JUST MY OPINION:
The Fatal Flaw Of Conservatism
By T. K. McNeil
Divided Amongst Itself
It is a fact often observed, but no less true, that America is a divided country. What is often lost is that it has always been this way. A degree of partisanship is at the very basis of a healthy democracy. Otherwise, everyone might as well vote for the same person or party, like Russia. For democracy to be at its very best there needs to be a choice with a clear difference. There is, however, a fatal flaw of Conservatism.
Fatal Flaws
What people are taking note of in America today is just how stark the differences have become. Political disagreements and street protests often devolve into fatal violence. This despite the clear weaknesses of the ideals of liberalism and the more subtle but fatal flaw of conservatism.
Pros and Cons
There is a flip side to the fatal flaw of conservatism. There is an issue with liberal ideals, at least on the conceptual level. Liberals come across as idealistic, pie-in-the-sky dreamers. Promises of free college, universal health care, and millions of jobs re-gearing for the green economy are just a few. Seeing things not as they are, but instead how one wishes they could be.
A Fallacy At The Core
There is a fair criticism which many have taken steps to address. Recent liberal leaders, such as Barack Obama, take a more pragmatic centrist approach to governing despite a hard left message. The fatal flaw of conservatism is rather harder to explain. The flaw is not a matter of overt thought process but a fallacy at the core of the concept.
You Can’t Go Back Again
Conservatism, not as a party or set of policies, but an overall ideology, has a streak of traditionalism. Part of the fatal flaw of conservatism is that it doesn’t create new ideas. Conservatism traditionally support status quo, not change. This is true of all the admittedly varied conservative schools of thought.
Disraeli
Disraeli’s “compassionate conservative” is very different from the conservative supporters of Margaret Thatcher, Richard Nixon, or the current White House occupant. Functionally, they’re very different political entities. Each however, labors under the same delusion. They believe the preservation and continuation of traditional values ad infinitum is not only desirable, but indeed possible. The fatal flaw of conservatism being the essential and demonstrable failure of traditionalism.
Confused Histories
Look at a list of some of the most eminent historians, both past and present, particularly those hailing from Great Britain and the South and Southeastern United States. It is perhaps unsurprising to find that many of them are of a conservative political leaning. Assuming that the fatal flaw of conservatism necessarily involves a degree of traditionalism, this only stands to reason.
Past Glories
The study of history, especially on a professional level, allows them to revel in the glorious past. At least from the perspective on the context and use of history. From another, slightly broader, perspective, this phenomenon is somewhat baffling. The fatal flaw of conservatism is the failure of the traditionalism found at its heart. Many modern conservatives have revealed an inability to even comprehend the problem.
Warriors of Old
There is much talk, especially now, about “traditional values”, and the need to fight to preserve them into the future. A noble sounding cause which can rouse a particular feeling in many. Particularly in America where history and tradition are drummed in to each of us from the beginning of our formal schooling. Those who speak about the preservation of traditional, “old fashioned” values, may be forgiven for not knowing conservatism’s results. They are unaware that if they succeed in their fight to entrench traditional values they aren’t getting what they want. They just want to forever and immutably force tradition into American culture. If successful they will be the first in history to do so at the cost of future progress. Such is the fatal flaw of conservatism and the failure of traditionalism, the assumption of the possibility of permanence.
History As Guide
There are now, as there have always been, appeals to history. Among conservatives, as though it is a guidebook for living a good life, things seem to be so much simpler. For some groups of people, it was always better in the past. An impression that can be easy to get, as well as keep up, when the exposure most people have to history is in the form of neat, edited, published documents. This leads to carefully researched films based on those same documents. A fact which makes traditionalism a position somewhat difficult to argue for, or take seriously. Another fatal flaw of conservatism is that the past they seek never really existed.
Everything Must Cease
Taken in a broader, more neutral scope, history is really a record of complexity and adaptation. Every past was once the present, the people in it trying to make the best sense of it that they could. There are indeed lessons to be drawn from their experience, but history teaches us that change is the only thing that really stays the same.
Marching Backwards
It can take decades, centuries or even millennia but, eventually, everything will end and change. “Every empire turns to dust and every ego will be crushed,” as Martyn Jacques put it. The fatal flaw of conservatism and the failure of traditionalism is the inability of people who are alive today to look past where they are now. Ever looking backward or to the side, never really forward. “Marching backwards into the future” as Marshall McLuhan would have it.
Great Advances
Trying to keep traditional values indefinitely is an impossibility. The question must also be asked whether this would even be desirable. There are some good things from the past of course, but there were some very terrible things too. One of the main functions of history is to move past retrograde ideas. In fact, much of “history” as we know it, is factually incorrect. When history was written, and by whom, is good to know. For instance, the history books on the post WWII cold war era will be written and read differently in Russia than in the West.
A Foreign Country
We may still laugh but, for the most part, scientists of the past can be forgiven for their assumptions. Thoughts that dinosaurs were cold-blooded or that phrenology was actually a scientific field of study have been disproved. An ultimate example of “it made sense at the time.” Now, however, we quite literally know better. Research methods and knowledge have advanced and we are all the better for it. This makes the fatal flaw of conservatism and failure of traditionalism all the more clear. As L.P. Hartley put it: “the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
Barbarians At the Gates
An area in which the fatal flaw of conservatism has come up recently is with regards to immigration. It is a basic idea in traditionalism that there are certain countries that are meant for certain people. Their “traditional lands.”
Willful Ignorance
One of the most convincing arguments for this idea is in the 2017 book “The Strange Death of Europe.” The book was written by British author, intellectual and self-described neo-Conservative Douglas Murray. In it Murray claims, several different times and in several different ways, that Europe is “committing suicide” of the cultural type. His misstep is another fatal flaw of conservatism. He believes the movement of people from outside Europe is the cause. Suicide by foreigner if you will, and the only way to preserve Europe’s cultural identity and values is to get rid of the foreigners. This argument could be convincing were it not so laughably absurd. Mr. Murray is clearly quite ignorant, willfully or otherwise, of his own nation’s past.
Melting Pot
There are clear indicators of the fatal flaw of conservatism and the failure of traditionalism as used by Murray. The fact is that Europe has a long history, literally and figuratively, of taking in other cultures. Willingly or not, Europe (and his UK home) for centuries have absorbed immigrants and invaders into the greater national fabric and emerged stronger.
About Those Names
The English language itself is a mongrel concoction of Latin, Germanic Saxon and early French. England was constantly being invaded by the Vikings until King Alfred put a stop to it. Nearly the entire southwestern half of England is populated by descendants of the Danes. They give the roots of “English” names like “Johnson”, “Anderson” and “Ashby.” And let us not forget William the Conqueror! William put all of what was then Britain under what many modern conservative would call “French foreign rule” for nearly 600 years.
It Doesn’t Get Better
The next even remotely British King of England was James I in 1602, and even he was a Scot. Then, of course, there is the German influence. The House of Hanover ruled over the land for many years. It finally changed its name to Windsor at the outbreak of WWI trying to sound less German. Yes, the current Queen of England is a quarter German and her Prince Consort is Greek and Danish. Marriage between royal families for money and influence are one ancient European tradition. The fatal flaw of conservatism tends to gloss this over when talking about the threat of foreigners.
Conclusion
The fatal flaw of conservatism is a constant looking back towards a time that never existed. There was never a time when we were great all around. The past is always great to those who benefit from it. Many conservatives forget that minorities were treated like dirt, women were property, and we died young in the good old days. We need to move forward if the world is going to be great for everyone.
