Conservatism: "the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back"

[snagglepuss]

Four paragraphs does not do justice to this piece about the Conservative mindset "across time".


snip

So accustomed are we to the sunny Reagan and the populist Tea Party that we've forgotten a basic truth about conservatism... It thus behooves us to take a second look at the conservative tradition, not just its current incarnation but also across time...

snip

Every once in a while...the subordinates of this world contest their fates...They cease to be servants or supplicants and become agents, speaking and acting on their own behalf. More than the reforms themselves, it is this assertion of agency that vexes their superiors.

snip

Conservatism is the theoretical voice of this animus against the agency of the subordinate classes. It provides the most consistent and profound argument for why the lower orders should not be allowed to exercise their independent will, to govern themselves or the polity. Submission is their first duty; agency, the prerogative of elites. Such was the threat Edmund Burke saw in the French Revolution: not merely an expropriation of property or explosion of violence but an inversion of the obligations of deference and command. "The levelers," he claimed, "only change and pervert the natural order of things."

snip


The conservative faces an additional hurdle: how to defend a principle of rule in a world where nothing is solid, all is in flux. From the moment conservatism came onto the scene as an intellectual movement, it has had to contend with the decline of ancient and medieval ideas of an orderly universe, in which permanent hierarchies of power reflected the eternal structure of the cosmos. The overthrow of the old regime reveals not only the weakness and incompetence of its leaders but also a larger truth about the lack of design in the world. Reconstructing the old regime in the face of a declining faith in permanent hierarchies has proven to be a difficult feat. Not surprisingly, it also has produced some of the most remarkable works of modern thought.




http://chronicle.com/article/The-Conservative-Mind/130199/

[provis99]

1. excellent article.

Unfortunately, the conservative commenters are mind-numbingly stupid, and seem obsessed with creating strawmen and indulging in Freudian projectionism.

Conservatives are certainly consistent, aren't they?

[loyalsister]

2. I really dislike using the words conservative and liberal as categories

Remember the 70s campaign to promote conservation?
Is it not good to be conservative in use of electricity, water, gas, etc? Conservative energy usage. IOW a "it doesn't mean what you think it means" campaign.

As MLK said "When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative."

[snagglepuss]

3. The term neoliberalism really creates confusion but

unfortunately these terms aren't going away any time soon, so it's important to ensure that the true meaning of conservatism is kept front and center. What hit me when I read the article is that those who wish to conserve the status quo don't want others to have agency which is an aspect of conservatism that isn't mentioned.

[RainDog]

4. k&r n/t

[lindysalsagal]

5. Wow. This makes total sense to me.

"From the moment conservatism came onto the scene as an intellectual movement, it has had to contend with the decline of ancient and medieval ideas of an orderly universe, in which permanent hierarchies of power reflected the eternal structure of the cosmos. The overthrow of the old regime reveals not only the weakness and incompetence of its leaders but also a larger truth about the lack of design in the world."

Wow. That's the source of the irrational attachment to the GOP: If the GOP can fail, then all of heaven is in question, and that's just to scary to contemplate.

I believe more and more, every day, that we will never start taking care of each other and this fragile earth until we emotionally grow out of the need for the church.