Barend Vlaardingerbroek: What does it mean to be a ‘conservative’?

After the Soviet Union had imploded back in the early ‘90s, BBC reporters started referring to the communists as ‘conservatives’. This usage initially took me by surprise (as I am sure it did many people). Blimey, ‘conservative’ is the polar opposite of ‘communist’, isn’t it?

Let’s turn to the on-line Oxford. ‘Conservative’ as an adjective or a noun alludes to an aversion to change or innovation and holding traditional values. Thus we see as similar words ‘traditionalist’, ‘orthodox’ and ‘conventional’. So there is no reason why a communist can’t be a ‘conservative’ in a country where communism ruled the roost for three quarters of a century. (Teaser: what about calls for the restoration of the monarchy? I recall some BBC reporters applying the term ‘traditionalist’ to those!)

To continue with the Oxford: “(in a political context) favouring free enterprise, private ownership, and socially traditional ideas”; with ‘establishmentarian’, ‘traditionalist’ (yes, that moniker again), and ‘right-wing’ as similar labels.

We also see both ‘neoliberal’ and ‘neoconservative’ in the ‘Similar’ list. This really won’t do; how on Earth can you define ‘conservative’ using ‘neoconservative’ as a descriptor? But then we look further down and see ‘alt-right’ and ‘Republican’ and the penny drops: the metastatic cancer of Americanisation has struck.

I speak English, not American. To me, a republican is someone who wants to abolish the monarchy, not a supporter of a transatlantic political party. As for ‘neoliberal’, I’m blowed if I can see how something can be both itself and its opposite at the same time (neolib/neocons presumably being opposite). What I do know is that I am a man of the Enlightenment who believes in silly things like freedom of speech – a classical liberal, which is a conservative position today; but in Amurrican quasi-English, liberal is the antithesis of conservative, meaning, amongst other things, support for PC totalitarianism in which conservatives have no freedom of speech.

What a semantic quagmire! With mounting trepidation I enter ‘neoconservative’ and ‘neoliberal’ into the appropriate boxes on the screen. The feeling is replaced by relief when I read with regard to the first “A school of political thought in the USA” that justifies the US throwing its weight around militarily in the world. Nothing to do with me, then; so I won’t use the term. As for ‘neoliberal’, this appears to be applicable mostly if not exclusively to economic policy (free market, free trade, etc) which I don’t have a great deal to do with.

We are still left with a quandary: it is perfectly possible to be a conservative and a liberal (in British English) at the same time. Indeed as I have noted above, this is the position of the classical liberal today. A mistake we should not make is confusing conservatism with stick-in-the-mud-ism. I have always remembered something Margaret Thatcher said to a radio reporter in 1985: “A modern conservative is someone who looks at what we have from the past and holds on to what is good” (a paraphrase as I cannot find the quote on the web). Conservatives can be sticks in the mud (as can so-called radicals) but they can also be progressive, looking for better ways of going about governance. But they do not believe in change for change’s sake.

The place of religion on the conservative/liberal spectrum is again one that reflects the insidious Americanisation of Western society and language. Conservatism to an American tends to come with a belief in ancient Middle Eastern manuscripts, a rejection of explanations of the cosmos and life proffered by modern science, a dictatorial approach to social and personal behaviour, and all the other trimmings of the Bible Belt. They’re almost as bad as what Americans call ‘liberals’ who are those I call ‘marxofascists’. To most Americans, ‘atheistic conservative’ would come across as an oxymoron.

The situation in the UK has always been complicated by the existence of 26 seats in the House of Lords that are ear-marked for bishops of the Anglican Church. The concerns of other EU members about this incomplete separation of church and state were instrumental in the establishment of the Supreme Court of the UK in 2009. But in practical terms, it is highly debatable whether these 26 seats ever changed the outcome of parliamentary deliberations, especially after 1911 when the Lords lost their power of veto.

In Europe, the swing towards the political right has seen both traditionalists (most of whom see some place for religion in public life) and neo-rightist nationalist movements (the so-called ‘hipster right’ most of whom couldn’t care a sprig about religion) trying to claim the high ground. Add to that mixture the American plague and Russian meddling in European affairs and we get headlines such as this one from a 2019 article in the journal Open Democracy: “Europe’s far-right bid to take back ‘Christian Europe’ – Focus on Russian ‘interference’ risks ignoring the growing role of American religious conservatives in fuelling the far-right surge.” Time to take an aspirin and find something else to think about.

Does political conservatism owe anything to religion? We are constantly reminded of our ‘Judaeo-Christian heritage’. Perhaps I’m a bit dense but what I see when I look at our Western systems of governance and law is an indelible Graeco-Roman heritage – I see no evidence of any ‘Judaeo’ influence and a ‘Christian’ one only as a secondary influence.

Any attempt to argue that the Enlightenment was driven by Christianity has to overcome the obstacle that the spirit of intellectual freedom with respect to all things, and a belief in the ability of human beings to provide solutions to ethical and moral as well as more profane issues, were the driving forces behind the Age of Reason. The ‘fathers of the Enlightenment’ were mostly deists – people who acknowledge the existence of God but believe that this nebulous entity stepped back and let the show run itself after it/he had created the raw material of the universe and the ‘laws’ by which it would run. Some were what we would now call agnostics (a term not coined until 1869). The great moral philosophers of the Enlightenment replaced spooks with human agencies in the intellectual revolution that the Age of Reason engendered. The Christian establishment, especially the Catholic Church, felt threatened and opposed the new wave (until of course it became a new norm, and then they tried to say that it had been their idea all along. Sigh…….)

There is certainly an association in the statistical sense between conservative social and moral views and religious identity. In Europe, people claiming to be religious – which includes Muslims (and other minorities) as well as Christians – are more likely than the non-religious to stress the importance of the family as the foundation of society, to resist same-sex marriage, and to abide by conventional designations of sex/gender. But we must not make the mistake of assuming that the more conservative views emanate from a religious mindset. There are other reasons why someone may adopt the conservative position other than religious. In my own case, for instance, I have written articles in this blog highly critical of the gender-bender bunkum and same-same marriage based solely on scientific and legal reasoning.

The meanings of terms such as ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ have been changing over the past few decades. Their definitions have not quite settled down, although I fear that the American language pandemic is doing the redefining other than for true-blue stalwarts like yours truly who will always be true to the real thing (they can’t even get the colours right – blue being Democrat!). In the meantime, when you come across these words in print or speech, it does pay to enquire as to exactly what the writer or speaker means. It might also pay to ask yourself exactly what you mean by them – you may be surprised at the answer.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek is a retired academic who taught at universities in PNG, Botswana and Lebanon. He is a classical liberal which means that he’s actually rather conservative and if that confuses you, you’d better read the article. Feedback welcome at bv_54@hotmail.com