GOV3217

Modern Political Ideologies

Lecture 9
Conservatism

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 All course materials, including anything accessible
on Moodle, should not be circulated without the
instructor’s permission.

 All materials are solely for academic purposes.

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1. Review of the previous lecture

2. The idea of conservatism

3. Core values of conservatism

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 Feminist ideology has traditionally been defined by two basic beliefs:
1. Women are disadvantaged because of their gender.
2. This disadvantage can and should be removed.

 Feminists have highlighted what they see as a political relationship

between the sexes, the supremacy of men and the subjection of women
in most, if not all, societies.

 In viewing gender divisions as ‘political’, feminists challenged a

‘mobilization of bias’ that has traditionally operated within political
thought, by which generations of male thinkers, unwilling to examine
the privileges and power their sex had enjoyed, had succeeded in
keeping the role of women off the political agenda.

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 First-wave feminists believe that the achieving universal
suffrage would mean that full emancipation of women.

 Second-wave feminists criticize this idea as naïve. Being

granted the voting right does not necessarily result in gender
equality in especially the private sphere.

 Second-wave feminism: The form of feminism that

emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, and was characterized by
a more radical concern with ‘women’s liberation’, including,
and perhaps especially, in the private sphere.

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 The term ‘third-wave feminism’ was increasingly adopted from the 1990s
onwards, becoming popular among feminist theorists for whom the concerns of
the 1960s and 1970s women’s movement seemed to lack relevance to their own
lives. This was both because of the emergence of new issues in feminist politics
and because of the political and social transformations that second-wave
feminism has brought about.

 From a concern about the differences between women and men to a concern
with differences between women.

 Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept about ‘intersectionality’. Intersectionality is a

framework for the analysis of injustice and social equality that emphasizes the
multidimensional or multifaceted nature of personal identity and of related
systems of domination. In this view, women do not just have a straightforward
gender-based identity but rather one in which, for instance, race, social class,
ethnicity, age, religion, nationality and sexual orientation can overlap, or
‘intersect’, with gender.
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Sex and gender

 Feminists challenge the idea that the gender division that runs through
society is ‘natural’: women and men merely fulfil the social roles for
which nature designed them.

 Female sex is not the same as gender. The former is a biological concept,
while the latter is a socio-cultural concept. What makes a female
biologically a female is a question distinct from what social duties and
expectations are ascribed to female.

 Most feminists believe that human nature is characterized by androgyny.

All human beings, regardless of sex, possess the genetic inheritance of a
mother and a father, and therefore embody a blend of both female and
male attributes or traits.
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 Conservatism generally refers to being “moderate” or “cautious”.
Sometimes it is being refereed to “a lifestyle that is conventional, even
conformist, or a fear of, or refusal to accept, change” (Heywood, 2021, p.
49).

 As a political ideology, conservatism is defined by the desire to conserve,

reflected in a resistance to, or at least a suspicion of, change.

 However, while the desire to resist change may be the recurrent theme
within conservatism, what distinguishes conservatism from rival political
creeds is the distinctive way in which this position is upheld, in particular
through support for tradition, a belief in human imperfection, and the
attempt to uphold the organic structure of society.

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 By the 1820s, the term was being used to denote opposition
to the principles and spirit of the 1789 French Revolution,
and the wider shift away from absolute monarchical rule.

 In the UK, the Tory faction in the House of Commons, and

the principal opposition to the Whigs, gradually came to be
known as ‘Conservatives’, the title being adopted as the
party’s official name in 1835 (ibid, p. 49).

 In the US, it was the 1968 election that made conservatism a

growingly important ideology.

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 Conservative ideas arose in reaction to the
growing pace of political, social and
economic change, which, in many ways,
was symbolized by the French Revolution.

 One of the earliest, and perhaps the

classic, statement of conservative
principles is contained in Edmund Burke’s
Reflections on the Revolution in France
(1790), which deeply regretted the
revolutionary challenge to the ancien
régime that had occurred the previous year
(Heywood, 2021, p. 50).

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 Conservatism is thus an opposition to abstract and
ideal theorization. Abstract and ideal theorization
often begins with articulating an ideal and ask how
the reality could fit the ideal that has been
articulated.

 Conservatism holds that the present and history

have significant role in thinking about questions
concerning social arrangement and transformation.

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 Some general features of conservatism include:

▪ Opposition to “artificial, humanly devised, change” (does not extend

to organic change)

▪ “A belief in the extra‐human origins of the social order”

▪ “Counter-movement” – opposition to progressivism

▪ Defend vigorously those aspects of the social order most likely to be

attacked by the rival ideologies → substantive flexibility; also explains
variations across contexts

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 To describe conservatism as an ideology is to risk irritating
conservatives themselves. They have often preferred to
describe their beliefs as an ‘attitude of mind’ or ‘common
sense’, as opposed to an ‘ism’ or ideology.

 Others have argued that what is distinctive about

conservatism is its emphasis on history and experience, and
its distaste for rational thought.

 Conservatives have thus typically eschewed the ‘politics of

principle’ (a reliance on ideals and abstract theory) and
adopted instead a traditionalist political stance.
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 Conservatism is founded on a particular set of political
beliefs about human beings, the societies they live in, and
the importance of a distinctive set of political values. As
such, like liberalism and socialism, it should rightfully be
described as an ideology. The most significant of its central
beliefs are:

▪ tradition
▪ human imperfection
▪ organic society
▪ hierarchy and authority
▪ property

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Tradition

 “The desire to conserve” is the defining theme of

conservative ideology. One of the central aspects is a
defence of tradition.

 Tradition refers to values, practices or institutions that have

endured through time and, in particular, been passed down
from one generation to the next.

 In conservatism, there is the religious defence of tradition

and non-religious defence of tradition.
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Tradition (cont’d)

 If the world is thought to have been fashioned by God the Creator, traditional
customs and practices in society will be regarded as ‘God given’. Edmund Burke
thus believed that society was shaped by ‘the law of our Creator’, or what he also
called ‘natural law’. If human beings tamper with the world, they are challenging
the will of God, and as a result they are likely to make human affairs worse rather
than better.

 But since the enlightenment, the religious defence of tradition becomes

increasingly hard to maintain as a public justification of tradition. (Recall the
state of nature’s theory concerning the origins of human society)

 Most conservatives, however, support tradition without needing to argue that it

has divine origins. Burke, for example, described society as a partnership
between ‘those who are living, those who are dead and those who are to be
born’.
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Tradition (cont’d)

 Burke: “those who are living, those who are

dead and those who are to be born”

 G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936): “Tradition means

giving votes to the most obscure of all classes:
our ancestors. It is a democracy of the dead.
Tradition refuses to submit to the arrogant
oligarchy of those who merely happen to be
walking around”

 Question: Is this a sensible idea? What do you

think?

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Tradition (cont’d)

 Tradition, in this sense, reflects the accumulated wisdom of the past.

 The institutions and practices of the past have been ‘tested by time’, and
should therefore be preserved for the benefit of the living and for
generations to come. This is the sense in which we should respect the
actions – or ‘votes’ – of the dead, who will always outnumber the living.

 Such a notion of tradition reflects an almost Darwinian belief that those

institutions and customs that have survived have only done so because
they have worked and been found to be of value. They have been
endorsed by a process of ‘natural selection’ and demonstrated their
fitness to survive.

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Tradition (cont’d)

 In addition to the “accumulated wisdom” argument, another argument

that conservatives use to defend tradition is the “identity-based”
argument.

 Tradition generates a sense of identity for both society and the

individual. Established customs and practices are ones that individuals
can recognize; they are familiar and reassuring.

 Tradition thus provides people with a feeling of ‘rootedness’ and

belonging, which is all the stronger because it is historically based. It
generates social cohesion by linking people to the past and providing
them with a collective sense of who they are. Change, on the other hand,
is a journey into the unknown: it creates uncertainty and insecurity, and
so endangers our happiness.
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Human imperfection

 Conservatism is a “philosophy of human imperfection”.

 Other ideologies generally believe that human beings are naturally good
or they could be made good if the social circumstances are improved.

 One stream of such idea is the “utopian thinking”, based on the belief
that the social structure is malleable and flexible to a degree of no limit.

 Conservatism generally is dismissive of the utopian thinking, because it

holds that human beings are both imperfect and unperfectible.

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Human imperfection (cont’d)

 Conservatives offer at least three reasons to explain their understanding of

human imperfection.

 Psychologically limited and dependent: people fear isolation and instability.

They are drawn psychologically to the safe and the familiar, and, above all, seek
the security of knowing ‘their place’. Such a portrait of human nature is very
different from the image of individuals as self-reliant, enterprising ‘utility
maximizers’ proposed by early liberals. The belief that people desire security and
belonging has led conservatives to emphasize the importance of social order, and
to be suspicious of the attractions of liberty.

 Morally imperfect: Conservatives hold a pessimistic, even Hobbesian, view of

human nature. Humankind is innately selfish and greedy, anything but
perfectible; as Hobbes put it, the desire for ‘power after power’ is the primary
human urge.
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Human imperfection (cont’d)

 Limited intellectual powers: Conservatives have traditionally believed

that the world is simply too complicated for human reason to grasp fully.
The political world, as Michael Oakeshott put it, is ‘boundless and
bottomless’.

▪ Conservatives are therefore suspicious of abstract ideas and systems of thought that
claim to understand what is, they argue, simply incomprehensible.

▪ Conservatives prefer to ground their ideas in tradition, experience and history, adopting
a cautious, moderate and above all pragmatic approach to the world, and avoiding, if at
all possible, doctrinaire or dogmatic beliefs.

▪ High-sounding political principles such are fraught with danger because they provide a
blueprint for the reform or remodelling of the world, which assume that human beings
could have complete and full knowledge of the world.
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Human imperfection (cont’d)

 Michael Oakeshott (1901-90)

 A British political philosopher, Oakeshott

advanced a powerful defence of a
nonideological style of politics that supported a
cautious and piecemeal approach to change.

 “In political activity … men sail a boundless and

bottomless sea; there is neither harbour for
shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither
starting-place nor appointed destination. The
enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel; the
sea is both friend and enemy; and the
seamanship consists in using the resources of a
traditional manner of behaviour in order to
make a friend of every hostile occasion.”
(Oakeshott)
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Human imperfection (cont’d)

 Distrusting rationalism, he argued in favour of

traditional values and established customs on the
grounds that the conservative disposition is ‘to
prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the
tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to
the possible’.

 One of his most famous essays is “On Being

Conservative”.
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Organic society

 Conservatism holds that human beings are psychologically-dependent

and they seek for rules and stability.

 This implies that they do not, and cannot, exist outside society, but
desperately need to belong, to have ‘roots’ in society. The individual
cannot be separated from society, but is part of the social groups that
nurture him or her: family, friends or peer group, workmates or
colleagues, local community and the nation.

 This is sometimes being referred to as “social conservatism”: “It is the

belief that society is fashioned out of a fragile network of relationships
which need to be upheld through duty, traditional values and established
institutions” (Heywood, 2021, p. 55).

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Organic society (cont’d)

 One’s sense of fulfillment comes from the fact that s/he fulfills the social expectations
that are being given to his/her social roles.

 The idea of society as organicism, which is a belief that society operates like an
organism or living entity, the whole being more than a collection of its individual
parts.

 Organisms differ from artefacts or machines in two important respects. First, unlike
machines, organisms are not simply a collection of individual parts that can be
arranged or rearranged at will.

 Second, organisms are shaped by ‘natural’ factors rather than human ingenuity. An
organic society is fashioned, ultimately, by natural necessity. For example, the family
has not been ‘invented’ by any social thinker or political theorist, but is a product of
natural social impulses such as love, caring and responsibility. In no sense do children
in a family agree to a ‘contract’ on joining the family – they simply grow up within it
and are nurtured and guided by it.
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Organic society (cont’d)

 The use of the ‘organic metaphor’ for understanding society

has some profoundly conservative implications. A
mechanical view of society as adopted by liberals and most
socialists, in which society is constructed by rational
individuals for their own purposes, suggests that society can
be tampered with and improved.

 If society is organic, its structures and institutions have been

shaped by forces beyond human control and, possibly,
human understanding. This implies that its delicate ‘fabric’
should be preserved and respected by the individuals who
live within it.
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Hierarchy and authority

 Conservatives have traditionally believed that society is naturally

hierarchical, characterized by fixed or established social gradations.

 Pre-democratic conservatives such as Burke were, in this way, able to

embrace the idea of a ‘natural aristocracy’. Just as the brain, the heart
and the liver all perform very different functions within the body, the
various classes and groups that make up society also have their own
specific roles.

 Conservatives do not accept the liberal belief that authority arises out of
contracts made by free individuals. In liberal theory, authority is thought
to be established by individuals for their own benefit. In contrast,
conservatives believe that authority, like society, develops naturally.
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Property

 Conservatives have a complicated and mixed view of property.

 On the one hand, some conservatives agree with liberals that the “meritocratic”
distribution of property could provide important economic incentive for people.

 However, conservatives are also aware of the psychological and social advantages
associated with the ownership of property. These include a sense of security, a way of
living, nurturing one’s respect towards the property of others, the promotion of law and
order, etc.

 There is also an “individuality” argument in the ownership of property as advocated by

conservatives: People ‘realize’ themselves, even see themselves, in what they own.
Possessions are not merely external objects, valued because they are useful – a house to
keep us warm and dry, a car to provide transport and so on – but also reflect something of
the owner’s personality and character. A home is the most personal and intimate of
possessions, it is decorated and organized according to the tastes and needs of its owner
and therefore reflects his or her personality (Heywood, 2021, p. 60).

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 What makes conservatism an “ideology” rather than
simply a philosophical disposition?

 Why do conservatives value tradition? What

arguments do they offer?

 What is the relationship between the conservative

view on tradition, human imperfection, hierarchy,
and property?

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