Scratch a conservative and you will find an onanist every time. Here is David Brooks in a high dudgeon over the supposed collapse of conservativism due to what he calls America's "creedal" nature. By creedal he means ideological but implies--probably unintentionally--a nearer truth: that since the founding of their nation Americans have been unique among peoples of the world in their willingness and ability to swallow snake oil, stretch their meaty arms, and proclaim themselves (all evidence to the contrary) well and fully cured. Anyway, Brooks:
Modern conservatism begins with Edmund Burke. What Burke articulated was not an ideology or a creed, but a disposition, a reverence for tradition, a suspicion of radical change.Well that's not quite it, is it? Burke was perfectly content with the American revolution, yet heaped opprobium on the French revolution in Reflections on the Revolution in France, a shoddy and inaccurate tract if there ever was one. Why? Because the American revolution preserved the privilege of land-ownership, and the French revolution did not. Bada-bing, bada-boom.
Conservativism from the Roman Senate to the Brits to Brooks has at its heart this economic prerogative, which it occasionally dresses in the modest attire of Tradition. These Arcadian pretensions are totally phony. Conservatives do not dream of Eden, but of manor homes and a rentier economy.
Protecting the privilege of ownership isn't a crazy philosophy, and it's certainly true--to give Burke due credit for betting on a winning horse--that in the final analysis, the American revolution was prefereble in many ways to the French. (Though were they so different, after all? The French got Napoleon and we got Manifest Destiny. The French got the Terror, and we got the slave trade. In the end, we all got Vietnam.) Washington, Jefferson, and even that bastard monarchist Hamilton were patrician by inclination, and the American constitution, prior to the post-Bill-of-Rights amendments, is certainly a conservative political document. Certainly much-lauded "stability" is served by vesting the power of governance in the landowning classes.
Brooks says:
The world is too complex, the Burkean conservative believes, for rapid reform. Existing arrangements contain latent functions that can be neither seen nor replaced by the reformer. The temperamental conservative prizes epistemological modesty, the awareness of the limitations on what we do and can know, what we can and cannot plan."Existing arrangements." That, friends, is a euphemism. The tempermental conservative doesn't prize "epistemological modesty," whatever on earth that's supposed to be. He prizes his acreage. Plenty of so-called tempermental conservatives were perfectly happy to see the British gobble up the world for their empire. More acres! There is no more "rapid reform," than conquest, nor any more radical revision of "existing arrangements."
This, of course, is why so many tempermental conservatives went balls-out for the Iraq invasion. Not because they are revolutionaries. Because there was money to be made.
7 comments:
"This, of course, is why so many tempermental conservatives went balls-out for the Iraq invasion. Not because they are revolutionaries. Because there was money to be made."
And money to be lost. They're not called oil "reserves" for nothing.
IOZ, you're not getting all Henry George on us, are you?
Lordy, no. I didn't discover progress at the butt-end of a failed gold mine.
I am not immune to Burke myself, actually. Only to American conservativism.
You make a valid point that many American conservatives (and British ones) clothe themselves in the language of Burkean traditionalism while acting as capitalist acquisitors and imperialists. But not all conservatives are like this. I was self-identified conservative throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and yet found myself repelled by the radicalism and destructiveness of the Bush (II) administration.
I certainly would agree, though, that a supporter of the Iraq War should be automatically disqualified from calling themselves a Burkean conservative.
Small, but crucial, clarification for those playing at home: "Because there was money to be made."
There is no money being made. There are no resources being discovered. No manufacturing which improves the value of commodities. There is no wealth accruing. I know you know this, but it's important they do too. There is no money being made in this war. Only taken. Artlessly and with waste that would embarrass the most brain damaged run of the mill burglar.
WARS WAGED FOR CZARS
It is the Christian way to render
Unto the czar what is the czar´s;
Whose profile decks the legal tender,
Of earthly bounty as the source--
Therefore, although he were the crafter
Of legislation fine as Nafta--
Render unto the leader his,
So that nothing may be amiss.
Yet, insofar the ruler rules
Against God´s precepts heaven-sent
(Or slanders Darwin as for fools),
Though outwardly one must assent--
One need not be a moral softie,
Or hypocrite pretending lofty
What otherwise is low and base:
Rather declare it to his face.
Render what must be rendered, yet
Relationship twixt word and fact
Lies sacred--nor ye dare forget,
While he lives longer who has tact,
That mere longevity of life
Counts not for less cut short by knife,
Therefore protest immoral wars
Though waged exclusively for czars.
.
Scratch a liberal and you'll find a young idealist, a fool, or a Jew.
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