4.1: Classical Conservatism

Classical conservatism is characterized by a complex of themes and values, none of which are completely independent of each other. The following section will discuss the most important of these in order.

Tradition

Perhaps the most important marker of conservatism is the importance of traditional practices and modes of thought. Tradition plays two distinct roles in conservatism. First, it refers to ideas and practices that have stood the test of time. Edmund Burke (1729–1797) wrote of the partnership between the living and the dead, and conservative writers in many eras have echoed this sentiment. It may be helpful to think of tradition itself as the accumulation of practices and ideas that have been proven to work for generations. This does not mean that every old idea is good or that all new ideas must be viewed with suspicion. However, the fact that an idea or practice has persisted is said to count as a point in its favour.

In fact, we can take this idea one step further. It may not even be a question of whether one should accept or reject tradition; instead, a conservative would argue that we cannot help but be shaped by the traditions our society has inherited. Proposals for political reform only make sense or are feasible in a given society if they are products of its own traditions. This does not mean that no new ideas are possible. As conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott (1901–1990) suggests, traditions are “neither fixed nor finished,” but are more like conversations (Oakeshott, 1991, p. 61). New ideas can always be introduced into a conversation, but it is better if they arise naturally and organically out of what has been said before instead of being an abrupt change of topic. Following Oakeshott’s conversational model of tradition, new ideas for political reform are acceptable if they are based on longstanding practices and norms.

The second way in which tradition is important to conservatives is that political institutions take time to build. Though they are not perfect, and in some cases may serve unjust purposes, conservatives warn that once torn down, political systems can only be rebuilt with great difficulty. Radical change in the hope of a more just alternative is risky, since there is no guarantee that the new system will be more just or stable than the old. As American conservative Russell Kirk (1918–1994) writes, “[conservatives] prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t know” (Kirk, 2007, p. 7). This was a central concern in one of the classic works of conservative theory in the modern era: Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). One of its recurring arguments was that, in toppling the existing political system, the French Revolution destroyed the basis of order and stability. Burke wrote:

Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years. The errors and defects of old establishments are visible and palpable. It calls for little ability to point them out…. At once to preserve and reform is quite another thing (Burke, 2003, pp. 142–143).

Tradition, in sum, is a set of limitations on what can or should be done in the political sphere. It is important to classical conservatives because justice and social order will be best achieved if we begin from what we currently have, even if it falls short of perfection.

Hierarchy and Authority

Classical conservatives place a premium on preserving social order and stability, and respecting tradition is a means to that end. Hierarchy and authority are important for the same reason. Each of these terms must be precisely defined in order to avoid confusion. Hierarchy does not mean that all social differences are natural or just, but only that a social order requires at least some stratification. At the most basic level, there must be some members of society with more social or political power than others. This does not necessarily mean that those with more power are intrinsically more important or intelligent than the rest, though some conservatives have, unfortunately, believed this. There is, however, and must be, a measure of inequality between certain groups: politicians and citizens, employers and employees, and parents and children.

Authority requires the recognition of legitimacy and is therefore different than mere power. It goes hand in hand with hierarchy because the social bond between members of a political society must be held together by a sense of legitimacy if the political community is to survive. This creates two sets of obligations. Citizens, employees, and children should respect the legitimate authority of their superiors; their superiors, however, also have an obligation to behave in such a way that they honour and preserve the legitimacy of their authority. For example, legitimate authority can easily degenerate into illegitimate power when, for example, employers exploit their employees; classical conservatism is strongly opposed to such exploitation and abuse of authority.

Social bonds, and hence political order and stability, flourish in an environment of legitimate authority rather than mere power. This is one reason for the importance to conservatives of the family unit; for many of us, families are the first experience of legitimate hierarchical authority. Families are the basis of communities, so family allegiance helps create the broader bonds of allegiance and legitimacy that a healthy social order requires.

At this point, we can see that conservatism – at least as defined by some of its major theorists – is not necessarily a justification of an unjust status quo for the benefit of the rich and powerful, as some liberal or radical critics might argue. This disagreement between conservatism and its critics is not about whether human rights should be protected or not, but about the best way to protect those rights. Without denying the importance of human rights, Edmund Burke argued that abstract natural rights alone cannot be the basis of political order. Counter-intuitively, the best guarantee of political freedom is to preserve the natural aristocracy, by which he meant the system of hierarchy and authority that is held together by feelings of legitimacy and allegiance.

Organic Theory of Society and the State

Politicians and political theorists often use terms like “body politic” or “social body.”  Classical conservatives take this idea very seriously and think of the state as being like a living organism. A political society can be healthy or sick, just like a living organism, and the preservation of social health is of the utmost importance to conservatives. That is why it is so important that relationships – even when unequal – remain legitimate. People must feel a natural allegiance to their community; a political system upheld by power or coercion alone is unhealthy and cannot be expected to survive, let alone flourish.

This is another way of thinking about the need for the unequal distribution of rank and authority. Just like a physical body, the body politic requires many parts, each of which must perform its assigned function if the organism is to flourish. This was argued in great detail by the Greek philosopher Plato, who in the Republic compared the city to the human soul. The individual soul is made up of a thinking part, a desiring part, and a passionate or courageous part; in the just individual, the thinking part controls the desiring part with the help of the courageous part. Plato argued that the city can be thought of in the same way, being comprised of three classes – guardians, auxiliaries, and producers – corresponding to the parts of the soul. A just city, like a just individual, is one in which each class performs its proper function.

The organic conception of society also means that change must be gradual and incremental, not drastic and sudden. A radical change, or the introduction of completely new governing principles, is unlikely to be perceived as legitimate by the majority of citizens, which can have a detrimental effect on social cohesion and political stability. Political reform, while possible – and often desirable – must arise out of principles already at work in the society and its inherited traditions. Biological organisms do change, but they change slowly and in keeping with their inner principles – that is, their genetic structure. For the classical conservative, growth in this manner is the ideal model of social and political change.

Human Imperfection and Fallibility

It should be clear by now that classical conservatism is less idealistic than many other political perspectives, and indeed it can be accused of being downright pessimistic. The main reason for this is its opposition to political rationalism, namely the idea that political systems should be patterned after rational and all-encompassing systems of thought. According to classical conservatism, human beings are motivated by feelings, friendships, and allegiances as well as by reason. Therefore, reducing politics and law to a set of rational principles runs the risk of failing to secure the allegiance of citizens. Put simply, political allegiance and social bonds must, for these conservatives, appeal to the heart as well as the head. In practice, this means that the best possible set of laws and political institutions, even if they were perfectly designed in accordance with the best possible rational plan, would not work in the real world with people as they are. Contrary to idealist conceptions of justice and political order, human beings act on the basis of communal loyalty, custom, and selfish interests in addition to abstract principles of right. A set of laws that has any hope of maintaining peace and order must take the entire range of human motivations into account.

Political Rationalism

With the rise of modern philosophy in the 16th and 17th centuries there was a growing desire to explain more elements of human life in terms of reason alone without having to rely on other sources such as tradition, authority, or faith. This approach was adopted by political theorists who proposed theories of morality and political justice that were based on universally valid principles of reason. Rational principles of justice are, in theory, understandable and acceptable to anyone willing and able to exercise their private faculty of reason. This political approach assumes that there is one set of universally valid principles of justice, and that any state that fails to put these into practice is acting unjustly and, more importantly, violating its citizens’ rights.

Classical conservatism suggests that this approach does not pay sufficient attention to the risk of instability that arises whenever one’s political arrangements are measured against an idealistic vision of justice. According to the classical conservative, no political system will ever live up to such a lofty vision, and the attempt to make it do so is liable to do more harm than good. Michael Oakeshott analyzed political rationalism from the classical conservative perspective in Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (Oakeshott, 1991).

Another way to put this is that classical conservatism has a more negative or cynical conception of human nature than other political ideologies like liberalism or socialism. The progressive pursuit of more just social arrangements in line with a set of rational principles – liberal, socialist, or otherwise – is a dead end, according to classical conservatives, not only because the principles themselves are wrong, but because the limitations of human nature will prevent their realization in human history.

Two important points follow from this. First, this outlook emphasizes prudence over perfection. Prudence refers to the recognition of the limitations of what is possible. This is not to say that there is no concern with justice; it simply puts a greater emphasis than other ideologies on the dangers of redesigning society after a systematic blueprint. Indeed, one prominent conservative writer has even suggested that conservative politics has no proper “end in view” towards which all politics should strive, other than the continuance of social life (Scruton, 1980, p. 23). The social relationship, and the communal bonds that sustain it, has a life of its own and is therefore its own goal. It is for this reason that some classical conservatives prefer to speak of conservatism as a disposition or attitude rather than as an ideology.

Second, there is no single political system that will work in all times and places. Because there is no universally applicable blueprint for the perfect political system, every society ought to be governed according to principles that naturally and organically arise out of its own history, culture, and traditions. The danger of imposing a foreign political system on a society, as proponents of democracy promotion overseas have discovered, is that eliciting broad social support for its rules and institutions is overwhelmingly difficult when the ideas themselves are foreign. It is for this reason that conservatism prefers a closer fit between society and government, even if the resulting system may fall short of rational standards of justice. This hearkens back to the conservative’s preference for social order over the risk of instability.

In practice, classical conservatives see traditional customs and political institutions as the best available guarantor of peace and stability. They are wary of political programs that threaten to replace existing institutions with entirely new ones, as Edmund Burke saw with the French Revolution and as United Empire Loyalists saw with the American Revolution. The founders of Canadian confederation were motivated by these classical conservative values. They struggled for Canadian self-government without getting rid of the parliamentary and constitutional traditions that had taken root in British North America. Their desire to pattern Canada’s House of Commons and Senate after Britain’s House of Commons and House of Lords, while remaining loyal to the Crown, are excellent examples of the classical conservative themes discussed above. In fact, Canada’s classical conservative – or high Tory – heritage is one important factor in accounting for the difference between Canadian and American conservatism. This has been referred to as the ‘Tory touch’ thesis (Horowitz, 1966).

Even though conservatism has evolved in recent decades, remnants of classical conservatism can still be found today. For example, contemporary conservatives often warn against the dangers of social engineering, by which they mean attempts by the state to alter the shape of society in accordance with a rational plan. Similarly, some defenses of the traditional family are based on classical conservative premises, such as the need to maintain the family as an important social institution. The raising and educating of children has traditionally taken place in the family unit, and hence most attempts to modify it are viewed with suspicion by many conservatives. As we turn to modern conservatism, it is important to remember that despite many changes, and even some outright reversals, in what is now considered as conservatism, the legacy of classical conservatism has not been completely eradicated.