Russell Kirk - Ten Conservative Principles

[ttwtt78640]

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

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

OK, then why choose one alleged conservative’s principles?

 

[j brown's body]

Slaves were freed over 150 years ago, how much longer until conservatives let go of racism?

 

[CaughtInThe]

When I saw the word "principles" all I could think about was Allen Iverson and his "practice" rant.

"We talkin bout principles?"

 

[HikerGuy83]

OK, then why choose one alleged conservative’s principles?

A starting point for a "lofty" discussion.

 

[HikerGuy83]

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

That you know the rules of the forum.

 

[ttwtt78640]

A starting point for a "lofty" discussion.

Of conservatism and it’s ‘proper’ definition? If so, that’s quite ‘lofty’ (very wide open?) territory.

IMHO, adherence to the idea of the federal government having a few defined powers and leaving the rest to the state/local governments or to the people is (or at least should be) a core US conservative position (constitutional principle?), yet getting anywhere close to all of that toothpaste back into the tube is mission impossible.

 

[HikerGuy83]

Of conservatism and it’s ‘proper’ definition? If so, that’s quite ‘lofty’ (very wide open?) territory.

It's really more about creating conscienceness (in myself) about why I might hold the positions I do and why others hold different positions. This forum is a great place to have those discussions.

IMHO, adherence to the idea of the federal government having a few defined powers and leaving the rest to the state/local governments or to the people is (or at least should be) a core US conservative position (constitutional principle?)

Conservative or not.....it would be the right way to do things.

Heaven forbid the RNC even come close to discussing the idea.

I don't know that it would be a principle exclusive to conservatives.

yet getting anywhere close to all of that toothpaste back into the tube is mission impossible.

Still willing to try !!!!!!!

 

[Sweden]

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

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

I agree. We European conservatives have only a little in common with the US variety.

 

[Evilroddy]

"Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence."

This is a fair point. However too often that prudence is born out of fear or a false sense of nostalgia for a time which really never actually existed. It is not universally born out of due diligence.

"Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety."

Variety is a tricky one. Yes in economic matters conservatives like to see variety in competitive markets. However when in power or seeking power they have no problem courting conglomerates which restrict variety and erect barriers to entry in oligopolistic and monopolistic markets. Socially, conservatives react badly to variety from pamphlets and broadsheets through comic books to rock n' roll, to TV programming to modern gaming and social media. Likewise there is resistence to variety in political/social self-expression, be it Thomas Paine, Frederick Douglass, Eugene Debbs, Rachel Carson or Greta Thunberg. Similar resistance can be found in sexual/gender politics and ethic expression within the conservative community. I think it is fair to say that within conservatism there has long been a struggle between fostering bottom-up variety and imposing top-down orthodoxy.

"Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability."

Agreed. But too often many conservatives use the concept of human imperfection to avoid tackling urgent public crises. Human imperfection must be a guiding principle informing prudent and well-thought-out reform but not an excuse to not take responsibility and ownership in helping to find solutions for a society's urgent problems. If it does become an excuse, then deep structural and cultural rifts can appear in a society leading to, alienation, polarisation, civil unrest, revolution and/or reaction. Conservatives have, I think, forgotten one of the founding principles of both colonial and post-revolutionary America; the principle of the commonwealth. We all rise or fall together.

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

This principle has always puzzled me. The idea that property affords people freedom is very deceptive. Property may afford greater economic freedom to those with more property/wealth to call upon, if and only if they play by the rules that their would-be ruling elites allow them to follow. But property is also a shackle which ties people down and limits their freedom of choice in society. In a sense it limits our capacity to freely make choices. If you own property, you can't just set it aside and go walkabout for a year or two before coming back to it. You are tied to constantly managing that property. If you get uppity, that property can be threatened. In a sense that property encloses you, limits your options to exercise your free will and puts you into ownership bondage to the rule-makers who have put themselves above you.

Continued next post.

 

[Evilroddy]

Sure, you can alienate that property to free yourself from its bondage but that has freedom-limiting implications too. For example if you decide to sell your house pre-retirement and travel around the country or the continent with all your cash at hand, you will likely have it seized due to laws limiting how much cash you can carry about with you. Property and negative property are more and more becoming a tool for imposing social control by the state and powerful private institutions over most of us and less a reward for hard work and industry which you can use or abuse as you see fit. Most people don't realise this but property and debt (negative property) are very powerful tools of social control which pigeon-hole us into highly restricting social roles and powerfully limit our freedom. Thus the stink over student loan forgiveness. Do conservatives really want legions of trained lawyers, doctors, engineers and computer programmers cut free of debt so that they can focus on questioning and redesigning our society? Or is it better for them to be burdened with debt until the habits of working are solidified so that they can switch from debt bondage to property bondage? This encloses our freedoms and our minds too, keeping most of us very parochial in our outlook about what life and society could be like and how well our society works. It also slaves many of us to a four-sided treadmill of work/entrepeneur, bank, consumerism and the state which leaves us very little free-time and residual-stamina to question who we really are and what we really want out of our life and our societies. It makes questioning the societal order in which we live far more difficult and daunting to even consider. As Janis Joplin wrote many years ago, "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose.". Property keeps those so disillusioned by their society from just walking away and risking everything to build a new society with a chance of greater promise. Is that the essence of conservatism then?

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy (under the influence of the Ragin' Contagion SARS-CoV-2.)

 

[Chomsky]

Sure, you can alienate that property to free yourself from its bondage but that has freedom-limiting implications too. For example if you decide to sell your house pre-retirement and travel around the country or the continent with all your cash at hand, you will likely have it seized due to laws limiting how much cash you can carry about with you. Property and negative property are more and more becoming a tool for imposing social control by the state and powerful private institutions over most of us and less a reward for hard work and industry which you can use or abuse as you see fit. Most people don't realise this but property and debt (negative property) are very powerful tools of social control which pigeon-hole us into highly restricting social roles and powerfully limit our freedom. Thus the stink over student loan forgiveness. Do conservatives really want legions of trained lawyers, doctors, engineers and computer programmers cut free of debt so that they can focus on questioning and redesigning our society? Or is it better for them to be burdened with debt until the habits of working are solidified so that they can switch from debt bondage to property bondage? This encloses our freedoms and our minds too, keeping most of us very parochial in our outlook about what life and society could be like and how well our society works. It also slaves many of us to a four-sided treadmill of work/entrepeneur, bank, consumerism and the state which leaves us very little free-time and residual-stamina to question who we really are and what we really want out of our life and our societies. It makes questioning the societal order in which we live far more difficult and daunting to even consider. As Janis Joplin wrote many years ago, "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose.". Property keeps those so disillusioned by their society from just walking away and risking everything to build a new society with a chance of greater promise. Is that the essence of conservatism then?

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy (under the influence of the Ragin' Contagion SARS-CoV-2.)

I think it's interesting you make the argument that property subjects one to heightened social control, as the classic argument is that property insulates us from social control.

It doesn't insulate us perfectly, obviously, nothing does. But private real property allows us freedoms that are not available in public spaces.

Simply think about what you can do in your home that you cannot do in a public park.

 

[The Mark]

Slaves were freed over 150 years ago, how much longer until conservatives let go of racism?

I don't think racism will ever go away, so long as people exist who are willing to mislead others into hatred for the power it gains them.

 

[Evilroddy]

I think it's interesting you make the argument that property subjects one to heightened social control, as the classic argument is that property insulates us from social control.

It doesn't insulate us perfectly, obviously, nothing does. But private real property allows us freedoms that are not available in public spaces.

Simply think about what you can do in your home that you cannot do in a public park.

Chomsky:

Not to put too fine a point on it, but our modern notion of privacy is only about 250 to 200 years old and that's only in the West. In other parts of the world it is only emerging recently or now. In the past people lived together and conducted their intimate tasks and pleasures of life packed in with many others in communal living. So what you might be talking about is the enclosure of more public spaces rather than the liberating effect on privacy through private real property.

Property and farming were both tough and risky strategies because you were tied down to one place. I'll give you an example. Around about he time that Stonehenge was completed in its initial form (blue stones only taken from Wales) the people were sedentary farmers. By the time when it was completed with the massive Sarsen stones many of the Neolithic peoples had revolted against being tied to land and resumed a hybrid gardening and hunter/gathering/fishing existence because they could survive better with far less effort. They chucked it all in but didn't lose their culture, their mathematics, their astronomy or their means of survival. Some of them just didn't want to eke out a hard living creating surplus grain for priests and landlords.

In a sense it's the same process as the rise of states and borders. In the pre-state world where military control/proto-"feudalism" had not taken hold, normal people could move and circulate freely if they were careful. But boundries and borders made that far more difficult and thus most common people became far more parochial and closed off from wider experience, thus limiting their experiences and their outlooks. During the very late pre-pottery Late Palaeolithic Period and the Neolitic Period and the early metallic ages people travelled far further, far more frequently and were far more worldly then those people of the late Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Commerce, trade, travel all flourished as Cretans, Proto-Hittites, Egyptians, Luwians, Mycenaens Libyans, and so many others interacted from Northern Europe to the Pillars of Heracles (Gibralter) to all parts of the Mediterranean Basin, to the Black Sea to the Great Steppes and east to the Zagroscnd Ural Mountains. But with the rise of city states and latter mini-empires all,of this began to change and "civilised people" became more inward looking and tied to their lands and their masters. The descendents lived a much less rich and a much more difficult life than their ancestors had. We think of these ancient people more as cave-dwelling troglodytes but they were far ranging, experienced and intelligent human beings who made choice which most humans today can't or don't dare to make.

Both property and statehood can be a prison if you let it control your life.

But I'm beginning to ramble on now. Blame the Covid!

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

 

[Evilroddy]

@Chomsky

One more point which my addled brain overlooked in my rather rambling post above. If you own modern computers, televisions, smart cell-phones, home-surveillance systems and wirelessly linked smart appliances, then you have potentially no privacy in your own real property anymore. Privacy is an anachronism in this modern digital age. We are too valuable as data-sheep and almost-compelled consumers to be left to ourselves in this brave new digital world of commerce and "security".

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

 

[Evilroddy]

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

This is a fair point in my opinion. However as society becomes more structured and more "efficient", then the tolerance for abjuring voluntary community goes way down and the expediency and expectation of compelled cooperation/compliance goes way up. "Get with the programme or move along mister!".

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

True, with respect to the power of the state at all levels. But individual, corporate and commercial/financial power seems to get a pass. Conservatives can feel comfortable with conglomerates amassing power but get the vapours when there is talk of unions afoot. I am not so sure about the passions. From the Goldwater days to the Trump apoplexy, American conservatives have seemed a pretty passionate lot to me.

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

There is no permanence in a society aside from the presence of human beings. Indeed there are no permanent societies yet. Better to say long-standing tradition and change must be reconciled in a vigorous society. But that's just quibbling. This does however link back to the temporal myopia pointed out in principle #1.

So that's that.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

 

[HikerGuy83]

I agree. We European conservatives have only a little in common with the US variety.

I would tend to think that:

1. There is no real U.S. variety of conservative. We are all over the map.
2. That was the point of the thread. Having that conversation.
3. Not everyone claiming to be conservative is a conservative.
4. Europeans have their examples of extremists just like the U.S.
5. However, the general glide path of the two can be both similar and different at the same time for various reasons.

 

[mrjurrs]

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

Todays conservatives bear zero resemblance to the conservatives of Kirk's experience.

 

[HikerGuy83]

Slaves were freed over 150 years ago, how much longer until conservatives let go of racism?

This is right out of the Loft Guidelines:

No broad insults, demonizing, or belittling of political parties, groups, or views.
No libtards or tea baggers. No "democrats hate the country" or "republicans are bigots" type of comments. Broad scale insults do nothing but detract from the conversation and inflame a situation. Respectfully disagreeing with a party or view is one thing, calling them evil or a blight upon America is not.

 

[Evilroddy]

Here are some taking points about possible principles of conservatism which may spawn some discussion:

Belief in some higher power (God, gods, fate, destiny) which creates a natural order that defines humanity's role(s) in a society and requires conservatives to defend that underlying order.

Belief in the value of and the need for well defined and entrenched morality, ethics, rules, laws, responsibilities, rights and freedoms in a society, which are equally and universally applied to all. The Rule of Law.

Belief that a society and its political-economy are too complex to fully understand and thus too difficult to control reliably, thus making social engineering and most governmental controls of society either ineffectual or harmlful.

A belief that a manifest order is superior to some kind of black-box chaotic system at work in a comlex society, except with regards to "the marketplace".

Believing that human nature is too often fundamentally base and thus rejecting the concept that any social order can change/improve the base nature of humans for the better.

Confidence in proven tradition and suspicion towards unproven change or of reform for reform's sake. Prudence. Preference for static inertia rather than dynamic momentum in a society.

Respect for authority plus a gravitation towards elitism and a rejection of populism or direct democracy.

Suspicion of concentrated institutional political power but confidence in diffused economic power and societal inertia.

Belief in the sovereignty of the nation state and a resistence to transnational political institutions.

Belief that a country must foster an historical and cultural tradition and must resist attempts to change or dismantle those "shared" traditions. Avoid social and historical rootlessness.

The role of education must be two-fold. To teach self-discipline and common traditions so that students willingly become conforming partners in society. To teach self-reliance and the knowledge/skills necessary to be able citizens so that students willingly become productive partners in society. Education should focus on teaching generational continuity and not foster radical notions of reform or revolution. Education as a societal glue.

An aversion to abstract arguments unrooted in concrete historical reality and a suspicion of abstract theorising from ideological principles. Better to root all discussions in a concrete reality and use pragmatism, skepticism and a clear understanding of human nature in planning necessary and unavoidable reform.

The belief that conservatives are realistic and rational in their outlook but that non-conservatives are less so.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

 

[Blue Dog]

This is from Sara Jarmans book Elephants On A Rampage.

I cannot find an article to link to, this is from a kindle book.

I thought it was a good explanation. My politics are along these lines of reasoning.




Conservatives want to explore the political world with a certain humility and caution rather than go full steam ahead with a determination to stay a course come what may. The ship of state should move slowly, checking its course along the way and staying close to ports to repair and refit itself rather than setting off into the unknown upon the open sea of political troubles and turmoil that may end in celebrated success or in terrible tragedy. Conservatives naturally would rather avoid the risk of tragedy because the world they know is well enough that such risks seem unwarranted to them. We can improve ourselves more slowly, they argue, and move forward into the future carefully. In other words, conservatives would rather only tinker with government programs and policies than create grand new ones. They strive to preserve traditions and question or change them only with great hesitancy. They speak out against political movements regardless of the direction or purpose of those movements.[

 

[Sweden]

Here are some taking points about possible principles of conservatism which may spawn some discussion:

Belief in some higher power (God, gods, fate, destiny) which creates a natural order that defines humanity's role(s) in a society and requires conservatives to defend that underlying order.

Belief in the value of and the need for well defined and entrenched morality, ethics, rules, laws, responsibilities, rights and freedoms in a society, which are equally and universally applied to all. The Rule of Law.

Belief that a society and its political-economy are too complex to fully understand and thus too difficult to control reliably, thus making social engineering and most governmental controls of society either ineffectual or harmlful.

A belief that a manifest order is superior to some kind of black-box chaotic system at work in a comlex society, except with regards to "the marketplace".

Believing that human nature is too often fundamentally base and thus rejecting the concept that any social order can change/improve the base nature of humans for the better.

Confidence in proven tradition and suspicion towards unproven change or of reform for reform's sake. Prudence. Preference for static inertia rather than dynamic momentum in a society.

Respect for authority plus a gravitation towards elitism and a rejection of populism or direct democracy.

Suspicion of concentrated institutional political power but confidence in diffused economic power and societal inertia.

Belief in the sovereignty of the nation state and a resistence to transnational political institutions.

Belief that a country must foster an historical and cultural tradition and must resist attempts to change or dismantle those "shared" traditions. Avoid social and historical rootlessness.

The role of education must be two-fold. To teach self-discipline and common traditions so that students willingly become conforming partners in society. To teach self-reliance and the knowledge/skills necessary to be able citizens so that students willingly become productive partners in society. Education should focus on teaching generational continuity and not foster radical notions of reform or revolution. Education as a societal glue.

An aversion to abstract arguments unrooted in concrete historical reality and a suspicion of abstract theorising from ideological principles. Better to root all discussions in a concrete reality and use pragmatism, skepticism and a clear understanding of human nature in planning necessary and unavoidable reform.

The belief that conservatives are realistic and rational in their outlook but that non-conservatives are less so.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

As a conservative I agree with very few of these points. I will not go through them one by one but make a few general comments.

The belief that the 'experts' know best is a very leftist thing. At root the left thinks the masses shout be kept away from any decision making and do and say as they are instructed. The left distrusts the will of the people and call it , disparagingly, 'populism'. The outstanding case in point is the British Left's shock and horror at the people's refusal to vote to stay in the EU, as they were ordered to by their betters.

It is however true that conservatives distrust radical intellectualism, preferring gradual - and reversable - gradual change to mad-cap schemes drfeamt up by fashionable gurus.

 

[HikerGuy83]

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.


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.

I it just astounds me that people don't understand the rules of the forum.

Please try reading them.

 

[HikerGuy83]

This is a fair point. However too often that prudence is born out of fear or a false sense of nostalgia for a time which really never actually existed. It is not universally born out of due diligence.

Here is the entirety of his quote.

Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity. Liberals and radicals, the conservative says, are imprudent: for they dash at their objectives without giving much heed to the risk of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to sweep away. As John Randolph of Roanoke put it, Providence moves slowly, but the devil always hurries. Human society being complex, remedies cannot be simple if they are to be efficacious. The conservative declares that he acts only after sufficient reflection, having weighed the consequences. Sudden and slashing reforms are as perilous as sudden and slashing surgery.

1. There are places where you don't want prudence......i.e. the E.R. in a hospital. While someone considers all the angles, you die. If you need to act, you act.
2. Most football players are pre-programmed to react to situations. They don't stop to "think it over".
3. In government, taking the time to think about it is valued.

Can we point to certain things.....like the much debated "war on poverty". I've never been able to sort the fact from the fiction. There are those who claim it increased poverty. There are those who dispute that. But there is very little support for the idea that it was a resounding success. But it cost a great deal of money.

I don't see that as being born out of fear. Whether or not it is called out in Kirk's recitations, it does not matter. Most people agree that conservatives don't trust that you can build and control large complex systems and hope to accomplish what you set out to do. There are far to many unknowns. Men are not as clever a they think.....just ask Australia about cane toads.

The false sense of nostalgia claim is not what some think it is. Things get better on some fronts as time goes on while they don't on others.....if you have what is referenced in Principle #1 (the moral order). Pining to go back isn't necessarily going back to something better in terms of things like race relations...

Battery low...I'll be back.

 

[RabidAlpaca]

I it just astounds me that people don't understand the rules of the forum.

Please try reading them.

You claimed conservatives have an objective, never changing moral standard, and I pointed out how stupid and incorrect that was and gave reasons for it. If you can't defend the stupid things you claim, I don't know why you're here.

 

[HikerGuy83]

You claimed conservatives have an objective, never changing moral standard, and I pointed out how stupid and incorrect that was and gave reasons for it. If you can't defend the stupid things you claim, I don't know why you're here.

This is a discussion forum, not a debate forum.

Read the guidelines.