Conservatism

"The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas — uncertainty, progress, change — into crimes."

"Conservative: One who admires radicals a century after they're dead."

"Change is not what we expect from religious people. They tend to love the past more than the present or the future."

"Conservatism is a defense of established hierarchies, but it is also fearful of those established hierarchies. It sees in their assuredness of power the source of corruption, decadence and decline. Ruling regimes require some kind of irritant, a grain of sand in the oyster, to reactivate their latent powers, to exercise their atrophied muscles, to make their pearls."

"If movement conservatism is less about hating the state than about fighting Godless modernism, this might explain why conservatives have always found actual or cultural wars to fight, but have never got around to shrinking or controlling the growth of government (though centrists like Eisenhower and Clinton did)."

"Ever since 1953, when Russell Kirk produced its intellectual coat of arms, conservatism has been "what Edmund Burke wrote." This is the equivalent of Arthur Danto’s institutional theory of art — art is whatever the art world says it is. But it’s also a cop-out. Instead of analyzing conservatism in an Aristotelian way, instead of asking how we use the term in real life, we just describe Burke. In the process, don’t we risk fleeing into what Tanenhaus calls an "alternative universe"? If conservatives are "glaringly disconnected from the realities now besetting America," as Tanenhaus says, why is the solution to be more like a man who wore a powdered wig? Liberals have problems of their own, but, to their credit, they don’t sit around debating whether Hillary Clinton or John Edwards is the "real Rousseauian.""

"What do we call conservative, and what do we call liberal, in daily life? A conservative explains behavior spiritually, and personalizes responsibility. In Aristotelian terms, the principle of motion is within us. A liberal, by contrast, explains behavior mechanically, and externalizes responsibility: the principle of motion is outside us. Thus, in the typical policy debate, a liberal makes excuses for the human agent, and a conservative places blame. The spark of the liberal argument — He didn’t have the same opportunities you did — meets the conservative conceptual firewall: Lots of people start poor, but still find ways to make it."

"Suppose you had to remember to beat your heart, contract in exact sequence the muscles you use for every step. … Conservatism comes out of the body, the sense of many things being done for us that any attempt to re-think, or even make conscious, would fatally disrupt."

"I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism."

"Nobody starts out as a conservative. Everyone starts out as a progressive liberal. If a little child burns himself on the stove, it wasn’t because he was conservative and learned, it was because he was wild and far too liberal. Conservatism is spawned by affliction—it is the philosophy that is learned the hard way. Whereas liberalism is the philosophy that always comes before conservatism. Liberalism produces conservatives in almost every area of the world, where no conservatives are there to check it. Anywhere liberalism has been allowed to run its wild course, you will see people running the opposite direction into conservatism, whether it be from a burning stove or from a burning communist regime."

"12 principles for a 21st century conservatism: 1. The fundamental assumptions of Western civilization are valid. 2. Peaceful social being is preferable to isolation and to war. In consequence, it justly and rightly demands some sacrifice of individual impulse and idiosyncrasy. 3. Hierarchies of competence are desirable and should be promoted. 4. Borders are reasonable. Likewise, limits on immigration are reasonable. Furthermore, it should not be assumed that citizens of societies that have not evolved functional individual-rights predicated polities will hold values in keeping with such polities. 5. People should be paid so that they are able and willing to perform socially useful and desirable duties. 6. Citizens have the inalienable right to benefit from the result of their own honest labor. 7. It is more noble to teach young people about responsibilities than about rights. 8. It is better to do what everyone has always done, unless you have some extraordinarily valid reason to do otherwise. 9. Radical change should be viewed with suspicion, particularly in a time of radical change. 10. The government, local and distant, should leave people to their own devices as much as possible. 11. Intact heterosexual two-parent families constitute the necessary bedrock for a stable polity. 12. We should judge our political system in comparison to other actual political systems and not to hypothetical utopias."

"What do you do […] when you are not blinded by ideology, and you see the world and all its dramatic characters clearly? Well, you do not hope for the infinite perfectibility of humanity and aim your system at some unattainable utopia. You try to design a system that sinners such as you cannot damage too badly—too permanently—even when they are half blind and resentful. To the degree that I am conservative in orientation, I believe in the wisdom of that vision."

"I'm a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order."

"The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians."

"Conservative ideology...may be defined as a philosophy of imperfection, committed to...the defence of a limited style of politics."

"Neither conservatives nor humorists believe man is good. But left-wingers do."

"To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss. Familiar relationships and loyalties will be preferred to the allure of more profitable attachments; to acquire and to enlarge will be less important than to keep, to cultivate and to enjoy; the grief of loss will be more acute than the excitement of novelty or promise. It is to be equal to one's own fortune, to live at the level of one's own means, to be content with the want of greater perfection which belongs alike to oneself and one's circumstances."

"The conservative is a person who considers very closely every chance, even the longest, of "throwing out the baby with the bath-water," as the German proverb puts it, and who determines his conduct accordingly."

"A single generation enamoured of foreign ways is almost enough in history to risk the whole continuity of civilization and learning. Ages of accumulation are entrusted to the frail bark of each passing epoch by the hand of the past, desiring to make over its treasures to the use of the future. It takes a certain stubbornness, a doggedness of loyalty, even a modicum of unreasonable conservatism maybe, to lose nothing in the long march of the ages; and, even when confronted with great empires, with a sudden extension of the idea of culture, or with the supreme temptation of a new religion, to hold fast what we have, adding to it only as much as we can healthfully and manfully carry."

"Community, authority, tradition, the sacred: these are primary conservative preoccupations in the age, to be seen vividly in the intellectual line that reaches from Bonald and Haller to Burckhardt and Taine."

"Edmund Burke made the central conservative insight; that a culture and a society are not things run for the convenience of the people who happen to be here right now, but is a deep pact between the dead, the living, and those yet to be born."

"It could be that today's conservative movement remains in thrall to the same narrative that has defined its attitude toward film and the arts for decades. Inspired by feelings of exclusion after Hollywood and the popular culture turned leftward in the '60s and '70s, this narrative has defined the film industry as an irredeemably liberal institution toward which conservatives can only act in opposition—never engagement. Ironically, this narrative ignores the actual history of Hollywood, in which conservatives had a strong presence from the industry's founding in the early 20th century up through the '40s, '50s and into the mid-'60s. The conservative Hollywood community at that time included such leading directors as Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, and Cecil B. DeMille, and major stars like John Wayne, Clark Gable, and Charlton Heston. These talents often worked side by side with notable Hollywood liberals like directors Billy Wilder, William Wyler, and John Huston, and stars like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Spencer Tracy. The richness of classic Hollywood cinema is widely regarded as a testament to the ability of these two communities to work together, regardless of political differences. As the younger, more left-leaning "New Hollywood" generation swept into the industry in the late '60s and '70s, this older group of Hollywood conservatives faded away, never to be replaced. Except for a brief period in the '80s when the Reagan Presidency led to a conservative reengagement with film—with popular stars like Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger making macho, patriotic action films—conservatives appeared to abandon popular culture altogether. In the wake of this retreat, conservative failure to engage with Hollywood now appears to have been recast by today's East Coast conservative establishment into a generalized opposition toward film and popular culture itself. In the early '90s, conservative film critic Michael Medved codified this oppositional feeling toward Hollywood in his best-selling book Hollywood vs. America."

"Social discipline—that surely is a more fruitful and warding theme for contemporary conservatism than individual freedom. […] The spectre haunting most ordinary people in Britain is neither of a totalitarian State nor of Big Brother, but of other ordinary people being allowed to run wild. What they are worried about is crime, violence, disorder in the schools, promiscuity, idleness, pornography, football hooliganism, vandalism and urban terrorism. The film Clockwork Orange, with its terrible portrait of a gang of juvenile thugs bereft of all moral restraint, terrorising the old and the weak without mercy, is what most people fear today."

"RADICAL—one who goes too far. CONSERVATIVE—one who does not go far enough. REACTIONARY—one who does not go at all."

"Generally young men are regarded as radicals. This is a popular misconception. The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates. The radicals are the men past middle life."

"Conservatism is a philosophy of social evolution, in which certain lasting values are defended within the framework of the tension of political conflict. And when given values are at stake the conservative can even become a revolutionary."

"Conservatism is an instinct rather than an ideology. It is ironic, quizzical, cool-tempered, distrustful of grand theories. Conservatives understand that the things they cherish – property rights, parliamentary government, personal freedom, norms of courtesy – take a long time to build up, but can be quickly destroyed."

"The distinction between conservatism and is in part a matter of belief and temperament, in part a matter of experience. In interwar Europe, many erstwhile radical conservatives supported fascist regimes, whether out of conviction or circumstance, before frequently becoming disillusioned with the radical regimes they had supported. After the defeat of the Axis powers some of the most acute conservative analysis and critique stemmed from those who had been radical conservatives but now saw no plausible alternative to the liberal democratic welfare state."

"It is characteristic of the conservative temperament to value established identities, to praise habit and to respect prejudice, not because it is irrational, but because such things anchor the darting impulses of human beings in solidities of custom which we do not often begin to value until we are already losing them. Radicalism often generates youth movements, while conservatism is a condition found among the mature, who have discovered what it is in life they most value."

"I never meant to say that the conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."

"Americans who describe themselves as "conservatives" nevertheless disagree on almost all the most fundamental questions of life. Paleoconservatives lament the passing of tradition. Libertarians celebrate capitalism's creative energy. Religious conservatives want to put faith at the heart of politics. Business conservatives command an economic system where, in Karl Marx's phrase, "all that is holy is profaned." The Straussians at the Weekly Standard are philosophical elitists who believe that the masses need to be steered by an educated intelligentsia. The antitax crusaders who march behind Grover Norquist are populists who believe that pointy-headed intellectuals need to be given a good ducking. "What is the difference between conservatives and cannibals?" goes one Democratic joke. "Cannibals eat only their enemies.""

"Conservatism is about protecting the fundamental rights: That we are all equal, regardless of the color of our skin, the faith that we practice or our gender."

"The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself."

"History, and perhaps that is the case today, can also be an escape from the present. When the world is complicated and changing rapidly, not necessarily for the better, it is no surprise that we look back to what we mistakenly think was a simpler and clearer world. Conservatives dream of small towns painted by Norman Rockwell, where children played innocently in their gardens with no grown-up predators to disturb them, where men and women were comfortable in their roles, and where the sun shone on day after day of happiness. Leftists hearken back to the glory days when the union movement was strong and the bosses were on the run."

"From Disraeli to Oakeshott, conservatism has been defined for its distrust of ideology, and a preference for pragmatism, compromise and what has gone before. David Cameron has said he is Conservative because he recognises "the complexities of human nature, and will always be sceptical of grand schemes to remake the world". Admittedly some Republicans are just as hell-bent on ideology as some lefties, but the conservative philosophy is of scepticism, not visions."

"Conservative or rightist extremist movements have arisen at different periods in modern history, ranging from the Horthyites in Hungary, the Christian Social Party of Dollfuss in Austria, Der Stahlhelm and other nationalists in pre-Hitler Germany, and Salazar in Portugal, to the pre-1966 Gaullist movements and the monarchists in contemporary France and Italy. The right extremists are conservative, not revolutionary. They seek to change political institutions in order to preserve or restore cultural and economic ones, while extremists of the centre and left seek to use political means for cultural and social revolution. The ideal of the right extremist is not a totalitarian ruler, but a monarch, or a traditionalist who acts like one. Many such movements in Spain, Austria, Hungary, Germany, and Italy have been explicitly monarchist. The supporters of these movements differ from those of the centrists, tending to be wealthier, and more religious, which is more important in terms of a potential for mass support."

"You say you are conservative — eminently conservative — while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;" while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers."

"The reactionary is anything but a conservative. He is as radical and modern a figure as the revolutionary, someone shipwrecked in the rapidly changing present, and suffering from nostalgia for an idealized past and an apocalyptic fear that history is rushing toward catastrophe. And like the revolutionary his political engagements are motivated by highly developed ideas."

"Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny. It's the only one. It's based on thousands of years of human experience. There is nothing narrow about the conservative philosophy. It's a liberating philosophy. It is a magnificent philosophy. It is a philosophy for the ages, for all times."

"The opposite of conservative is destructive."

"Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says "we should…""

"[Conservatism:] Our revolutionary message … is that a self-disciplined people can create a political community in which an ordered liberty will promote both economic prosperity and political participation."

"Conservatives respect the wisdom of their ancestors; they are dubious of wholesale alteration. They think society is a spiritual reality, possessing an eternal life but a delicate constitution: it cannot be scrapped and recast as if it were a machine."

"The twentieth-century conservative is concerned, first of all, for the regeneration of the spirit and character – with the perennial problem of the inner order of the soul, the restoration of the ethical understanding, and the religious sanction upon which any life worth living is founded. This is conservatism at its highest."

"True conservatism rises at the antipodes from individualism. Individualism is social atomism; conservatism is community of spirit."

"With reason, conservatives have been called "the party of order." If natural distinctions are effaced among men, oligarchs fill the vacuum. Ultimate equality in the judgment of God, and equality before courts of law, are recognized by conservatives; but equality of condition, they think, means equality in servitude and boredom."

"I do not know which makes a man more conservative — to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past."

"The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can't make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values."

"Conservatism means we take the things that we know work and we keep and maintain them. If you want to try something new, you're careful, you're cautious, you're skeptical of it. If it turns out it works we'll try incorporating that, but we have a great skepticism about doing that. Well, that's not what we got. We got radical ideas that no one else in the world is doing. These other countries are having fewer problems, and their middle class is better off, because they didn't do these radical things. They were, in fact, conservative. Now the things they did, we might view as liberal, but they were conservative in hanging on to those things."

"Liberalism, contrary to popular belief, is facing backward in considering the injustice of its ancestors. Conservatism, contrary to popular belief, is facing forward in considering the psychology of its descendants."