Orion Digest №17 — On Conservatism
Democratic politics is all about debate — if there was a way to run society that everyone could agree on, we’d be entirely efficient. But the world tends to be what you make of it, and depending on who you are and where you live, you may see the world in a different light, have different fears and truths about it. Our organization has a primarily socially progressive slant, favoring changes and the rewriting of our current society — a change that will firmly cast ourselves into the great unknown of the future.
However, as our world drifts into new, uncharted territory, there remains a prevailing faction of politics, across many different branches, that seeks to remain with what is tried, what is familiar, what is known. Conservatives, as their name suggests, seek to conserve what we have, out of fear of losing it, to take a misstep and stumble into ruin or dystopia. Their opponents, progressives, seek to keep moving forward, and see the pre-established functions of society as insufficient, especially in regards to the many who tradition has disadvantaged.
I will not remain neutral and play the advocate for conservatism — while I understand their motives, I do not support the ideology, and agree with the latter opinion that what we have right now does not suffice for the needs of our people, and will instead lead to ruin if we refuse to change. However, the fact that much of the world sticks to this belief means that it is no small belief that we can ignore or cast aside. This fondness for the familiar dominates politics; we tend towards the status quo, and so it is an idea that must be addressed.
The desire to ‘conserve’ tradition largely varies depending on the context — it is more of a broader term than usual political ideologies. Different nations have their own values that they wish to uphold, and those can be more or less malignant depending on the political and cultural history of a region. However, a common summary of the main characteristics of conservatism is as follows: a focus on maintaining tradition, a hierarchal structure, and viewing the world with a sense of realism. Western conservatism notably has a focus on religion and property rights as well.
Tradition isn’t inherently negative — cultural traditions form cultural identity, social order is based on the traditions created by written law and judicial decision, and many lessons we’ve carried throughout history are beneficial. When it becomes a problem is when the desire to follow tradition holds us back, or even harms society. Following precedence holds less value when said precedence is immoral — think back to the barbaric views conquering nations had of other races and cultures as inferior. The brutal working conditions in the immediate period following the Industrial Revolution, where children worked long hours on dangerous machines. Imperialist manipulation in the name of national interest, devastating the world for the sake of one empire.
But aside from the more extreme examples of faults in our history, a rigid structure of tradition is useless in a world that constantly changes around us — in nature, in technology, in culture — with each successive generation. Conservative solutions fall apart little by little as we refuse to adapt, afraid of the failure that could arise should we abandon what we know. Take the idea of socialism — much of the industrial world has operated so long on capitalism, and has been functioning thus far, so to make the move to something drastically new, drastically different brings fear from adherents to tradition and security. However, even if it has proved successful doesn’t mean that things couldn’t be better, and that ‘success’ is fundamentally flawed in the first place. We are on a path to corporate domination and environmental destruction, and we think too much in the short term to see this investment will not pay off. We are in a train about to go off the rails, and even if we don’t know what will happen when we jump off, it’s a risk we have to take.
Hierarchy, the second characteristic of common conservatism, concerns the principle that society naturally has economic and social struggle — there will be elites, and the lower class that struggles to climb uphill and achieve wealth and power. It is commonly used in reference to economy, in that the poor have to ‘pull themselves up by their bootstraps’ to succeed, and that the elites deserve their power because they’ve earned it, and as people who have earned it, are wise enough to be entitled to whatever they choose to do with it.
My two grievances with the concept of hierarchy are that the slope one must climb gets progressively steeper over time, and that such a slope should exist in the first place. I think that life, to some extent, involves struggle — learning skills, building relationships, and doing anything worthwhile involves effort. However, in this particular instance, struggle can be the difference between life and death, and depending on the circumstances of ones birth, they may never be able to reach the lofty expectations of the wealthy. Hierarchy implies that only a select few will achieve power, which brings into question the implied fate of the many who don’t make it. Their lives are not worthless, and they do not deserve lesser treatment and status because they failed to achieve societal metrics of success (which are often designed by the ones in power to begin with — a very selective and self-containing elite class that is less accessible than it is marketed as).
Often times, the ones who achieve such great heights are ones that were set up from the beginning — the children who had access to resources that fostered their knowledge, that gave them necessary skills to make it big. There are exceptions, but given that the upper class is not by nature a very broad population, those are far and few between. If the rich and powerful are able to pass on their wealth and power, or use it to ward off less advantaged competitors, then their affluence will only grow, and in return, the slope will get steeper and steeper to climb. Centers of power that have had time to solidify themselves as mainstays of the economic and political environment will not as easily balk at up and comers as they would have in their youth.
And this is only in regards economic inequality and hierarchy. Social inequality and hierarchy is a clear issue, because the need to fight for social equality and to end discrimination is a sign that we lack necessary development as a society, and should not remain a enduring feature. To hold categories of people over others is inhumane, and the sooner the battle is won, the better. So many of those who argue that the struggle, the constant tedious climb of every generation is somehow beneficial are those who benefit, those who have reached the top of the mountain and look down on the many, who carry much heavier burdens. Those who support hierarchy imagine that every journey is just as easy as theirs, all while they kick rocks down the mountainside, worsening the toil.
The final common trait of conservatism is realism — which refers not entirely to a realistic view, but more of a pessimistic view on altruistic movements. If conservatism is a movement that resists progress into the unknown, then conservative realism is the view that the unknown is more likely than not to be harmful, that a better society is not possible because humans themselves are not capable of being better people. They fear that human nature will prevent utopian efforts from bearing fruit, and that the sacrifices and flaws of our modern systems are necessary and the best we’ll get out of our citizens. One reason why conservatism can often go hand in hand with movements for increased authority is the idea that an increase in freedom will only allow us to abuse it.
I agree with the idea that, in our current state, freedom can go hand in hand with abuse of that freedom. Say, for instance, we removed all forms of security cameras and guards from a grocery store. Is it likely that this will cause a rapid increase in shoplifting and damage? Yes. Out of the three characteristics of conservatism, this one has some merit — but is not entirely true, and worst of all, is self fulfilling. Ask not will people shoplift with freedom, but why they would shoplift? What is it about humans that we would inherently be inclined to take things if there were no consequence?
If you steal, it is because you want something without payment. You want to save money, and that’s caused by the idea that money, and therefore the goods and services it acquires, is hard to come by. You must work to gain it, and that takes time, effort, and careful attention to rules and standards. To get a loaf of bread, you must jump through so many hoops, and that is dependent entirely on if you can reach those hoops in the first place — if the job market is more selective, you may just be unlucky and find yourself unemployed. With all this difficulty placed on the simple task of getting a loaf of bread, if offered an option that isn’t under such severe scrutiny, who wouldn’t take it?
You can’t look at human nature as inherently flawed because it does not exist in a vacuum. We are all products of the world we grew up in, and that world, thanks to the principles of hierarchy and tradition that permeate our society, is a constantly reinforced labyrinth of struggle and need. We have to be cutthroat, we have to do what we can, because otherwise we’ll be at rock bottom, and it’s a circular argument to treat ‘humans being flawed’ as an excuse to run a system that will make future generations flawed. It ties back to the concept of the unknown — because we don’t know what will happen if we were ever to change, conservatism decides that the detrimental worldview we have now is the best choice solely because of the possibility that it could be the lesser of two evils.
If we were to provide a society with something new, with an economy and social structure that doesn’t rely on someone to fight for the top from birth, that doesn’t tell every bright, new soul that they were brutish at their core and that they should be lucky things aren’t worse, we don’t know what would happen, but if our current course of action is going to kill us anyway, why not take the leap? The ‘lesser of two evils’ is still going to hurt us, and sometimes, you have to take a risk and have a little optimism. We don’t know what is out in the unknown, but we do know that the known isn’t an ideal. If we’re afraid to change, and we seek only the comfort of what is known, we might as well be frozen in time, ready to fall into our own grave.
- DKTC FL
