The historical origins and modern psychology of Anglo-Saxon conservatism
By John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D. -- version of late 2013)
"Law, language, literature-these are considerable factors. Common
conceptions of what is right and decent, a marked regard for fair play,
especially to the weak and poor, a stern sentiment of impartial justice,
and above all a love of personal freedom . these are the common conceptions on both sides of the ocean among the English-speaking peoples.
-- Winston Churchill's view of what characterizes people of British descent both at home and abroad
Conspectus
This monograph relies on one authority and one authority only: The
authority of history. But I think it may be useful if I pull together
at the beginning what I think history teaches us:
Left-leaning psychologists and other Leftist "thinkers" sometimes
"study" conservatism -- usually with the obvious motive of proving a
theory which discredits conservatives in some way. But the shallowness
of their actual knowledge of conservatives is shown when they feel the
need to consult dictionaries just to find out what conservatism is (e.g.
Altemeyer and
Wyeth).
That is a remarkably desperate recourse. Dictionaries record usage
but they cannot tell you whether the usage is right or wrong, shallow or
profound. They even record mistaken usages.
The problem underlying the recourse to dictionaries is that the Leftist
wouldn't know conservatism if he fell over it. His only concept of
conservatism is the caricature of it that circulates in his own little
Leftist bubble. But he does realize dimly that he doesn't know what it
is. So with a schoolboy level of sophistication, he turns to his
dictionary to find out what it is!
By contrast, in my studies of Leftism, I feel no need to rely on
dictionaries. From many years of reading Leftist writings, I can tell
you what Leftism regularly is. The essential element of Leftism is the
desire to change society. That DRIVES Leftism. And society is people.
So
What the Leftist does or tries to do is to
stop people doing what they want to do and make them do things that
they don't want to do. They are not alone in that but that
underlies all that they do and say. What changes they want and why they
want them is also a big part of the story and I consider that in
detail
elsewhere.
So conservatives tend to allow the natural world to continue on its way
while Leftists forge an inherently unstable world that can be held
together only by coercion.
Leftism is quintessentially authoritarian.
The redirection of a large slice of people's spending power via
compulsory taxation is only one part of the coercion. There are also
many direct commands and prohibitions. The very expensive "mandates" of
Obamacare were under much discussion in late 2013. Only a Leftist
would think that old ladies should be forced to pay for obstetric care.
It may be noted that some people with strongly-held religious views tend
to be like Leftists in trying to forge an unnatural world. That helps
to explain why Leftists are infinitely tolerant of Muslim Jihadis and
why the major churches tend to support the Left, some of them being very
Leftist. In the 2004 Australian Federal elections, the leaders of ALL
the churches came out in favour of the (Leftist) Australian Labor Party.
The only exception was a small Exclusive Brethren group in Tasmania
who supported the conservative coalition -- and their "intervention"
sparked huge outrage in the media and elsewhere. (The conservatives won
that election in a landslide).
And in England it is sometimes now held that "C of E" stands for "Church
of the Environment", because of the Church of England's strong
committment to Greenie causes. Cantuar Welby's
scolding of business
might also be noted. And a previous Cantuar (Carey, a generally decent
man) called his little grandson "pollution" on Greenie grounds. Pity
the children! And, in stark contrast with the Bible,
a senior Anglican cleric has called "homophobia" a sin.
The C of E and most of its First World offshoots no longer have strong
feelings about salvation but they have strong feelings about
Green/Leftist causes.
Because they focus so much on personal feelings and the promise of
salvation rather than on "the world", American evangelicals are
something of an exception but, even there, 10 million evangelicals voted
for Al Gore in the year 2000 American Federal elections.
But back to conservatism: While conservatives tend to let the natural
world run its course, that is not a defining characteristic. Nor is
opposition to change a defining characteristic. What drives conservatism
is something quite different.
What Leftists find in their dictionaries is that conservatives are
opposed to change. That is indeed the prevailing Leftist conception of
conservatives but it ignores one of the most salient facts about
politics worldwide -- that conservative governments are just as
energetic in legislating as Leftists are. Both sides busily make new
laws all the time. And the point of a new law is to change something.
The changes that Left and Right desire are different but both sides push
for change. On the Leftist's understanding of conservatism, a
conservative government that wins an election should do no more than
yawn, shut up the legislature and go home until the next election! What
conservatives mostly do, however, is reverse Leftist initiatives and
STRENGTHEN existing social arrangements rather than tear them down.
Both Left and right want change but WHAT changes they want are very
different and very differently motivated.
What has happened is that Leftists are so
self-righteous that they can rarely accept that conservatives oppose
Leftist policies on the merits of those policies. So they have
successfully put about the defensive myth that conservatives are opposed
to ALL change, regardless of its merits. But those busy conservative
legislators put the lie to that towering absurdity. Conservatives have
NO attitude to change per se. It is Leftists who do. They long for it.
So in a thoroughly anti-intellectual style, the Leftist ignores some of
the most basic facts about politics. That sure is a weird little
intellectual bubble that he lives in. EVERY conservative that I know
has got a whole list of things that he would like to see changed --
usually reversals of Leftist changes. But Leftist intellectuals
clearly just doesn't know any conservatives.
So what really is conservatism? I have taught both sociology and
psychology at major Australian universities but when it comes to
politics my psychologist's hat is firmly on. One can understand
conservatism at various levels but to get consistency, you have to drop
back to the psychological level. And at that level it is as plain as a
pikestaff.
Conservatives are cautious. And that is all you need to know to understand the whole of conservatism.
In science, however, explanations just generate new questions and, as a
psychologist, I am interested in dropping down to an even lower level of
explanation and asking why conservatives are cautious. And I think
that is pretty obvious too. It is in part because they can be.
As all the surveys show, conservatives are the happy and contented
people. And with that disposition, conservatives just don't feel the
burning urgency for change that Leftists do. Leftists cast caution to
the winds because they want change so badly. ANYTHING seems better to
them than the existing arrangements. Conservatives don't have that
compulsion. Leftists are the perpetually dissatified whiners whereas
conservatives can afford to take their time and get things right from
the outset.
And why does that difference in happiness exist? As
the happiness research often reminds us, your degree of happiness is inborn and, as such, is pretty fixed. Leftists are just born miserable.
So we have now dropped down into a genetic level of explanation. And we
can at that level even derive and test a hypothetico-deductive
prediction. If conservatives are happy and happiness is genetic, then
conservatism should be genetic too. And it is. As
behaviour geneticists such as Nick Martin
have shown, conservatism has a strong genetic component -- which
suggests that some people are just born cautious. It is, of course, no
surprise that caution and happiness go together. See also
here
So I think I have now gone as low as I can go in explaining
conservatism. There are of course even lower levels of explanation
possible (tracing the brain areas involved, studying the DNA) but our
understanding of those levels of function is so far so crude that
anyone purporting to offer explanations at that level is merely speculating.
So having gone down the levels of explanation, I now need to go up the
levels of explanation too. What does being cautious lead to? It rather
obviously leads to distrust: Distrust of the wisdom and goodwill of
one's fellow man, both as individuals and in collectivities. In
Christian terms, man is seen as "fallen" and ineluctibly imperfect.
But trust and distrust are matters of degree and conservatives are
perfectly willing to give trust when it has been earned. So where
ideas are concerned, conservatives usually trust only those ideas that
have already been shown to work as intended or which extend existing
successful ideas. Leftists, by contrast, trust and put into action
ideas that "sound" right to them -- without bothering to test first
whether their ideas really do generate the consequences that they
envisage. They usually don't of course. Leftists are theorists
extraordinaire.
They have no use for Mr Gradgrind's "facts". That theory is useful
only insofar as it is a good guide to facts seems to be beyond their
ken.
The enthusiasm for "whole language" methods in teaching kids to read is
an example of untested Leftist policy being implemented. It was widely
adopted in the schools but worked so badly that most schools have now
reverted to phonics -- the old "tried and tested" method.
And conservative caution leads to conservatives valuing stability
generally -- because sweeping changes could well not work out well --
and usually don't. Leftists usually seem to think they know it all but
conservatives know that they don't. So conservatives may want various
changes but also want to proceed cautiously with change. They want
"safe" change, change off a stable base -- a base that embodies what has
worked in the past.
And the traditional conservative advocacy of individual liberty also
stems from caution. It is highly likely that a tyrant won't have your
particular interests at heart so you want to be free to pursue your own
interests yourself. And in the economic sphere that is capitalism.
