This blog is closed and has moved to http://Charlottegore.com. See you there!
So I talked about Daddy Brown and the "The Greater Good" mentality of the Left, and now it's time to talk about another political grouping: The Right.
What makes the Right distinct from liberals? What is it that makes them tick?
For the Left, it's "The Greater Good". For the Right, it's "Tough Love". They are the "Tough Lovers".
It's interesting browsing Right Wing blogs and seeing the diversity of opinions and beliefs. Not every person writing under a Conservative or Centre-Right banner even says anything Right Wing. Just as there are many liberals who write under a Labour banner out of convenience, habit or tactical necessity so there are liberals that write under a Conservative banner out of convenience, habit and tactical necessity.
This post is not about Conservatives: It's about small c conservatives. It's about the believers.
For the Right, in a perfect world, people would not help each other. At all - Well, would never help anyone that won't help themselves. People who through fecklessness or inertia are unable to improve their situations are bailed out by the state and by charities and do gooders, and this is moral hazard. It rewards the wrong behaviours and as a result is a socially destructive evil. Society counteracts Natural Selection by making unsuccessful variations viable.
Taking away this 'destructive' help is for Your Own Good. It is Tough Love.
The Right are not evil, they simply do not want the path of least resistance to be idleness.
But then, what of the Right's attitude towards matters social? Here's where the sparks really begin to fly. Why do a group of people who believe in autonomy and self-reliance take an interest in people's personal lives?
There's nothing the Right hate more than freaks, geeks and weirdos. Actually, sometimes it's not hate. Sometimes it's just an acceptance that "other people" hate freaks, geeks and weirdos and believe that the best thing that could happen would be for people to stop being freaks, geeks and weirdos.
In a cruel, unforgiving society where difference and individuality is punished and exploited for competitive advantage by others, encouraging people to veer off from accepted norms is to betray those people: A muslim in full Islamic dress will never get as far as a muslim who hides his religion; A gay man who minces and flames his way through life will never get as far as a 'straight' acting Gay man. Let's not even get started on "Trannies", "Hippies" and worst of all, "Teenagers". These are people who follow their instincts and, as a result will pay a price in terms of their career opportunities and ability to fit in with the 'normal' people. The Right says: These problems go away if you just conform. Things are the way they are, nothing we can do about it: Do yourself a favour and conform.
It's not The Greater Good. It's Your Own Good. It's Tough Love.
In an ideal world everyone would be good, upstanding cititizens that conform, that sit within the accepted boundaries of society. If everyone conformed, if everyone did what they were supposed to: Wear normal clothes, talk properly, hold down a job, get married, had manners and followed the same moral code then we would all, all of us, live a peaceful and happy life.
This is, in essense, pure conservativism. There are individual differences: Some people, through their religious or cultural beliefs really do hate freaks, geeks and weirdos. Others are well-meaning types that don't personally hate but accept that conformity is the path to an 'easy life'.
So much of Right Wing thought is about making certain choices either impossible, or at worst extremely difficult. The goal is to make conformity the path of least resistance, and to make deviance as extreme a hardship as possible.
For me the Right are wrong, basically, because they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of what it means to be human. They believe that the evolution of society, culture and humanity itself is something that can be slowed down, stopped, or reversed. They are wrong. It is in the nature of being human to seek liberty, and for many people conformity is not the easy life. Beingfree brings rewards far greater than conformity, and conformity brings hardship far greater than the risks of being free.
Humans explore, we create, we innovate, we challenge and above all we help each other. There are those amongst us that will help the feckless regardless - I was listening to Radio 5 the other day and it featured the accounts of people who kept financially bailing out their own adult children, and I thought: Well I bet this is making a certain group of people very very angry.
There are people that will feed and clothe the homeless. There are people that will run schemes and projects to help the unemployed, and there are people that will see poverty as an evil in it's own right, and that no matter the reason for the poverty it is to be stopped, no matter what. These people, in fact, will feel so strongly about this that they'll form entire political movements to get these problems fixed. The Left is the monster that The Right created.
The bottom line is that conservatism, whilst seeking the betterment of society, goes against the way that humans behave in the real world, and nothing they say or do will change the fact that people will always rebel, people will always refuse to conform. Do we, as a society, tolerate this, on the basis that each of us has the right to self ownership and liberty, or do we crank up the pressure and introduce bigger and nastier sticks to beat the transgressors, for their own good?
This blog is closed and has moved to http://Charlottegore.com. See you there!
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3 comments:
I agree, but to me this is just a part of the picture. What I see characterising conservatives is that they represent the interests of the already-powerful.
So, yes in a sense Thatcher was not conservative because the unions were quite powerful at the time. And Labour was somewhat conservative by the same measure. Hayek in particular saw this - that special measures to bring advantage to some (typically unionised) workers is necessarily at the expense of other workers.
So it made perfect sense, although it annoyed the Tories at the time, to describe those communists opposing Gorbachev's reforms as "conservative".
Where does this leave the identification of conservative with right-wing? I remember on the radio recently a Tory spokesbod, making a distinction between the two by suggestion that right-wing, as opposed to conservative, meant libertarian. I thought this was a bit naughty of him, but I can see what he was getting at.
Liberals seek to dilute and spread power, conservatives seek to concentrate it. So conservatism is inconsistent with libertarianism, you would think. Yet people supporting the tyranny of the landowner so often call themselves libertarian, just to confuse matters.
Hmm have to agree with you there.
The problem of 'Left' and 'Right' being badges of identity used to curry favour and gain entry into specific circles means that far too many play fast and lose with definitions. It's also political expedient in the current climate for conservatives to say that conservatism is not inherently Right Wing - which, I suppose if you think 'The Political Spectrum' is a purely economic one from Left to Right then this makes a sort of sense.
I deliberately didn't mention economics because, as George W Bush has demonstrated, you don't need to be Left Wing to be in favour of growing State. I suspect that the economic theories favoured by conservatives are a function of fads and trends like anything else. As long as 'spongers' aren't getting 'handouts' they're pretty much happy. There's nothing about conservatism that makes it a natural fit with liberal economics.
Even in the context of what I was talking about in the post, it is the establishment that gets to decide what those 'norms' should be. The establishment and tradition are very important in conversative though: Corporations are a force for good, the Church likewise... these things are to be protected.
'Conservative' libertarianism is a very odd thing, I agree.
I'll let Wikipedia talk for me because I am tierd....
The terms Left and Right have been used to refer to political affiliation since the early part of the French Revolutionary era. They originally referred to the seating arrangements in the various legislative bodies of France, specifically in the French Legislative Assembly of 1791, when the king was still the formal head of state, and the moderate royalist Feuillants sat on the right side of the chamber, while the radical Montagnards sat on the left.
Leftists oppose the existing social order. Rightists seek to preserve it. This explains how early leftists were capitialists because they were opposing a monarchical, feudal state and rightists opposed them. Now, since the established social system is capitalism the tables turn and leftists now oppose capitalism (either by seeking its reform or replacement) to varying degrees and what I would charactise as rightists seek it's preservation.
Of course, these issues are not just about economics the Montagnards were revolutionary democrats. Really what places you on the spectrum is your attitude to the prevailing social order.
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