Clarity on Conservatism, Part I: What Is Conservatism?

What Is Conservatism?

In recent years many people — especially here in Idaho — have been asking the question: “What makes a person a true Conservative?” Formerly, we assumed we knew the answer to this question, and so never bothered to really examine the concept.

However, Democrats and other Liberals started pretending to be conservatives, since that was the only way they could get into the political game. These people merely donned the verbal garb of “conservative”, while remaining just as liberal as ever. They now carry on a disgusting farce of using the vocabulary of conservatism, while not at all meaning what they say. In other words, they blatantly lie about what they are. To be fair, as we’ll see, there is a way that a Liberal can honestly understand ‘conservative’ as meaning ‘less-liberal-than-average’, so that, in a twisted way, some Liberals may actually believe what they are saying. In either case, genuine but unwary conservatives are being deceived.

God draws good from evil. The deceptive abuse of language by fake conservatives has spurred us to re-examine the very meaning of ‘conservative’, and there has been good thought on how to distinguish real conservatives from pretenders. I believe there’s an instinct steering us in the right direction. For example, see these articles: How to Identify a Real Republican, What is a Republican?

However, at this juncture we need to go beyond good instincts. We need an explicit study.

For that we must start at ground zero. What does the word ‘conservative’ even mean?

• Conservative, adj. — Inclined to preserve the existing order of things. (Reader’s Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1967)

Nothing revelatory there. It’s probably what most of us would have pulled out of our own heads if asked. But the existing order may be this or that, good or bad. The word ‘conservative’ by itself has nothing to say about what we are conserving.

For comparison, let’s look at the antonym:

• Liberal, adj. — Inclined toward opinions or policies favoring progress or reform.

Note that “progress” is an ambiguous and loaded term. The “progress” may be toward good or bad, but the word evokes, in most minds, an assumption of good. But in fact, the word ‘liberal’ in itself has nothing to say about what progress or reform is being attempted.

The morally neutral character of the words ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ shows up clearly when we view the broad lines of western political history.

Up until the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, serious changes to the existing political order nearly always occurred in one of two ways: military conquest by a foreign nation, or a coup d’etat by some influential faction within the nation.

What was different in the religious wars was that mass popular movements against the existing order began to happen. The inspiration for these movements was a new and developing notion: that individual freedom of thought and choice should be exalted over the existing hierarchical order. Clearly then, the resulting revolutions were liberal, in the neutral sense of merely seeking reform. However, the reforms desired were also morally specified; it was thought that the individual was more valuable than the State, for the State was precisely the existing order of things that had to be remade, to favor individual rights.

Later, this liberal intention was encapsulated in the famous motto of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. All men were Equal, all men were Brothers, hence there should be no privileged classes, and all should be equally Free to participate in governing the State.

Up to this stage then, in the moral sense, the object of being a Liberal was to promote Individualism, and to be a Conservative was to preserve Statism.

I can hear you objecting: “Wait a minute! That’s exactly the opposite of what Liberals and Conservatives are today! Liberals are socialist Statists, and Conservatives are all about individual freedoms!”

Indeed! Which proves the point that the adjectives ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ describe only a for or against in regard to change in the political order. We need to add a qualifying word to indicate what the person in question actually wants.

There is much more history that could be mentioned, but the point just made suffices for our purpose. And our purpose must be this: to decide what we as Conservatives really want to conserve, and then choose a clarifying term to attach to that word ‘conservative’.

As is easily imagined, this must be done very carefully. Here are just two important things to consider:

1. We want to include all of what is essential to what we consider a true Conservative to be, while excluding everything else. This will give us a simple criterion for identifying who’s who on the political battlefield. Consequently, it will also help prevent infighting concerning non-essentials, and the “purity spirals” that may result.
2. We want an idea that will hold steady in meaning, regardless of the vicissitudes of history.

What I think this new moniker should be is the subject of my next article.

Michael McGowan is chair and treasurer of the Kootenai Freedom Caucus. This op-ed represents his personal views, and he is not speaking on behalf of the caucus.

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