Russell Kirk - Ten Conservative Principles

[HikerGuy83]

I recently started going back through my copy of The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk.

I only got about half way through because i was, honestly, finding it hard to follow him.

I was hoping for some kind of summary at the end.

I never got that far.

Doing some on-line searching I found an article called Ten Conservative Principles. (This didn't just happen). It's been years.

However, as I consider some of the conversations on this and other boards, I thought it would be interesting to pull them out and look at them.

I have other articles that describe "conservatives" both good and bad.

I am not sure I'd argue with them, but I don't find all of them to be exclusive to conservatives.

His tenth principle was interesting:

Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society. The conservative is not opposed to social improvement, although he doubts whether there is any such force as a mystical Progress, with a Roman P, at work in the world. When a society is progressing in some respects, usually it is declining in other respects. The conservative knows that any healthy society is influenced by two forces, which Samuel Taylor Coleridge called its Permanence and its Progression. The Permanence of a society is formed by those enduring interests and convictions that gives us stability and continuity; without that Permanence, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, society slipping into anarchy. The Progression in a society is that spirit and that body of talents which urge us on to prudent reform and improvement; without that Progression, a people stagnate.

Therefore the intelligent conservative endeavors to reconcile the claims of Permanence and the claims of Progression. He thinks that the liberal and the radical, blind to the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage bequeathed to us, in an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious Terrestrial Paradise. The conservative, in short, favors reasoned and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old.

Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body. A body that has ceased to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.

***************************************

I can't tell when they were published, but it appears it was 1987 or before.....so they've been around.

I've known about them for some time, but I've never heard anyone reference them.

I question why not.

I'd like to discuss the these principles to some degree and examine them against what we call "conservative" today.

You can find them all at:

Ten Conservative Principles

Visit the post for more.

kirkcenter.org

 

[Evilroddy]

HikerGuy83:

Do you want us to limit ourselves to commenting on the principle #10 which you have cited or are all of the principles in your linked article fair game for immediate comment?

The article is ou-takes adapted from a book published in 1993.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

 

[The Mark]

So these are apparently the principles, according to the article in the OP.
Note that there is significantly more explained in the article, but I just copied and pasted them.

First, 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.

Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity.

Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription.

Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence.

Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety.

Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability.

Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked.

Eighth, conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism.

Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions.

Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society.

At a glance I'd say Trump violated all of those principles. Maybe not the seventh.

 

[reflechissez]

I recently started going back through my copy of The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk.

I only got about half way through because i was, honestly, finding it hard to follow him.

I was hoping for some kind of summary at the end.

I never got that far.

Doing some on-line searching I found an article called Ten Conservative Principles. (This didn't just happen). It's been years.

However, as I consider some of the conversations on this and other boards, I thought it would be interesting to pull them out and look at them.

I have other articles that describe "conservatives" both good and bad.

I am not sure I'd argue with them, but I don't find all of them to be exclusive to conservatives.

His tenth principle was interesting:

Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society. The conservative is not opposed to social improvement, although he doubts whether there is any such force as a mystical Progress, with a Roman P, at work in the world. When a society is progressing in some respects, usually it is declining in other respects. The conservative knows that any healthy society is influenced by two forces, which Samuel Taylor Coleridge called its Permanence and its Progression. The Permanence of a society is formed by those enduring interests and convictions that gives us stability and continuity; without that Permanence, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, society slipping into anarchy. The Progression in a society is that spirit and that body of talents which urge us on to prudent reform and improvement; without that Progression, a people stagnate.

Therefore the intelligent conservative endeavors to reconcile the claims of Permanence and the claims of Progression. He thinks that the liberal and the radical, blind to the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage bequeathed to us, in an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious Terrestrial Paradise. The conservative, in short, favors reasoned and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old.

Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body. A body that has ceased to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.

***************************************

I can't tell when they were published, but it appears it was 1987 or before.....so they've been around.

I've known about them for some time, but I've never heard anyone reference them.

I question why not.

I'd like to discuss the these principles to some degree and examine them against what we call "conservative" today.

You can find them all at:

Ten Conservative Principles

Visit the post for more.

kirkcenter.org

When are you going to do that?

 

[Antiwar]

There's a lot of 'filler material' (to put it nicely) in what you quoted.

This part is just wrong:

"... the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old."

 

[RabidAlpaca]

So these are apparently the principles, according to the article in the OP.
Note that there is significantly more explained in the article, but I just copied and pasted them.



At a glance I'd say Trump violated all of those principles. Maybe not the seventh.

Thanks for posting these since the OP didn't for some reason. Most of them are nonsense and not followed by modern conservatives, but #1 has to be the dumbest.

There's a never changing moral truth?? What?? Conservatives can't even agree with themselves what that moral truth is. If you ask 100 conservatives to explain their morality in various issues you'll get 100 different answers, and that's just with people today. Go back 50 years and you'll find most conservatives believed black people were lesser humans to be subjugated. Morality is subjective and constantly changing as humanity evolves.

The lack of self awareness they exhibit is astounding.

There's a lot of 'filler material' (to put it nicely) in what you quoted.

This part is just wrong:

"... the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old."

I've never in my entire life met anybody who thinks that. Conservatives wouldn't be conservatives if they didn't have a big heap of strawmanning to make their own beliefs seem more reasonable.

 

[AmNat]

(snipped for the character limit)

What Kirk says in point ten is right, if it's understood that there's no reason to expect contemporary metrics of "progress" to correspond with what is objectively good for society, and (at least in societies, like our own, which are undergoing rapid stochastic change) it should generally be expected that the two standards will be opposite. Conservatives who consider themselves Burkeans are often too quick to grant that the end-goals of leftists are good, if only the left would slow down and think about what it's doing. The habit of using the left's language (progress, reform, etc.) contributes to this.

Kirk also tends to assume without consideration that past instances of "progress" (which conservatives have ceased contesting) were good. That is short-sighted. If conservatives today are correctly opposing harmful innovations, and we find in the history books that conservatives ten or fifty or a hundred years ago were opposing innovations which have since become uncontested, the most reasonable inference is that the past conservatives were right and that society has gone off the rails. To assume otherwise is to imply that previous generations of liberals were fundamentally right, and only started being wrong quite recently.

What Kirk says in point nine is wrong, and an example of this concession to past innovations (as regards political power, the statement that human passions must be restrained is true but not the point of his exposition). The notion of procedurally limited government was a liberal one in origin; the conservatives of the 18th century were the Tories, who supported a government that was unlimited in theory but mild in practice (thought exercise: is there any grievance listed in the Declaration of Independence that USG is not guilty of many times over?).

The basic problem with "limited government" or "restrained power" is that these are false passives. Who is limiting the government or restraining power? Kirk lists the Constitution, checks and balances, and law enforcement among these strictures. One of those is a piece of paper, the others have no existence separate from the exercise of power by human beings. In truth, any person or group of people capable of limiting the government or restraining power just are the government or just are powerful. One cannot get around having some authority which is unaccountable to anyone else on Earth. At best, constitutional restrictions serve as suggestions for how good people should wield power. At worst, they hinder good people from exercising whatever power they do have against evil power-holders. The Supreme Court is a good example of this: when it was majority liberal, it totally upended and restructured vast areas of law and public policy. Now that the Court is majority conservative, it leaves the other branches of government mostly free to do as they please, curbing only the most obvious attacks on religious freedom, gun rights, and so forth. The country would be better off if the five conservatives were *not* constitutionalists, if they used their power (which is theoretically considerable) as pro-actively as their recent forebears.

 

[Sweden]

So these are apparently the principles, according to the article in the OP.
Note that there is significantly more explained in the article, but I just copied and pasted them.



At a glance I'd say Trump violated all of those principles. Maybe not the seventh.

In the real world an 'enduring moral order' has never existed. 'Morals' have always changed as fast as fashioned. And they vary over place as well as time.

Vapourings and inane conjectures over 'what man was made for' are merely silly nonsense. designed to link 'conservatism' with religion.

I had never heard of Russel Kirk and can now forget him without loss.

 

[ttwtt78640]

There's a lot of 'filler material' (to put it nicely) in what you quoted.

This part is just wrong:

"... the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old."

That is somewhat true, yet (too?) often ignores this basic reality: while all progress was the result of change, not all changes result in progress.

 

[ttwtt78640]

In the real world an 'enduring moral order' has never existed. 'Morals' have always changed as fast as fashioned. And they vary over place as well as time.

Vapourings and inane conjectures over 'what man was made for' are merely silly nonsense. designed to link 'conservatism' with religion.

I had never heard of Russel Kirk and can now forget him without loss.

Yep, discussing one person’s (rather fuzzy) perception of what is or isn’t ‘proper’ conservatism isn’t going to be a very productive thread.

 

[bongsaway]

I recently started going back through my copy of The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk.

I only got about half way through because i was, honestly, finding it hard to follow him.

I was hoping for some kind of summary at the end.

I never got that far.

Doing some on-line searching I found an article called Ten Conservative Principles. (This didn't just happen). It's been years.

However, as I consider some of the conversations on this and other boards, I thought it would be interesting to pull them out and look at them.

I have other articles that describe "conservatives" both good and bad.

I am not sure I'd argue with them, but I don't find all of them to be exclusive to conservatives.

His tenth principle was interesting:

Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society. The conservative is not opposed to social improvement, although he doubts whether there is any such force as a mystical Progress, with a Roman P, at work in the world. When a society is progressing in some respects, usually it is declining in other respects. The conservative knows that any healthy society is influenced by two forces, which Samuel Taylor Coleridge called its Permanence and its Progression. The Permanence of a society is formed by those enduring interests and convictions that gives us stability and continuity; without that Permanence, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, society slipping into anarchy. The Progression in a society is that spirit and that body of talents which urge us on to prudent reform and improvement; without that Progression, a people stagnate.

Therefore the intelligent conservative endeavors to reconcile the claims of Permanence and the claims of Progression. He thinks that the liberal and the radical, blind to the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage bequeathed to us, in an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious Terrestrial Paradise. The conservative, in short, favors reasoned and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old.

Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body. A body that has ceased to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.

***************************************

I can't tell when they were published, but it appears it was 1987 or before.....so they've been around.

I've known about them for some time, but I've never heard anyone reference them.

I question why not.

I'd like to discuss the these principles to some degree and examine them against what we call "conservative" today.

You can find them all at:

Ten Conservative Principles

Visit the post for more.

kirkcenter.org

If these are the conservative 'values', the gop is failing miserably.

 

[Fiddytree]

Yep, discussing one person’s (rather fuzzy) perception of what is or isn’t ‘proper’ conservatism isn’t going to be a very productive thread.

Kirk was very much about trying to tell others what is or is not conservatism by ignoring other movements or molding them to fit his definition.
Nevertheless, the selection in this thread is fairly in keeping with Edmund Burke's interpretation of handling the progress vs. tradition dilemma. It's just that in the real world it's not so easy to label what is "the cult of progress" and temperate progress. For Burke the Cult of Progress was the French Revolution, which truly was ugly, but sensible progress was upholding the British Constitutional order of that time and all of its trappings to modern eyes.

And while some/many would claim that Burke was not a reactionary, but a calm conservative, others (self-described reactionaries and left-wing critics of conservatism alike) are going to claim the opposite, because of his temper toward the French Revolution.

 

[HikerGuy83]

HikerGuy83:

Do you want us to limit ourselves to commenting on the principle #10 which you have cited or are all of the principles in your linked article fair game for immediate comment?

The article is ou-takes adapted from a book published in 1993.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

If you want to comment on them, please quote them.

That would be all I would ask.

I quoted #10 because I just started looking at Hayek's "Why I am not a Conservative" (again) and (again) I don't agree with him on several points.

One of which is that conservatives CAN'T change the status quo. That is simply not true.

Real conservatives are constantly looking at what is working and what is not and adjusting.

But today's many of today's so-called conservatives (and I dont' agree they that) are ideological zealots.

As to Kirk, it's a reasonable summary and good focus set for discussion.

Many writers openly state there is no single definition of conservative.

As always EvilRoddy, it's a pleasure to trade thoughts.

 

[HikerGuy83]

Yep, discussing one person’s (rather fuzzy) perception of what is or isn’t ‘proper’ conservatism isn’t going to be a very productive thread.

Actually, I find it very interesting.

Especially since some so-called conservatives will say other conservatives are "not conservative enough".

Just WTH does that mean ?

And WTH do they think they are judging what others are ?

 

[HikerGuy83]

If these are the conservative 'values', the gop is failing miserably.

The GOP is NOT the vessel of conserveratism. Not even close these day.

I am completely disgusted by what I see.

 

[reflechissez]

Actually, I find it very interesting.

Especially since some so-called conservatives will say other conservatives are "not conservative enough".

Just WTH does that mean ?

And WTH do they think they are judging what others are ?

Yet you are so certain about who is a "real" conservative.

 

[HikerGuy83]

So these are apparently the principles, according to the article in the OP.
Note that there is significantly more explained in the article, but I just copied and pasted them.



At a glance I'd say Trump violated all of those principles. Maybe not the seventh.

Trump was not and is not a conservative.

Conservatives got behind him because he gave them a voice (and trash talking one at that).

He was more prone to give them Gorsuch, Kavennaugh and Barrett than HIllary (who would put Sotomeyer clones on the bench). That's why he got my vote.

 

[Evilroddy]

"First, 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."

This assertion does not survive the test of time. There was a time when American Tories (conservatives) supported child labour, opposed public education, resisted extending the voting franchise to men of little property and later their Republican descendants resisted voting rights and political participation for women. Now they don't generally fight these things. That's change. During the early 1930's the Federal Government and State governments expelled about 500,000 American citizens of Latino origin along with about 1-1.5 million Latino non-citizens who had lived in America for most of their lives. The conservatives began this process and when it continued under the FDR Administration's watch the conservatives were mum about the seizures and destruction of legal documents and the expulsion of a half a million US citizens

Personal morals and public ethics have always been in a state of flux in America and there never was an enduring moral order, except in passing.

"Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity."

I generally agree with this although "adheres" may be too strong a word but certainly conservatives have felt more comfortable respecting custom, usage, tradition, convention and continuity when it suits them. However there are several glaring exceptions such as the growth of the Surveilance State in the USA which trashes the privacy rights of the constitution and the passing of the two Patriot Acts by the American Congress.

"Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription."

Well, I think Voltaire would be giggling a this one. Where is the tendency towards established usage in the Reagan years when conservative Republicans were quite happy to allow intellectual property law to apply to biological processes. This was a shift as monumental as the British Tory project of land enclosure which disrupted common law traditions and the rights of the commonns in 17th and 18th Century Britain/the UK.

The weakening of the US constitution with regards to congressional vs Presidential war powers, privacy and property rights are three more examples where conservatives joined liberals in tearing up custom and usage enshrined in the constitution.

More later.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Actually, I find it very interesting.

Hmm… so interesting that you stopped reading his book?

Especially since some so-called conservatives will say other conservatives are "not conservative enough".

Isn’t making that comparison what you are doing and expecting others to join in?

Just WTH does that mean ?

Exactly. You used (created?) the terms “so-called conservatives” and “other conservatives”, yet have never defined either term - which is why I mentioned this thread being about ‘proper’ conservatism.

And WTH do they think they are judging what others are ?

Apparently, making such a judgement (comparison?) is required to ‘properly’ participate in this thread.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Yet you are so certain about who is a "real" conservative.

Yep, see post #19.

 

[bongsaway]

Trump was not and is not a conservative.

Conservatives got behind him because he gave them a voice (and trash talking one at that).

He was more prone to give them Gorsuch, Kavennaugh and Barrett than HIllary (who would put Sotomeyer clones on the bench). That's why he got my vote.

And yet you are completely disgusted by today's gop.

Dude, you are doing nothing but kidding yourself. You voted for trump before he appointed anyone for anything. You too are a part of the problem you are bashing.

 

[HikerGuy83]

Yep, see post #19.

Actually, I am questioning if there is such an animal.

A lot of what you read about "conservatism" says there is no universal defintion.

 

[HikerGuy83]

And yet you are completely disgusted by today's gop.

Dude, you are doing nothing but kidding yourself. You voted for trump before he appointed anyone for anything. You too are a part of the problem you are bashing.

You might want to read the rules of this forum.

 

[HikerGuy83]

Hmm… so interesting that you stopped reading his book?

HIs book and what I find interesting are not connected.

You are more than welcome not to participate if you find this meaningless.

As I have read things that supposedly defined conservatism, I find some things common and others not.

This was a good place to start. It's concise and, at least, trys. It may not be successful, but that really is a matter of opinion.

 

[bongsaway]

You might want to read the rules of this forum.

Did I break one? If you feel as if I did, report me, what else can I say?