the military, and the fallacy that gay participation would somehow impede a miltary’s efficacy was pretty much a cornerstone of Goldwater’s speech.

Mr. Z, mack

One must necessarily start out genral before becoming more specific. I hope I’m doing better as I go along.

Spoofe

Well said. Doubtless there are as many types of conservatism as their are conservatives. Blanket statements are difficult to make while retaining accuracy. What I’m seeking to do is describe tendencies and methodologies common to conservative thought.

Damn! This is a long post.

19

This is the exact same reason given by the military establishment back in the 40’s for not having racially integrated military units. Harry Truman forced the issue down their throats and, while things are still not perfect today, I think we’re a damn sight better for him having done so.

20

Punoqllads:

That too is precisely mentioned in the Goldwater speech which I provided a link to. It’s a nice speech, an worth taking a look at.