Note on conservatism

Meaning and background of conservatism

Conservatism rests on a defence of traditional institutions and practices. The word was popularised in 1818 when Chateaubriand named his journal Le Conservateur, and the doctrine took shape in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as a reaction to the pace of economic and political change set off by the French Revolution. It gives weight to what has been historically inherited over what is abstract and ideal, takes an organic view of society, as a living body of interdependent members rather than a heap of individuals, and holds that government should serve the existing ways of life. It differs from reaction, which wants to restore an order that has become outmoded: the conservative wishes to preserve what exists, the reactionary to roll back.

Writers on conservatism distinguish three usages: temperamental (a disposition to resist disruptive change, resting on habit, inertia, fear and emulation), situational (opposition to disruptive change in the social, legal, religious or political order) and political (the defensive aspirations of parties and movements that value inherited morality and tested institutions). Rossiter notes that the word is as useful as it is confusing.

Characteristic features of conservatism

1. History and tradition. Tradition is the accumulated wisdom of the past, tested by time; Burke's picture of society as a partnership of the living, the dead and the unborn expresses this, and tradition is, in the words of Chesterton, a "democracy of the dead". (2) Human imperfection, prejudice and reason. People are imperfect, dependent and fearful of instability, suspicious of abstract ideas and guided more by experience and settled belief than by reason; imparted theoretical knowledge is distrusted in favour of learnt experience. (3) Organic society, liberty and equality. Individuals belong to society and owe it duties; liberty is not a matter of being left alone but the willing acceptance of social obligations, and a hierarchical, differentiated order is natural, so levelling is resisted. (4) Authority and power. Order requires authority, which develops naturally from social functions, and conservatives value leadership, discipline and, in the paternalist tradition, a government that acts as a father-figure. (5) Property. Property gives security, confidence and a stake in order, and is almost an extension of personality. (6) Religion and morality. Religion supplies the moral fabric of society, a kind of social cement, and a check on unbounded independence.

Russell Kirk's six canons restate the creed: divine intent rules society, variety and mystery are preferred to uniformity, civilised society needs orders and classes, property and freedom are connected, human appetite must be restrained, and change is not the same thing as reform, so change must be slow.