Talk:American Conservatism/removed

Removing large sections that discuss general Conservatism

I wanted to preserve this text, but it isn't about American Conservatism. Some general info needs to be there to define the terms used in the AC article, but we don't need five paras on Burke and Classical Liberalism etc. - they belong, and are present in, the main article about Conservative thought. Kaisershatner 15:01, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

---

An introduction to conservatism

Conservatism can be contrasted on the one hand to radical libertarianism or anarchism, and on the other to such statist movements as fascism and the authoritarian (as opposed to libertarian) versions of communism, and socialism. In terms of the relation of the individual and the state, conservatism falls in the middle. While one end of the spectrum sees no need for the state to exist, the other sees the state as more important than the individual.

There is an ambiguity inherent in the term "conservative" as used today. Classical Conservatism emphasizes the importance of tradition and continuity. An individual may fall anywhere from the right to the centre-left on the traditional left-right political spectrum and be a classical conservative. On the other hand, ideological conservatism is specifically on the right side of the spectrum. Thus, to talk meaningfully about conservatism, one must consider both classical conservatism and ideological conservatism.

The ideals of classical conservatism and classical liberalism can and often do coexist within a party, a regime, or even an individual. They are not always in conflict, but they are inevitably in tension. Classical conservatism emphasizes tradition and continuity; classical liberalism emphasizes individual liberty. Sometimes these two ideals are mutually supportive (as in support for freedom of political speech); sometimes they are in conflict (as in matters relating to gender roles); sometimes they are in complicated and dynamic relation to one another (as in matters relating to welfare).

In the popular imagination, "liberal" and "conservative" have always been at odds, irrespective of whether "conservative" meant old Tory, Dixiecrat, or neoconservative or whether "liberal" meant old Whig, Jeffersonian, or Communist. In the context of contemporary Anglo-American politics, nearly all conservatism incorporates many aspects of classical liberalism, but it remains in contrast to and in conflict with modern liberalism and democratic socialism.

Classical conservatism as non-ideological

Conservatism as an identifiably distinct political philosophy began with classical conservatism. Classical conservatism is "non-ideological" in that classical conservatism is defined more by its choice of means than of ends. Professional philosophers refer to this as a deontological (as against a consequentialist) position. Classical conservatism, by definition, is skeptical of plans to re-model human society after an ideological model. While an individual classical conservative may favor left- or right-leaning government, the defining aspect of classical conservatism is a belief in the importance of continuity with tradition, and that political change should come about through legitimate governmental channels. Classical conservatives generally oppose disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, or other political chicanery; above all, they oppose revolution. So long as rule of law is upheld, and so long as change is effected gradually and constitutionally rather than revolution, the classical conservative is content. Another form of conservatism would be monarchism or neomonarchism; the belief(s) that society would benefit from a benign monarchial dictatorship.

Classical conservatism is, by definition, not revolutionary; it is also not counter-revolutionary. When the term "conservative" is applied to the entire political right, it is extended to embrace some people who are not classical conservatives, in that they advocate extra-constitutional reactionary changes to the status quo. Right-wing politics is not inherently conservative, and the classical conservative opposes rapid change right or left.

A classical conservative does not necessarily simply support keeping things exactly as they currently are. Even "anti-ideological" classical conservatives have political preferences. In this vein, the intellectual source of conservatism as a "modern" philosophy can be traced to Edmund Burke. Burke developed his ideas in reaction to the so-called Enlightenment, when European thinkers were beginning to develop the ideology of modernism, which emphasizes social construction guided by abstract "Reason." Burke was troubled by the Enlightenment and the by belief that "Reason" is a sufficient base for justice: he argued, instead, for the value of tradition.

Some men, argued Burke, have more reason than others, and thus some men will make worse governments if they rely upon reason than others. To Burke, the proper formulation of government came not from abstractions such as "Reason," but from time-honored development of the state and of other important societal institutions such as the family and the Church.

"We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason;" Burke wrote, "because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and ages. Many of our men of speculation, instead of exploding general prejudices, employ their sagacity to discover the latent wisdom which prevails in them. If they find what they seek, and they seldom fail, they think it more wise to continue the prejudice, with the reason involved, than to cast away the coat of prejudice, and to leave nothing but naked reason; because prejudice, with its reason, has a motive to give action to that reason, and an affection which will give it permanence."

Burke argued that tradition is a much sounder foundation than "reason". The conservative paradigm he established emphasizes the futility of attempting to ground human society based solely in pure abstractions (such as "reason," "equality," or, more recently, "diversity"), and the necessity of humility in the face of the unknowable. Existing institutions have virtues that cannot be fully grasped by any single person or interest group or, in Burke's view, even any single generation: in his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke referred to "the living" as "the temporary possessors and life-renters" of "the commonwealth and laws... that they should not think it among their rights to cut off the entail, or commit waste on the inheritance, by destroying at their pleasure the whole original fabric of their society." [1] Tradition draws on the wisdom of many generations and the tests of time, while "reason" may be a mask for the preferences of one man, and at best represents only the untested wisdom of one generation. In the conservative view, an attempt to modify the complex web of human interactions that form human society for the sake of some doctrine or theory runs the risk of running afoul of the iron law of unintended consequences. Burke advocates vigilance against the possibility of moral hazards.

The classical conservative embraces an attitude that is deeply suspicious of any attempt to remake society in the service of any ideology or doctrine, whether that doctrine is radical libertarianism, socialism, Nazism, or anything else. Classical conservatives see history as being full of disastrous schemes that seemed like good ideas at the time. Human society, in their view, is something rooted and organic; to try to prune and shape it according to the plans of an ideologue is to invite unforeseen disaster.