Hi all,
A few comments on the conservatism thread, which I think just about deserve
a renaming.
As I understand it, conservatism as a political philosophy is not primarily
about preserving social patterns come what may; rather it is about placing
trust in institutions that have stood the test of time (ie that have
demonstrated the capacity to "static latch" and thereby preserve something
of value).
To explain further: let us distinguish between conservative (small 'c') and
Conservative (capital 'C') and allow, for the sake of argument, that the
former represents an attitude which seeks to preserve social level values
from all comers, either above or below the social level. The Conservative
attitude differs from this, in the following way.
Fundamental to the Conservative attitude is a distrust of ideology; more
broadly, it is a distrust of new ideas, especially those that are advanced
as being either more rational than those currently prevailing, or as more
technologically or bureacratically efficient than those currently
prevailing.
The Conservative attitude does not rule out the acceptance of new ideas per
se, rather it suggests that new ideas need to prove their worth before being
accepted and widely distributed. In MoQ terms you could say that a
Conservative attitude places a higher barrier to entry around the social
level, and seeks to allow only those intellectual level innovations that
have demonstrated the ability to static latch improvements in a way that
preserves social value - including the value of the ongoing society as
presently constituted. As such, Conservatism is itself an intellectual level
ideology, and not necessarily any more or less intelligent than the
alternatives.
I take this understanding of Conservatism as deriving largely from Edmund
Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution. British society was profoundly
shocked by that regicide and terror, undertaken in the name of some good
ideas (Liberty, Equality and Fraternity), and Conservatism is conditioned by
that experience. I would argue that this represents 'mainstream'
Conservatism in the UK.
An example: in the UK there is an ongoing discussion over whether to adopt
the Euro as our currency or not. A conservative attitude would say 'no' - on
the grounds that any change is bound to be for the worse. A Conservative
would say 'let's wait and see if it works before committing ourselves to
such a profound change' (perhaps with a glance towards Germany and the
problems that they are having with it at the moment). A non-Conservative
approach would be to depend upon ideological analysis (that's not meant
pejoratively) to demonstrate the benefits of adopting the Euro (so: less
costs of cross-border commerce; greater European unity etc etc). A
Conservative attitude is very pragmatic, in both the philosophical and
non-philosophical senses of that term.
So: conservative and Conservative are not the same. The latter is an
intellectual level filter designed to preserve social level quality from
dangerous innovations, not a social level reaction against all innovations
whatever their source.
Sam
www.elizaphanian.v-2-1.net/home.html
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