Good Conservatism vs. Bad Conservatism

 

By Chuck Connell

 

There is a lot to like about conservatism. The history of conservative philosophy includes private enterprise, free markets, an effective national defense, gradual social change, individual freedom, the importance of personal values in political decisions, religious tolerance, and the centrality of marriage and family to society.

 

Many of these values, and others often identified as conservative, are mine. I believe a happy family is the foundation for a good life. I attend Christian church services most every week. I own a business. I do not use illegal drugs or drink to excess. I believe governments and taxes should be as small as possible to get the job done. I am mistrustful of bureaucracies and people in positions of power, because I find them to be self-perpetuating and inefficient. I am attracted to members of the opposite sex. I think too many teenagers are getting pregnant, and I am uncomfortable with casual abortions.

 

I call the act of living by conservative values “personal conservatism.” This is my value system and it works for me.

 

But there is another set of values, which are distinctly different, that have been at the forefront of recent discussions about politics and religion in the U.S. I call these values "angry conservatism", and they are harmful to a free society and, ultimately, are not really conservative at all. Angry conservatism is characterized by the following assertions, sometimes stated explicitly and sometimes implied.

 

·        I am certain my personal beliefs are correct. I am so sure about them, there is no need for me to listen to other points of view. There is no chance I will modify my positions in the future based on greater wisdom.

·        Not only am I certain of my beliefs, I am certain my beliefs are correct for everyone. No one can be happy loving someone of the same sex. For all 100 million women in the US, and 1.5 billion women in the world, abortion is a bad idea always.

·        My religion, Christianity, has a correct view of God. People of other religions, and even other denominations of Christianity, are mistaken in their view of God. I know the one true interpretation of what God is and how to live that knowledge on Earth.

·        The United States military are the good guys. Other countries and forces whom we fight against are the bad guys. Because we are good, we can do anything we choose in the cause of goodness, including very bad things. Torturing military prisoners is an international war crime when the bad guys do it, but a frat-house prank when we do it.

·        The federal government should be less intrusive in the lives of our citizens, reduce its budget, operate with fewer employees, and enact a lower tax rate – except to promote policies I believe in. To promote my values, the government should reach into people’s bedrooms to legislate private lives, interfere in rational doctor/patient decisions, increase its overall budget, create new federal bureaucracies, and tax our children to pay for these programs.

The common threads in angry conservatism are hubris and a purposeful ignorance about the complexity of the world. It would be nice to be certain about which values and opinions are correct. And it would be nice if what is right for me is “right” in some objective sense. Who would not love this kind of insight? But no one is that smart. One of the hallmarks of wisdom is knowing how little we know. Related to this is knowing we might learn something that will lead us to change our judgment on some important topic. Angry conservatives do not have wisdom.

 

Angry conservatism also is not really conservative at all. It is the antithesis of many traditional conservative values. Angry conservatism rejects personal freedom, by asserting that no one may have a valid romantic interest in a member of the same sex; religious tolerance, by claiming that Christianity is the only correct religion; a limited government, by injecting the federal bureaucracy in single individual healthcare decisions; and a balanced federal budget, by practicing huge deficit spending.

 

It is true that angry conservatives are advancing some of the social values of traditional conservatism. But they are doing so in a manner that should appall genuine conservatives.

 

This criticism of contemporary conservatism raises an important question: Aren’t liberals just as bad? There certainly are many people of the liberal persuasion who are too sure of themselves and don’t seriously consider conservative arguments against liberal orthodoxy. There is a qualitative difference, however, between liberalism and angry conservatism. Liberalism, at its core, allows for personal freedom on many choices, such as belief in God, sexual orientation, and abortion. Angry conservatism seeks to impose one personal value system (Christianity, anti-gay, anti-abortion) on other people. There is no significant parallel in modern liberalism. If there were, an "angry liberalism” would preach that all heterosexuals give up their lifestyle and choose a gay partner, all pregnant women have an abortion whether they want one or not, and all Christians renounce Jesus to take up the Zen pursuit of desirelessness. But no serious liberal proposes such a program.

 

Conservatism has acquired a bad reputation lately among liberals. The problem, however, is not core conservatism, which many liberals practice in their own lives. The problem is the extension of conservative positions to an angry, coercive set of beliefs. Angry conservatives assert that they know things which are beyond the human capacity to know: the truth about God, and the correct deeply personal decisions for other people.

 

 

Chuck Connell is a writer and software consultant in Woburn, MA. He can be reached at connell@chc-3.com or  www.chc-3.com.