[This is one of the sections in the Study Study Guide for his “Comparative Social and Political Philosophies” Honors class that Dwight Murphey taught at Wichita State University, Fall 1996. There is a section on each of the major social-political philosophies.]
The Varieties of "Conservatism" -- With Particular Emphasis
on Burkean Conservatism
The type of "conservatism" that dominated Europe for over two
thousand years was formed out of aristocracy, a hierarchical social structure,
and the organic state and church, (1) all
buttressed by authority and tradition. This conservatism has, in historical
terms, only recently lost its hold, continuing in some places well into the
twentieth century. It remains the philosophy of a highly literate group of
thinkers.
The roots of this conservatism go so deeply into the Middle Ages and even into Roman history that it is a mistake to take any labeling seriously that ascribes to it the name of just one man. In common with many others, I will call it "Burkean conservatism," naming it after the British statesman Edmund Burke who stated its principles so eloquently in his Reflections on the Revolution in France. But this labeling should be understood as only a convenience to help differentiate this conservatism from some other. As a philosophy and a way of life, it held sway for thousands of years before Burke. We will discuss this later in this section.
Common meaning. A thread that runs through all of the meanings of the word "conservative" is that in one way or another the person seeks either to defend an existing state of things or to return to one that he sees as having existed earlier. This means that the applications of the word "conservative" are as varied as the situations in which there is something to defend. Widely divergent views are often called "conservative." After the overthrow of Communism in the former Soviet Union, for example, the press has spoken of the Communists as one of the "conservative" or "right wing" forces in Russia. At the same time, Russians who want to return to some aspect of the pre-Communist Russian past are also labeled "conservatives."
Classical liberalism as a form of conservatism. One of the ironies of the past century has been that "classical liberalism," the theory of individual freedom within a market economy and limited government which was for so long the main enemy of traditionalist hierarchical conservatism in Europe, has come to be counted as among the types of conservatism. Classical liberalism and Burkean conservatism have been allies in the twentieth century because of their common opposition to all forms of socialist thought. The alignments of the past century have caused the common thread of meaning in the word "conservative" to apply to classical liberalism. The proponents of a middle class commercial society, limited government, the Rule of Law (2) and the free market were radicals during the age of aristocracy, but even without any change of position on their part they necessarily became defenders of an existing order after many of their principles were first accepted by society and then came under attack. Because of the values they have held, they have opposed the assaults on those values that they have seen in Communism, socialism, the New Deal, and the New Left counterculture.
An important division has recently become apparent among classical liberals in the United States. Some, emphasizing their commitment to personal choice and free markets, are enthusiastically in favor of the growing global marketplace, the decline of national identity, and a free migration of peoples into Europe and the United States. Others, emphasizing their commitment to the institutions and culture of existing American and European society which they see as important to the overall health of liberal values, are much more anxious to protect the identity of Europe and America, which they see as threatened. This latter group is aptly called "culturally conservative," while the former is hardly "conservative" in any sense in the current context.
"Conservatism" as a matter of temperament. It is sometimes said that a person "should be a radical when he is twenty, a conservative by the time he is forty." This is a popularized summary of Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous discussion of the temperamental (i.e., personality) basis for conservatism in his lecture "The Conservative" in 1841. "It affirms," he said, "because it holds. Its fingers clutch the fact, and it will not open its eyes to see a better fact. The castle which Conservatism is set to defend is the actual state of things, good and bad...We are reformers in spring and summer, in autumn and winter we stand by the old; reformers in the morning, conservers at night."
It is well to develop some understanding for why the human heart will often have a tendency toward memory, stability, the old ways, all of which lie at the heart of temperamental conservatism.
When I was a young boy, I spent summers at Palmer Lake, Colorado. There was an aspen grove a half mile from the cabin which contained, deep in the forest, a spring of clear mountain water. We would pack lunches and go down the path to the spring. The picnics there have a special place in my memory. Many years later, a bulldozer swept all of that away. In place of the aspen and the spring, five or six cheap frame houses were built. The ground is now often littered with trash and old tires. I wouldn't deny the legitimacy of the emotion that regrets this change. And yet Emerson made the point that such sentiment can express only half the truth, since in a progressive civilization there is also the necessity of change.
"Conservatism" as a defense of monarchy. Monarchy and aristocracy were under attack in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. The victory of the monarchies over Napoleon resulted in a temporary reaffirmation of monarchy, even though underlying movement toward classical liberalism continued (as with the giving of the right to vote to at least some middle class men in England in the 1830s). This monarchism is often spoken of as "conservatism" in the histories written of modern Europe. It differed greatly from classical liberalism. One of its roots was undoubtedly temperamental conservatism. In its attachment to specific royal entities, it wasn't fully equivalent to "Burkean conservatism," which is far more a philosophy than an attachment to a given set of institutions. I will be referring to Thomas Carlyle, for example, as a "Burkean conservative," and he by no means identified himself with the aristocracy of his day.
Romanticism as conservatism. Monarchism passed from the scene as the 19th century went on, although it continued in Russia until 1917. What is probably far more important is that the 19th century saw the rise of varied forms of what we might call "radical medievalism" or even "radical paganism" that rejected modernity, repudiating the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, and idealized cultural memories from deep in the past. This was the Romantic movement, which became important throughout Europe beginning in the early 19th century. Although it can be seen as a form of "conservatism," since it involved a harking back to the past, its importance will cause us to discuss it separately for its own sake as one of the "worldviews" we will be covering.
"Burkean
Conservatism"
During the wars with Carthage a couple of centuries before Caesar, the Roman
Republic consisted of a tightly knit society, organic, hierarchical, welded
together by a powerful consensus. It was authoritarian and insulated; had a
landed, not a commercial, economic base; and had an aristocratic social and
political base. Because it was a "closed system," it was bound
eventually to shatter, but almost all later Romans looked back upon it as
ideal. The characteristics of the Republic took on the quality of a worldview,
a set of values.
The values that were preferred by many Greek intellectuals were similar. Plato, Xenophon, Tyrtaeus and (later) Plutarch preferred the militarily disciplined, organic society of Sparta to the open society of Athens.
All of the outer forms of society changed as Europe entered the Middle Ages. But the underlying principles bore a striking resemblance to those of the Roman Republic. The Middle Ages adopted the element of social hierarchy, with its feudal structure and aristocracy. In religion, the Roman Catholic Church towered over the Middle Ages, providing an absorbing religious hegemony analogous to the Romans' "fear of the gods." The insularity of the Romans was replaced by the even greater mental authoritarianism of the Middle Ages. The Roman virtues of gravitas, pietas and disciplina were replaced by Christian piety and the honor-oriented values of chivalry. Economically, the medieval period was based on a landed system, as the Roman had been, not on commerce. Both social systems were tradition-bound, revering the past. Each impressed a strong control on human will and appetite. And each adopted in its own way a strong state, though this was not seen in Europe until the late Middle Ages.
With some exceptions, these values dominated Europe for over two thousand years. Few thinkers made a systematic theory of them, however, until they came under attack. Their most comprehensive statement was set forth by Edmund Burke in his Reflections on the Revolution in France near the end of the 18th century.
Burke wanted an organic society. "Society requires not only that the passions of individuals should be subjected, but that even in the mass and body as in the individuals, the inclinations of men should frequently be thwarted, their will controlled, and their passions brought into subjection." He summarized his views when he said that ""We fear God; we look up with awe to kings; with affection to parliaments; with duty to magistrates; with reverence to priests; and with respect to nobility." He hoped for "a monarchy directed by laws, controlled and balanced by the great hereditary dignity of a nation." A restraining force would be "the laws, opinions, and inveterate usages of our country, growing out of the prejudice of ages."
Individual reason was subordinated by him to the "ancient system" of society. "We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason." He didn't want things "disconnected into the dust and powder of individuality."
Samuel Johnson was a contemporary of Burke. If we read Johnson's conversations as reported by the dutiful Boswell, we find many striking expressions of the point of view. "I consider myself as acting a part in the great system of Society," Johnson said. "I am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society. There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed."
The worldview articulated by Burke and Johnson was carried into the 19th century by a diverse and splendidly talented group of authors. One of them was Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was mainly in revolt against the rationalist, secular impulses of his time. While he was philosophical and poetic, Thomas Carlyle was fiery and biting. "Europe," he wrote, "requires a real Aristocracy, a real Priesthood, or it cannot continue to exist." John Ruskin wrote scathing social criticism directed at individualism and the Industrial Revolution. Matthew Arnold wanted culture to define a "right reason" which would be enforced by the state.
This outlook has received eloquent expression in the United States during the second half of the 20th century by the likes of Russell Kirk, Willmoore Kendall, George W. Carey, and Richard Weaver. Kirk's The Conservative Mind defines (this form of) conservatism as embracing the central role of religion, with Christianity being "the core of our civilization"; tradition; a hierarchy of social classes; property; careful reform; and limitations on "will and appetite."
Bibliographical Notes
The points made in the preceding summary are spelled out in considerably greater detail in my book Modern Social and Political Philosophies: Burkean Conservatism and Classical Liberalism (Washington: University Press of America, 1982), pp. 33-94.
James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson is especially good in its reporting of conversations near the end of the 18th century in which the Burkean view is compared sharply with the incoming attitudes of classical liberal individualism. You'll see how real people held fervently to the Burkean preferences.
The preceding discussion has mentioned Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France as a comprehensive statement of the worldview. Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind shows how those ideas continue to have power two centuries later. Richard Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences is considered a major classic by modern Burkeans. Its value is in seeing how much Burkeans feel mankind has gone off base since as long ago as the 14th century.
1. By "organic," we mean that the state and church were not for the most part things separate from the main flow of life, but rather were mixed with and infused all aspects of the society.
2. The phrase "Rule of Law" has a special meaning in the history of European thought. It refers to limiting government to acting according to rules that are clear in meaning, known in advance, general in scope, equal in their application, prospective rather than applying to things that occurred before they were enacted, and impartially applied. This is intended to restrain government and to allow individuals to act without worry that they will be subject to arbitrary actions, which are ones that don't conform to the known rules.