Stephen Bainbridge, over at the Daily Dish, has posted Russel Kirk's famous 10 principles of conservatives. Kirk doesn't get to define "conservative" for the rest of the world, of course, but they are worth mulling over. I found myself thinking about why it is that the neocons are neocons, for example. Why did they evolve (excuse the expression) in conservative waters, rather than liberal waters?
In any case, I thought I'd look at some of the 10 principles here at the Mull, just to see if thinking about them makes anything clearer for me, or any of you. Comments are welcome, and can be emailed to me through the email Ken link in the sidebar.
The first principle in Kirk's list:
The conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent. ... A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize; while a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society—no matter how many people vote and no matter how liberal its formal constitution may be. ...
That's a lot, for one principle. Let's break it down:
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"There exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it."
I'll overlook the sexism for starters. Beyond that, it all depends on what you mean. No educated person is going to believe that different societies haven't had different moral values, or that morals don't change within the same society at different times. So if "the conservative" believes that, he (I'm just following the sexist lead here) is wrong. On the other hand, if this just means that humans tend to agree, in broad general terms, about whether a great many behaviors (but not all) are desirable for the common good, then "the conservative" doesn't believe anything much different from anyone else. -
"Human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent."
It depends, again, on what you mean by "human nature". If human nature includes all the varieties of human culture, then it is far from constant. If it only includes the genetic tendencies we inherit at birth, it is still far from constant. (For a comprehensive, and fascinating, treatment of this point, check out Paul R. Ehrlich, Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect.) Human nature varies from human to human. Of course, if all the conservative means by this is that there are some characteristics that we all more or less share, then, once again, there's nothing special about that. -
"A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize"
Where to begin? I assume that the conservative means that these "personal convictions about justice and honor" must, at least be similar convictions. If everyone is governed by conflicting convictions, we're going to have a pretty dangerous society, pretty quickly. So then the question becomes which set of convictions must the society agree upon? I knew an old lady once who firmly believed it was an injustice for a restaurant to allow people of skin darker than her own to eat in the same room with her. And, I might point out, that was, at the time a conservative conviction. I don't believe that a society governed by a strong moral sense of that kind would be a good society. In fact, I would go so far as to say that when people do horrible things to each other, they are, more often than not, governed by a strong moral sense. The worst atrocities are performed on principle.
And, of course, I couldn't possibly agree that political machinery doesn't matter, as long as people are moral. Of course it matters. for the reasons above, the more those in power are motivated by moral principle, the more protection everyone else needs. That's one of the best arguments for democracy. -
"while a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society—no matter how many people vote and no matter how liberal its formal constitution may be."
This last bit is absurd, and betrays the basic point of view. Conservatives (by Kirk's definition) are human haters. They believe that human beings, left to themselves, will always sink to the lowest possible level of behavior. It never occurs to them that among the appetites which humans regularly and naturally gratify are appetites for love, for helping each other, for cooperation and the joy of working toward common goals, for taking care of children and the aged, for feeding the hungry and helping the poor. No. Anything like that must be forced on us, by "moral norms" completely alien to human nature. Otherwise we will be "morally adrift."
It's not that hard to see how such a view of humanity could create a neocon. It doesn't matter, remember, what the form of government is--a dictatorship will do quite nicely, particularly if that dictatorship funnels the state money to religious enterprises, in order to instill an "enduring moral order."
