Conservative

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Conservatives are usually mad at the damn Liberals for no damn reason at all!

A conservative on the political spectrum, tends to be for the status quo, consistency, and traditional forms, while being against change on the grounds that it might be for the worse. In America today the term has been conflated by many with very narrow social and religious prescriptions and co-opted by the far right (note that left/right and liberal/conservative aren't strictly synonymous). During the 2008 election campaign, an article in Atlantic Monthly contrasted the old-fashioned conservatism of Edmund Burke with the right-wing radicalism of Newt Gingrich and company.[1]

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[edit] Social and economic conservatism

Conservative is a very loose term , essentially meaning only "in favour of conserving". While there are many, many types of conservatism, one essential distinction is between social conservatism and economic (or fiscal) conservatism. Although the two often go hand-in-hand, especially in American politics, they are not inherently connected, and it is quite possible to be a fiscal conservative without being socially conservative or vice versa.

Social conservatism emphasises convention, morality (or old fashioned notions of morality) and established roles within society and the family. Social conservatives are often, though not always, strongly religious. They support traditional gender roles, marriage and "family values" (a term with a multitude of meanings) and they frequently tend to be homophobic (and sometimes racist) to some degree. They often express outrage at political correctness and perceived moral decline (e.g. "Hollywood values"). Social conservatism can be extremely influential in politics; the "pro-life" movement to outlaw abortion is an example of social conservatism in action.

Economic or fiscal conservatism is also very significant politically. Fiscal conservatives support low taxation and free market capitalism with minimal regulation. This benefits the economic interests of industries, entrepreneurs or the ruling class in some countries. In Europe, many economic conservatives are not socially conservative, often being atheist and unconcerned by issues such as homosexual marriage. In America, however, the two forms of conservatism are heavily intertwined, especially within the Republican Party and its supporters, to the extent that many conservatives, such as those on Conservapedia, cannot recognise the distinction, and see both concepts as central to "conservative values". The Libertarian Party in America is oriented toward fiscal but not social conservatism.

[edit] Conservatism in various countries

[edit] American conservatism

Broadly and recently speaking, the conservative movement was split along two paths in the 1960s, defined by Barry Goldwater's and Nelson Rockefeller's approaches. Rockefeller's was a more traditional conservatism, calling for fiscal responsibility and minimal government intrusion into private affairs, both personal and commercial (except for the Rockefeller drug laws, of course). Goldwater conservatism, which found its successful avatar in Ronald Reagan, was more reactionary, harking nostalgically for a time that never existed before modern changes that bother some people. The center of the modern American conservative movement has incessantly been pushed further and further to the "right": with each success, the bar is moved farther to the right; with each failure, it is likewise moved. It now incorporates strong elements of fundamental Christianity[2], xenophobia[3], whatever racism they can get away with[4], warmongering[5], willful ignorance towards science, and a prideful nationalism, typically manifested as a loudly enunciated belief that "America is the greatest country in the world" [6] (which leaves residents of other nations, large and small, understandably cheesed off). While not all conservatives, obviously, embrace all these views, walking away from more than one or two can easily leave a politician "outside" the big tent.

American conservatism has moved so far in some directions[7] (invasion of personal privacy[8] and big government [9] for instance), that many traditional conservatives have been stranded in its wake, wondering what happened to the tenets of the movement they used to hold dear and why they are now branded as deceitful, nasty liberals.

[edit] United Kingdom

The UK political party of this name would (probably) be defined as liberal by US conservatives. It supports publicly funded health care and has many Muslim members [10] - a Muslim stood for a seat in Parliament representing the Conservative Party in a recent election (he lost... for some reason).

[edit] India

Indian conservatism is represented by Hindu nationalism. The Bharatiya Janata Party is the chief conservative party in India.

[edit] Australia

Australian conservatives are, ironically, represented by the Liberal Party of Australia (although they are center-right by global standards). They stand for traditional values, and all the other stuff that US conservatives stand for (except gun control, for some reason, and quite a lot of their members are pro-choice). They generally support some government intervention in the economy, particularly in health care and schools, but aren't socialist by any means (they especially don't like the unions). For some reason, the religious right don't have much of a voice in Australian politics (but they do exist). The fundamentalists are represented by the Family First Party (which has only one out of 76 senators and no representatives). Ironically, though, the current former leader of the Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull, is actually a borderline liberal (he is from the smaller, moderate faction of the party), although the party does have plenty of conservative elements.

[edit] New Zealand

The New Zealand political sphere has no strong conservative representation and the right, like Australia, are centre-right. The New Zealand National Party won the 2008 elections and are traditionly considered to be a right leaning party however their policies would be considered more liberal than Barack Obama's. While there is economic conservatism, social conservatism is almost unheard of, until the shit hits the fan.

[edit] Supply side economics

You can't have a discussion about modern day conservatism, especially economic conservatism, without talking about voodoo economics. Over the last eight years, the Bush Administration has grown the government faster and larger than any other President, with borrowed money, and is now demanding $700 billion more to buy up all of Wall Street's bad mortgage paper and preserve the status quo. But when asked to boost the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) by $250 million dollars to help low-income families pay their heating bills over the winter of 2007-08 with record oil and gas prices, Bush vetoed it as pure socialism.[11]

[edit] Relative and historical nature of the term (or, why defining conservatism as a fixed set of values is pure incoherence)

It should be remembered that, like liberal, conservative is always a relative term defined by the context in which its used. For example, to the US, Deng Xiaoping was far more conservative than Mao Zedong, but in China the opposite was true. This, along with similarly varying interpretations of "left wing" and "right wing", can lead to a great deal of confusion when talking about political leanings in different contexts (see also political spectrum). The idea of conservatism has always revolved around the preservation of the status quo, in the face of change. Russian "conservatism" i.e. "right-wing policies" basically reflect the opposite of what Americans feel to be the tenets of "conservatism", simply because of a difference in historical experience. Similarly, elements that would be perceived as "Liberal" in contemporary America would be considered in Asian societies as being "Conservative" - these include welfare, as well as government intervention in economic sectors (for more details on this, see Washington Consensus). Similarly, the binary of "left-wing versus right-wing" ideas to a great extent does not apply in some countries outside of the Western experience, i.e., Malaysia, Turkey, Singapore, and Indonesia (where communism never really played a great role in mainstream politics, except in special occasions - such as Indonesia under Sukarno). In Malaysia, the left-right debate has been eschewed in favour of a debate between the Barisan Nasional (the Centre) and the Democratic Action Party (social democrats) and the Parti Se-Tanah Melayu Islam, which is the Islamic right.

Let us also consider how conservatism changes over time, such that a figure like Edmund Burke can, 200 years after his death, be claimed by both liberals and conservatives even in the country he lived in.

[edit] What conservatism is not (or doesn't have to be)

[edit] Conservative psychology

Four researchers surveyed research literature about the psychology of conservatism. They discovered that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality. No shit. The chief psychological factors of conservatism are Surprise, fear and ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to Ronald Reagan and a nice uniform:

  • Fear and aggression - an easy way to support a conservative position is to scapegoat some convenient "other" and demonise it as a threat to "civilised" values. Islamophobia is simply the current version of this conservative train of thought. Students of history may find other examples.
  • Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
  • Uncertainty avoidance - this may lead to the drawing of premature conclusions or resorting to stereotypes.
  • Need for cognitive closure - As George W. Bush once said "My job isn't to nuance".
  • Terror management - such as declaring amber alerts at opportune moments, calling opponents "supporters of terrorists" etc.[12][13]

It is debatable whether these factors are associated chiefly with conservatism. One admitted shortfall in this study was that "little or no empirical data are available from the major communist or formerly communist countries" on this subject,[13] which made a study of communist psychology in general very difficult. However, the researchers acknowledge that these factors were also exhibited by many communist dictators, such as Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro. They respond by claiming that these men, because they resisted change while in power, "may be considered politically conservative, at least in the context of the systems they defended."[13] But this ignores the fact that Stalin and Castro were both revolutionaries before the revolutions in their respective countries, and indeed Castro led the Cuban Revolution.

[edit] Prominent Conservatives

[edit] Not so prominent Conservatives

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ↑ http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200805/mccain-conservatism
  2. ↑ Pandering to the fundamentalist Christian Right, on "issues" such as stem cell research and Terri Schiavo.
  3. ↑ Demonizing undocumented aliens, France-bashing, etc.
  4. ↑ http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Golliwog&oldid=242427
  5. ↑ The war in Iraq, threatening Iran, see also Chickenhawk.
  6. ↑ [1]
  7. ↑ http://www.aclu.org/safefree/resources/17343res20031114.html
  8. ↑ USA PATRIOT Act, warrantless wiretapping
  9. ↑ Transportation Security Agency, Medicare drug programme expansion
  10. ↑ Conservative Muslim forum UK
  11. ↑ http://www.pulp.tc/html/bush_veto_hits_heating_bill_ai.html
  12. ↑ Researchers help define what makes a political conservative
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 The original paper (PDF)
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