Conservative Values Which Help.
Posted by Will Haggard on February 18th, 2007
The notion that Conservative political values are espoused in a sickly nostalgia for a long lost “golden age,” which probably never existed is, is about as accurate as saying Labour stands for Arthur Scargill and the formation of a soviet proleteriat in which all mankind is equal. Not only is this depiction of our political parties completely ludicrous for today’s political climate it also distorts certain political attributes which at best were only ever adopted within a minority fringe of either Labour or the Conservatives.
What is, however, an attribute of New Labour ideology is the inherent belief that WE in the present day know best. Our changes to society in this overtly positivist philosophy are inherently superior to what has come before. The Past is in this context merely a hindrance to the future. Society must have change whatever. This notion that social and political change must be good can lead to some very dangerous political events. A glance at the utopian rhetoric of Bolshevik Russia in 1917, forward never back, is a case in point. Beside anything else, it exudes an intellectual arrogance about the present, which can be highly self-dillusionary, and excruciating for those who have to listen to it. Conservative philosophy isn’t based in a belief that society must be fossilised, stuck in a landscape of church spires and squires, but that there are many things in our past worth keeping and learning from which can help us shape necessary reform in the future. What after all makes us think that we today know better than people who have shaped this country’s institutions over centuries? Reform in society should always be a gradual ongoing process. The Times in the 1800’s was famous for saying,
“Whilst France has its revolutions periodically, in violent bursts, every half century,
We in Britain have our revolution everyday.”
Conservative values aren’t about stopping society in time, or even turning back the clock. Reform when executed within a broader respect and understanding of social institutions and their history is healthy. Pure political iconoclasm is, on the other hand highly destructive.
Filed under: conservatism on February 18th, 2007
While I agree with you that conservatism isn’t, and shouldn’t be, ‘golden-age-ism’, what I find confusing about both conservative and Conservative politics is the unhappy marriage between social conservatism and fiscal conservatism (if you can call it that; I mean low spending and low taxation). Not to mention the liberal ideal of small government which is embraced within the conservative tradition (arguably). Even though the so-called left in the UK today don’t have any consensus on what they stand for any more, there was, until New Labour, a clear and coherent strategy, the main point of dispute being how far along that road to go. How do you see conservatism? I could take it much more seriously if, for example, it didn’t dictate how people should live their family lives.
The Conservative Party today has been shaped by the 18 years it spent vigorously kicking down the social and economic edifice of the previous 30 years.
And with regard to the Bolsheviks…this man isn’t one…
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=82838&speeches=1
though forward not back was the Labour slogan of 2005…..
Maybe it is just a disease of all parties today
As a member of the Labour Party, I am deeply offended by the insinuation that the party of the beloved Blair (peerage be upon him) is somehow “diseased”. I expect a personal apology and demand the writer face internal discipline.
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Obviously, the above is absurd. As if you can demand - and elicit - an apology for the giving of offence?
I live in a town 10 miles outside Cambridge and my daughter attended Clare open day last year with a view to studying SPS. In the end she chose - yes, chose - Durham. She’s currently reading Mill’s “On liberty”. Ironic, eh?
Yeah, that’s very ironic. I do SPS and the only book on our reading list is the Qur’an.