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The differences
between conservatism and liberalism should become clearer if we look
at several key areas of conservative belief.
Nations
Throughout history there have
existed groups of people united in a special way by kinship. Such
peoples have shared a common ancestry, language, history, culture,
religion and so on, which combine together to form a distinct ethnic
identity.
Often such ethnic groups have
existed at a tribal or regional level. However, it sometimes also
happens that an ethnic group lives together in a large territory
with its own political state. When this occurs, the people involved
become something more than an ethnic group - they become a nation,
with a distinct national identity.
For conservatives, membership of an
ethnic group, and especially of a nation, is a positive feature of
life. It is part of a real, historical collective identity existing
between a group of people, which often becomes an inseparable part
of our individual identity - of our sense of who we are.
Furthermore, a national or ethnic
identity gives us a sense of connection to both past and future
generations; it also encourages the idea that each individual has a
respected place in society, in terms of having a role and
responsibility within the collective effort; and finally, a national
or ethnic tradition also strengthens the connection felt by
individuals to their environment - it strengthens the attachment
felt by individuals to the urban heritage or to the countryside of
their native land.
Unlike conservatives, liberals have
not given a very stable level of support to national or ethnic
traditions. It's not hard to understand why this should be the case.
As we saw in the first chapter, liberals support a philosophy of
individualism, in which individuals start out as "blank slates", and
are self-created through their own reason and will.
A national or ethnic identity,
however, is not something we choose for ourselves through our reason
or will, but is something we are born into. Liberals, therefore,
have either tended to reject inherited national traditions
altogether in favour of internationalism, or else have sought to
redefine the idea of nationalism, so that it is based solely on
citizenship.
When membership of a nation is based
only on citizenship, then a national identity is something that
can be chosen by the individual: the individual can seek to
alter the definition of citizenship, or to choose to hold
citizenship rights in whatever country they prefer.
Conservatives would argue, though,
that in making membership of a nation malleable in this way, the
inherited, and deeper, forms of national identity are lost, leaving
the individual to a far greater degree "free-floating" or "rootless"
- without the same strength of attachment to a particular national
culture and tradition.
Finally, conservatives are also
critical of those liberals who, curiously enough, are happy to
support and enjoy foreign national or ethnic cultures, whilst
denigrating their own.
In Australia, this denigration of
the "home" culture has led to a distorted view of Australian
history. There is a tendency to underplay the sacrifices and
achievements of the early settlers, and to emphasise their faults.
The historian John Hirst has criticised this trend towards "a
history of Australia that characterises British Australia -
Australia before the great postwar migration - as a long dark age."
For conservatives, this "black armband" view of Australian history
is of special concern, since conservatives wish to build on the best
of a tradition, rather than to selectively emphasise the worst.
Gender
Conservatives support gender
difference. They believe that men and women are different by nature,
and that this is a positive aspect of life.
Conservatives support gender difference
for several reasons. Firstly, for conservatives the feminine
qualities of women and the masculine qualities of men have a value
in themselves - they are something to be admired. Secondly, gender
difference is the basis of heterosexuality; by definition,
heterosexuality means the attraction of men to the feminine
qualities of women and vice versa. Finally, gender difference is
important in making men and women complementary to each other, so
that together men and women provide the different qualities needed
by individuals, families and communities.
The conservative attitude to gender is
well-summarised, if a little overstated, by the nineteenth century
writer John Ruskin, who wrote,
"We are foolish, and without excuse
foolish, in speaking of the "superiority" of one sex to another, as
if they could be compared in similar things. Each has what the other
has not; each completes the other, and is completed by the other;
they are in nothing alike, and the happiness and perfection of both
depends on each asking and receiving from the other what the other
only can give."
Unlike
conservatives, liberals have not proven to be reliable supporters of
gender difference. Again, this can be traced back to liberal
individualism. Liberal individualists want to be "self-created" -
they don't want to be born into a particular gender with
well-defined gender qualities.
When confronted with the reality that
men and women do tend to act in certain typically masculine or
feminine ways, liberals claim that this is merely a product of "socialisation":
of the oppressive influence of traditional culture. Accordingly,
liberals have attempted to "re-engineer" gender, with the purpose of
creating more similar patterns of behaviour between men and women.
The results have been predictable.
There has been some blurring of gender, as the normal process of
encouraging the stronger masculine qualities of men, and the
stronger feminine qualities of women, has been put into reverse.
However, the basic gender differences
have inevitably remained, since these are "hard-wired" into us, as
scientists have demonstrated ever more conclusively.
Again, for conservatives, this is not a
cause of regret, since gender difference, while occasionally
frustrating, is generally an appealing aspect of life.
Family
Many people in their teenage years
react against the idea of family. It is often a time when people
wish to be independent and free of of the personal frictions which
go along with family life.
Nonetheless most people eventually
choose to establish their own families. Why? Partly because the
family, for all its imperfections, is usually the most stable source
of support for individuals. It is also due to the strong instinct
most people eventually feel to find a life partner and to have
children.
Conservatives are supportive of family
life. In particular, conservatives believe in the ideal of a stable
family life, in which the different qualities of men and women are
made complementary to each other.
Liberals take a different view of the
family. Firstly, liberals find it more difficult to accept stable
family commitments, since for liberals the idea of individual
autonomy, of being independent and "free to choose" is paramount.
Liberals, therefore, have acted to "loosen up" family commitments,
by redefining the family so that it describes any arrangement of
people living together, and by supporting easier divorce laws,
culminating in the "no fault" divorce laws of the 1970s.
Secondly, liberals, being hostile to
the idea of gender difference, have attempted to create a genderless
family, in which men and women are expected to behave exactly the
same.
This is one of those liberal "reforms"
which was never thought through very clearly. It was heavily
promoted in the 1970s when motherhood was unpopular amongst
political women; this allowed the assumption to take hold that women
could easily follow the same career pattern as men.
However, most women did eventually
choose to have children, and were then left with the role of "supermums"
- of trying to juggle motherhood responsibilities and traditionally
masculine career demands at the same time. This was unrealistic,
especially as most men proved less committed to taking over
motherhood tasks, not least because their working hours were already
steadily rising.
As a result, men and women have been
left to muddle their way through the expectations of the genderless
family as best they can. Conservatives believe that it would be
better to scrap the emphasis on gender sameness within the
family altogether, and try instead to achieve a balance
between men and women in family life.
The Economy & Society
Historically there have been two basic
kinds of liberalism.
The first kind, classical liberalism,
had its heyday in the mid-nineteenth century. Classical liberals
believed that the free market was self-regulating, so that
governments should remain small and interfere as little as possible
in the economy.
This kind of liberalism has made a
comeback in recent years, under the name of "economic rationalism"
or "neo-liberalism." Such liberals want to privatise and deregulate
the economy.
The second kind of liberalism, "new
liberalism", emerged in the late nineteenth century. New liberals
wanted to make social reforms through intervention by a strong
central government. Eventually, new liberalism was to lead to high
levels of state ownership of the economy, and the building of the
welfare state.
Conservatives are similar to classical
liberals, and opposed to new liberals, in wanting a small central
state. Why? When a large bureaucratic state takes over it tends to
erode the institutions of civil society. People deal with a central
state passively as separate individuals, rather than as mutually
supporting members of a community.
Furthermore, too much power in the
hands of the central state allows it, temporarily at least, to
engage in social engineering - to overthrow the more natural forms
of social organisation in favour of a ruling ideology.
There are some free market liberals who
have a similar attitude to conservatives in this respect. Such
liberals recognise that to have a small government you need to look
after society by encouraging an ethos of personal responsibility and
by having a well-functioning civil society.
However, unlike such classical liberals
conservatives do believe in the need to regulate the market.
Conservatives don't believe that the profit motive, if left to
itself, necessarily creates the best outcomes for society. An
example of this is that without sensible regulation a capitalist
economy would quickly exploit and degrade the environment.
The Environment
Conservatives are strongly
environmentalist. In part, this is because of the importance of
heritage to conservatives, which means that conservatives wish to
preserve the better historic areas of towns, as well as attractive
areas of the countryside. Conservatives also believe that a natural
environment has a positive influence on people, so that it is better
for people to grow up and live in leafy surrounds, rather than in a
concrete jungle.
Conservatives, however, would differ
from some radical greens in recognising the need to use and develop
natural resources. The point for conservatives is to attempt to do
this intelligently and sustainably, with the least long-term damage
to the environment. |