Conservatism Essay Research Paper CONSERVATISMBy Noel O

Conservatism Essay, Research Paper

CONSERVATISM

By Noel O’Sullivan,1976

Ch. 1 Conservative Ideology: a Philosophy of Imperfection

· Conservatism, as an ideology, emerged in response to the French revolution and in opposition to the idea of the French revolutionaries that human reason and will were powerful enough to regenerate human nature by creating a completely new social order, constructed in accordance with the requirements of liberty, equality and fraternity. Conservatism, then, is characterized, in the first instance, by opposition to the idea of total or radical change, not by the absurd idea of opposition to change as such, or by any commitment to preserving all existing institutions. p. 9

· Term first used by Chateaubriand, after the revolution, when he gave the name Le Conservateur to a journal he issued to propagate the cause of a clerical and political Restoration in France. Thereafter name is rapidly adopted by many other groups opposed the progress of the Revolution. American Republicans and British Tory’s are calling themselves ‘conservatives’ by early 1830’s. p. 9-10

· Precursors to the attitude of the revolutionaries where: two centuries preceding Revolution see increasing tendency to abandon the traditional pessimism about the human condition reflected in the Christian myth of the Fall and in the idea of original sin. The new optimism emerging with the Renaissance is then bolstered by the growth of scientific knowledge and the world comes to be seen as intelligible to human reason (without the need for divine revelation) and responsive to human will once comprehended. The world now came to be regarded as a huge machine or watch which could in principle be dismantled and reassembled. The world is seen to be far more malleable than it had previously. Story of the Fall is gradually discarded as a means of explaining human suffering and in place of Adam Rousseau offers society as the source of human misery. Reform society and suffering will disappear, he argued. p. 10-11

· Such sentiment called for a statement of conservative principles. The incipient conservatives had to show that the world imposes limitations upon what either the individual or the state can hope to achieve. Conservative ideology, accordingly, may be defined as a philosophy of imperfection, committed to the idea of limits, and directed toward the defense of a limited style of politics. By a limited style of politics is meant one which has as its primary aim the preservation of the distinction between private and public life (or between the state and society). This distinction is threatened by the ideal of radical change . which in practice has meant the constant extension of state power into every sphere of life, in the name of equality, social justice and welfare. p. 11-12

· ‘reform’ rather than ‘change’ preserves the essential good. p. 12

· Liberalism, which over the 19th century, came increasingly to value ‘progress’ and the ‘improvement’ (quotation marks in place in text) of mankind is thus distinguished from conservatism for ultimately such notions are incompatible with conservatism. John Stuart Mill made clear that progress or improvement might even mean interfering with the inner life of man – through social welfare programs, etc. p.13

· Positive assertion that “the idea upon which all conservative thought depends.is imperfection.” p.14

· Conservatism is distinguished from the radical right in that like the humanists of the French Revolution Nazism and fascism allow far more potency to the human will and accordingly present the world and social order as more malleable than is compatible with conservative ideology. p. 14

· The radical left also does not treat imperfection as inherent to the human condition but rather the product of a particular organization of society. “Marxism, then, is no exception to the generalization that all radical ideologies maintain that imperfection can be removed (in principle at least) from the human condition by radical social and political change.” p. 15-16

· The rejection of imperfection has found its way into all modern democratic ideology, in the seemingly innocuous guise of the doctrine of popular sovereignty. This correlation may be traced back to Rousseau’s insistence upon man’s natural innocence. Since man is naturally good the only acceptable restraint upon the human will is a self-imposed restraint for external ones must necessarily be incompatible with the freedom and majesty of creatures who are naturally good. In liberal democracies the rejection of imperfection is more familiar in the form of the ideal of self-imposed restraints as the condition for moral and political obligation than in the form of utopian dreams of a communist millennium or a thousand-year Reich. p. 16

· In the Social Contract Rousseau outlines the conditions in which one could justifiably “render obedience” (explanation p. 17 [of O'Sullivan]) yet concludes that no major European country has ever found such conditions and thus none of them could rightfully claim the obedience of their subjects. Rousseau’s view provides the basis of the doctrine of popular sovereignty, which was later enshrined in the French Constitution of 1793, and has later been passed down in a variety of forms to all Western democratic ideologies. P. 17

- Conservatives see dis