The Conservative Viewpoint

"In physics, a conservation law states that a particular measurable property of an isolated physical system does not change as the system evolves."

I started a new commuting lecture series today called "The Conservative Tradition" by Patrick N. Allitt of Emory University and I'm really enjoying the first lecture covering the basics of what conservatives believe. The basic premise of conservatism is this: Human nature changes very slowly (if at all) so societal change should be evolutionary, not revolutionary.

This has several interesting corollaries for conservatives:

1. Human history is filled with war - it's peace that is temporary and unnatural. So when a liberal wants to disarm during a period a peace, a conservative says, "Are you nuts!", you're just making us weaker for the next inevitable war. Why believe that for the first time in history, human nature will change and that peace will last forever?

2. Human motivations from greed, love, sadness, etc., don't change. So we can still learn from the ancient Greek/Roman classics and from Dead White European Males. (I've never understood the liberal opposition to the classics. Now if makes sense if you believe that mankind has changed or can be changed through Orwellian methods of controlling what people learn.)

3. Respect your Elders. Conservatives believe that (for the most part) the laws and mores and traditions of our ancestors still apply today. Law must respond to changes in technology but people are still people. Liberals believe that everything today is different and that the old ways don't apply and must be replaced with a new way of thinking. Remember the Internet .COM boom - "this time it's different!"

4. Human nature won't permanently change through "reeducation". Look at the extreme lengths that China and Russia when through to change the people to a socialist mindset. Or consider Moses in the desert for 40 years. An entire generation had to die so that a more godly people could resettle Israel but they quickly fall from grace in the book of Joshua.

By no means can it be said that conservatives are always right; just because something has been a tradition for generations does not make it right. Interestingly differing traditions in the US and England have led to different conservative doctrines:
US: Guns are good, UK: Guns are bad
US: Separation of church and state, UK: Union of church and state.

Bottom Line

"If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain."-Winston Churchill

There is nothing wrong with wanting the world to be better. To hope that real and permanent change is possible is natural youthful optimism. But when optimists come into power they quickly learn that the real world doesn't want sudden change and they end up using force when idealism fails. Planned societies are very unstable and require isolation and a police state to prevent change back to the old ways.

Is real change possible? Yes, but it takes a long time with many conflicts along the way. Consider slavery and racism in America. Quakers opposed slavery as early as 1688. Vermont became the first state to outlaw slavery in 1772. It took a civil war in 1860 end slavery but it did not end inequality. A century later Martin Luther King Jr helped to end the Separate but Equal doctrine. In the 21st century we have a black president. We've come a long ways in 300+ years but politicians still cry racism at the drop of hat so we've not at the end of the road yet.

South Pacific has a song about racism that goes, "You must be carefully taught before it's too late. Before you are six, or seven or eight. To hate all the people your relatives hate." This raises an interesting question - which is the natural human state - to accept everyone as equal or to oppress those who are different? How do young children respond to people who are different? Do they have to be taught to hate or to tolerate? Are we overcoming an evil meme that has enthralled human culture for millennium or are we slowly teaching people to overcome an inborn instinct?