The Roots of Conservatism
In modern political discourse, conservatism is often seen as a dirty word. Yet, even when it is not seen as such, conservatism often has a connotation of uneducated and unprincipled. This perception is not unique to today. The same sentiment was voiced by the liberal intellectual Lionel Trilling in his 1950 work The Liberal Imagination, where he stated, “the conservative impulse and the reactionary impulse do not, with some isolated and some ecclesiastical exceptions, express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas” (xv). However, it is not so much that conservatism is an empty ideology that merely seeks to resemble ideas, but rather, an ideology that is principled and has a great agnation of intellectual minds. The principles essential to conservatism are tradition, law, patriotism, religion, and diversity.
Tradition is an essential component to a truly conservative worldview. The English philosopher G.K. Chesterton once remarked that tradition was the “democracy of the dead” and I emphatically share his view. Conservatism, however, is not just about the dead, but the future as well. The root of tradition comes from the Latin tradere, meaning “to give.” Tradition is not only something given to us, but also something we must give to those who come after us. Tradition is a living creation of norms and customs that must be maintained in any society to ensure order and cohesion as a nation. When a nation sets out policy goals to fulfill, a conservative must ask two questions: 1) how do these policies affect what has been given to us? and 2) how do these policies affect what we are giving to our posterity?
The preamble to the American Constitution, written by the statesman Gouverner Morris explains that American values, such as justice and the blessings of liberty, are not just for us, but our posterity as well. In fact, we are part of the posterity that the founders were referring to in that document. The goals and promises enumerated in the Constitution are not merely some lofty aims of some men who lived two and a half centuries ago, but a code of laws and governance meant to be passed down through the ages. However, a conservative must remember not only what has come from ages past but also what will be left to future generations. Tradition is not limited to merely law or culture, but encompasses all principles, values, and truths that are handed down from age to age. Conservatism, much to the chagrin of some, is not a selfish ideology focused on individuals, but a truly eternal ideology that connects all generations with each other. Thus, conservatism is both ancient and futuristic. Tradition makes conservatism more than a philosophy centered on human beings, but an ongoing set of principles, rooted in that which never changes. Tradition illuminates conservative principles and makes them transcend time and passing pleasures in favor of the eternal and cherished practices of ages past.
One aspect of tradition is law, which is a sort of “governing tradition.” I make this distinction so as to show law in an authoritative and binding manner, while another tradition, baking cookies on Christmas, is not binding in any way. This “governing tradition” is based in continuity and the continual observance of a certain moral code. The conservative should not oppose innovation in the law, but rather be cautious when innovation is necessary. The right to self defense, for instance, did not begin in the American Constitution, but has origins in ancient history and legal custom. In the Sumerian legal code of Hammurabi, there was not a prescribed right to self-defense, but a provision recognizing the sovereignty of individuals and their right to be compensated for loss or damage of property or life. The code, stated in 23 and 24, offers,“if the robber is not captured, the man who has been robbed shall, in the presence of god, make an itemized statement of his loss, and the city and the governor in whose jurisdiction the robbery was committed shall compensate him for whatever was lost.”
This compensation of persons and their property was expanded in the 6th Century (AD) by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in his famous code of laws. The code of the Emperor granted citizens the right to “resist a soldier or a person in private station who enters fields as a nocturnal plunderer, or besets frequented roads with intentions of robbery, and who is worthy to be subjected to immediate punishment pursuant to such permission and to receive the death and incur the danger which he himself threatened.” This notion is a continued recognition of a citizen’s right to property, but the protection is merely expanded to private persons, rather than protection by the state through punishing criminals and compensation for victims. This would further be expanded in the late 17th Century by the English Bill of Rights (1689), which were written in the immediate aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, which overthrew the last Catholic monarch of England and enshrined a Protestant succession until Armageddon. While previous documents, such as the Magna Carta, had limited royal power over nobles, the 1689 Bill of Rights limited royal power over individual citizens as well, regardless of class.
Thus, every citizen at that time was allowed to protect themselves from any threat, whether from brigands or the government. This articulation of the right to self-defense was the precursor of the American 2nd Amendment. However, the right to self-defense and property has deep roots in all of history, which organically changed from protection by the state to personal protection against even the state itself. This is the conservative idea of lawcraft, which shifts overtime to encompass various aspects of culture and society. No true law and especially those dealing with the protection of citizens’ rights ought to be slapdash and immediate, but rooted in history, prudence, and nature. The most essential element to the conservative view of law is what Aquinas would call the Natural Law. This system of law is based upon the empirical observation of human nature and is crucial to a conservative understanding of the law. The right to self-defense exists because people have a right to life, which should be protected. Therefore, the right to self-defense is inherent in human nature and can then be extrapolated to positive law in civil society. Although societal needs may change, human nature remains constant and a conservative view of law retains the essence of certain rights, while changing circumstances may expand or limit the scope of this protection.
Patriotism is the love of one’s country, which is an extension of filial piety. Filial piety is the love of one’s parents, ancestors, and elders and respecting what they have handed down. This is under the umbrella of the conservative view of tradition. The conservative loves their country, not just because it is rich or has some great external features, but simply because it is the land of their birth. Similarly, we do not love our parents more because they are wealthy or have a plethora of academic degrees, but for the simple fact that they are our parents. This simple love of our nation should not depend upon external factors because then one may cease to love their nation and grow cold or apathetic to residing in it. In his 1790 letter “Reflections on the Revolution
in France,” the English statesman Edmund Burke describes how reformers should approach certain imperfections in their nation, stating,
that he should approach to the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude. By this wise prejudice we are taught to look with horror on those children of their country who are prompt rashly to hack that aged parent in pieces and put him into the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by their poisonous weeds and wild incantations they may regenerate the paternal constitution and renovate their father's life. (508)
A conservative must always be willing to remedy the defects of their nation, but without hasty innovation that destroys the state in its entirety. Thus, revolutions and obstreperous uprisings are not part of the conservative tradition.
Three misconceptions of patriotism, which should be given credence as well, are commonly aggregated into conservative principles. First, there are the extremists who refuse any innovation to the state whatsoever. A clear example of this ridiculous patriotism would be the Qianlong Emperor, who reigned as the Qing emperor of China from 1735 to 1796. As the Chinese population grew and China expanded its territory, more income was required to sustain the nation in its unprecedented growth. However, the Emperor refused to raise taxes because his grandfather the Kangxi Emperor (1661-1722) froze taxes throughout China in 1711. This extreme of filial piety, which hinders any necessary innovation and will ultimately, as it did in the case of China, lead to more destruction and upheaval in the end.
The second form of false patriotism is the case of tyrants. Without seeming trite, the Nazi’s nationalism of the 1930s and 40s was not patriotism, but an ape of such reverence to the nation. To begin with, they executed many of their own citizens, which is not how a parent would treat a child. Furthermore, the Nazis did not love their nation, but destroyed their nation by supplanting its inherent culture and traditions with a false exaltation of prejudice and domination. Such action is not patriotism, but rather the habits of revolutionary extremists who have no value for their nation or its tradition and seek only their personal and flagitious aims. The third form of distorted patriotism is more germane to the American nation. After the USS Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian passenger plane flying between Tehran and Dubai in 1988, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush said in a speech, “I will never apologize for the United States — I don’t care what the facts are.” The first problem with this sentiment is that when an action is wrong, it remains wrong even if someone you love committed it. If the nation is like that of the Burkean father, it is necessary to recognize that fathers still act wrongly on occasion. If we truly care about our nation, then we must be willing to criticize our nation on certain faults and truly seek to eradicate these wounds rather than simply living in denial. The second problem with this sentiment is that it attributes the worth of our nation to external factors, such as misdeeds. True conservative patriotism is not based on how a nation acts, but the mere fact of calling the nation home. Thus, a bad action on the part of that country should never reduce our love for our nation and true love for our country should not inhibit us from apologizing when our nation acts imprudently.
Perhaps, the most important of these tenets is religion. The conservative cannot view religion as a merely private matter, meant to be kept inside a church or house. It is what motivates and anchors a nation in all other matters. While religion is often thought to be divisive in modern times, it has not always been so. The ancient Egyptians were united by the pharaoh, who was thought to be a god incarnate. It is likely that the pharaoh would have been obeyed had he not been viewed as divine, but the supposed divine nature of pharaoh certainly made it easier for the citizens to love the pharaoh and unite under his banner as a nation. In the medieval world, Europe was united under the Catholic religion, which received its name from the Greek word meaning “universal.” Even after the Protestant Reformation, religion still illuminated and united groups of people. While not all of Europe was Catholic, different sections of Europe could be grouped under some various and sundry faiths. For instance, the people of the Canton of Zurich were Protestant followers of Huldrych Zwingli. The people of that canton were then united under the religious decrees of that Protestant sect, as were many other areas (Calvin’s Geneva, Anglican England, and of course the remaining Catholic nations like Spain or Portugal). However, the conservative must not constrain religion as a vessel of the state to encourage uniformity, but allow religion to inform the state.
It must be stated firstly, that I am not advocating a theocracy. This is an actual form of government that exists in the Middle East, used to exist in central Italy under the Papal States (to an extent) and 16th century Geneva. A government that derives its policies from religious principles is not theocratic and those who claim this is so, do not understand much about government or religion. The conservative view of religion uses it to impact public policy and guide the fundamental ethical interests of a nation. Religion serves as a guardian of tradition, law, and patriotism, while also guiding them. Religion establishes the norms of a nation and informs the national conscience about what is moral and immoral. Thus, states that have eschewed religion often fall prey to a replacement that exalts the individual and destroys the moral fabric of the nation entirely. Even in American history, religion has been essential to lawcraft and public life. The 1780 Massachusetts Bill of Rights explains how it is not only a right, but a duty of all citizens to worship God. The American founders did not discourage religion, but found it integral for the functioning and happiness of a society. For a conservative, religion must inform all actions of the state and guide her in making decisions for the betterment of all her citizens. This not only leads the state to be morally grounded when making decisions, but burns a fire of guilt in the national conscience when the state acts with impropriety. It is crucial for a nation to have an objective grounding and that has always been found in religion and a devotion to something greater than the state itself.
The final tenet of conservatism may seem rather incongruous. The final pillar of conservative thought is diversity. Diversity has captivated the public mind and driven conservatives to even balk at the mention of such a word. However, diversity, properly understood, is not counter to conservatism, but necessary for a full understanding of conservatism. Modern diversity has two problems that compromise in its purpose. The first is that modern diversity teaches that people derive their dignity from their different characteristics (such as race or gender); the second problem is that modern diversity does not have an objective root. The first problem is best seen in how frequently people are defined by physical characteristics, such as gender or race. These characteristics certainly add to our being and can be important to our life, but they cannot be the entirety of our existence. These are merely external features that do not add or diminish our dignity and rights. Even in the midst of harsh servitude or slavery, we retain dignity and rights, best understood in what Burke called “the spirit of an exalted freedom” (490). The second problem with modern diversity is its rejection of an objective commonality. To add upon my first point, our inherent dignity must have a root and that is in God. Without God, we cannot understand true diversity. The conservative view of diversity is that we are different and our differences should be celebrated, but that we are all one in God. If we reject God, then we reject a universal unity that divides us and gives us no hope of ever being united. Differences and diversity, such as language, race, and gender, are important and are crucial to any society, but they cannot be placed above our common designation as children of God. This rejection of God does not go unheeded and soon other factors will take its place. Yet, they cannot offer true unity and will ultimately divide us into individualized groups that cannot value our differences in a healthy manner. The conservative must value diversity and encourage many perspectives, but those perspectives and differences must all be teleologically ordered towards God and the common love of each other and our nation.
Conservatism has become distorted in today’s culture and has focused too heavily on economic matters. This has led the conservative movement to forget many of its roots. Modern conservatism has too hastily rejected tradition for innovation, law for power, patriotism for extreme fealty to a cult of individuals, religion for a salvation based on materialism, and diversity for uniformity. Conservatism will not endure if these principles are abandoned for cheap political points that have and will continue to, after the initial thrill, leave us destitute . As conservatives have sold out these ideas, others have come to see conservatism as self-motivated and unprincipled, but this cannot be further from the truth. In an age defined by ad hominem attacks and superfluous insults, principles are in high demand; conservatives must deliver those principles and defend that which is worth defending.
Works Cited
Blume, Fred H. “Annotated Justinian Code.” Blume and Justinian. University of Wyoming College of Law, 2007, www.uwyo.edu/lawlib/blume-justinian/ajc-edition-2/books/book3/.
Burke, Edmund, and Jesse Norman. Reflections on the revolution in France and Other Writings. London: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.
Chesterton, Gilbert Keith. Orthodoxy. S.l.: Broadman & Holman Pub, 2022. “English Bill of Rights 1689.” Avalon Project, 2008, avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/england.asp.
Oldstone-Moore, Christopher. “Code of Hammurabi.” Wright State University,
www.wright.edu/~christopher.oldstone-moore/Hamm.htm.
Trilling, Lionel. The Liberal Imagination. New York, NY: New York Review, 2008.
Wasserstrom, Jeffrey N. The Oxford History of Modern China. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford
University Press, 2022.
Michael “Mac” Connors is a junior Politics major with Great Books and History minors. He greatly enjoys writing fiction and researching various historical and political topics. He is the chairman of the College Republicans, Vice President of the Class of 2025, writes for the Crier, and sings in the choir. He also enjoys reading the classics, learning languages, singing the praises of monarchs, and listening to Gregorian chants and Frank Sinatra.