Post by Maolsheachlann on Mar 29, 2019 11:30:41 GMT
I wanted to start a thread about conservativism as a temperament. What I mean is that it's possible to be very conservative in your politics, theology and social views but still radical in your approach. You sometimes hear the term "conservative revolutionary".
Personally I am conservative in both my temperament and my views. I distrust revolutionary measures or changes even when they are the sort of changes a conservative might approve of. I prefer gradual and cautious change and have a preference for maintaining the status quo unless there is some very good reason to change it.
G.K. Chesterton tended to be the opposite. He was a fan of sweeping measures when they were justified, and thought they were no reason to delay a reform if it was a good reform. He could be very critical of Burke's gradualism and dislike of revolution. Although Chesterton is my favourite writer by far, I am not sympathetic to him in this passage from What's Wrong with the World. (I have put asterisks in the "n word", not wanting to be gratuitously offensive.)
The Revolution appealed to the idea of an abstract and eternal justice, beyond all local custom or convenience. If there are commands of God, then there must be rights of man. Here Burke made his brilliant diversion; he did not attack the Robespierre doctrine with the old mediaeval doctrine of jus divinum (which, like the Robespierre doctrine, was theistic), he attacked it with the modern argument of scientific relativity; in short, the argument of evolution. He suggested that humanity was everywhere molded by or fitted to its environment and institutions; in fact, that each people practically got, not only the tyrant it deserved, but the tyrant it ought to have. "I know nothing of the rights of men," he said, "but I know something of the rights of Englishmen." There you have the essential atheist. His argument is that we have got some protection by natural accident and growth; and why should we profess to think beyond it, for all the world as if we were the images of God! We are born under a House of Lords, as birds under a house of leaves; we live under a monarchy as n******s live under a tropic sun; it is not their fault if they are slaves, and it is not ours if we are snobs. Thus, long before Darwin struck his great blow at democracy, the essential of the Darwinian argument had been already urged against the French Revolution. Man, said Burke in effect, must adapt himself to everything, like an animal; he must not try to alter everything, like an angel. The last weak cry of the pious, pretty, half-artificial optimism and deism of the eighteenth century carne in the voice of Sterne, saying, "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." And Burke, the iron evolutionist, essentially answered, "No; God tempers the shorn lamb to the wind." It is the lamb that has to adapt himself. That is, he either dies or becomes a particular kind of lamb who likes standing in a draught.
Here's an example. I don't like the Irish tricolour because I think it's unattractive, dull, and has associated with the French Revolution and all the radicalism that sprung from that. I also think it's very negative-- the white between orange and green represents peace, which is good, but peace is a rather negative ideal. Can't we aspire to more?
In the same way, I don't like the Irish national anthem, either in terms of its lyrics or music.
BUT, being temperamentally conservative, I would be in favour of keeping both, as they have now become traditional and part of our national life.
Personally I am conservative in both my temperament and my views. I distrust revolutionary measures or changes even when they are the sort of changes a conservative might approve of. I prefer gradual and cautious change and have a preference for maintaining the status quo unless there is some very good reason to change it.
G.K. Chesterton tended to be the opposite. He was a fan of sweeping measures when they were justified, and thought they were no reason to delay a reform if it was a good reform. He could be very critical of Burke's gradualism and dislike of revolution. Although Chesterton is my favourite writer by far, I am not sympathetic to him in this passage from What's Wrong with the World. (I have put asterisks in the "n word", not wanting to be gratuitously offensive.)
The Revolution appealed to the idea of an abstract and eternal justice, beyond all local custom or convenience. If there are commands of God, then there must be rights of man. Here Burke made his brilliant diversion; he did not attack the Robespierre doctrine with the old mediaeval doctrine of jus divinum (which, like the Robespierre doctrine, was theistic), he attacked it with the modern argument of scientific relativity; in short, the argument of evolution. He suggested that humanity was everywhere molded by or fitted to its environment and institutions; in fact, that each people practically got, not only the tyrant it deserved, but the tyrant it ought to have. "I know nothing of the rights of men," he said, "but I know something of the rights of Englishmen." There you have the essential atheist. His argument is that we have got some protection by natural accident and growth; and why should we profess to think beyond it, for all the world as if we were the images of God! We are born under a House of Lords, as birds under a house of leaves; we live under a monarchy as n******s live under a tropic sun; it is not their fault if they are slaves, and it is not ours if we are snobs. Thus, long before Darwin struck his great blow at democracy, the essential of the Darwinian argument had been already urged against the French Revolution. Man, said Burke in effect, must adapt himself to everything, like an animal; he must not try to alter everything, like an angel. The last weak cry of the pious, pretty, half-artificial optimism and deism of the eighteenth century carne in the voice of Sterne, saying, "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." And Burke, the iron evolutionist, essentially answered, "No; God tempers the shorn lamb to the wind." It is the lamb that has to adapt himself. That is, he either dies or becomes a particular kind of lamb who likes standing in a draught.
Here's an example. I don't like the Irish tricolour because I think it's unattractive, dull, and has associated with the French Revolution and all the radicalism that sprung from that. I also think it's very negative-- the white between orange and green represents peace, which is good, but peace is a rather negative ideal. Can't we aspire to more?
In the same way, I don't like the Irish national anthem, either in terms of its lyrics or music.
BUT, being temperamentally conservative, I would be in favour of keeping both, as they have now become traditional and part of our national life.
