Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, January 27th, 2009 - 99 comments
Categories: articles, labour, national -
Tags: articles, labour, national
Conservatism is all about maintaining the status quo. It assumes that the status quo is essentially ok, while change is best avoided. The idea comes from philosophers like Edmund Burke who figured the reason conventions and structures get to endure in the first place is because they work. Of course if you’re in the middle to upper strata of society and reasonably comfortable, then maintaining the status quo is more desirable than it is for those getting a raw deal. The Conservative position is comparatively easy to translate into political action because it concerns maintaining or removing influences to keep life as it is, or was. There isn’t a lot of philosophical disunity because the simple overarching rules are more individual liberty and less state influence: if in doubt, do less or nothing and ensure the status quo. Of course conservatives do changes things, but they usually cloak their actions in the rhetorical meme of ‘restoring things to how they were’. Overall Conservatism appeals to those who need or prefer simple answers to complex problems.
The weakness of a conservative position (apart from the obvious moral problem of disregard for those at the bottom of the heap), is that it doesn’t deal with change very well. Sometimes change comes from without, such as the effects of the Global Economic Crisis, and sometimes from within, when disaffected groups start do insist on change but either way trying to conserve the past isn’t often a very useful guide for how best to adapt. When the world insists on changing in novel ways Conservatives tend to be at a bit of a loss. The other obvious objection is clearly the past, or the status quo, hasn’t always been worth conserving: slavery, dowries and capital punishment spring to mind but there are countless injustices that have been abolished as societies have progressed towards civility.
Progressivism on the other hand takes the view that regardless of how things are now they can always be better, and that civilised societies have a duty to improve the lot of all their citizens, not least of which the weakest members. Progressivism is much more problematic as a guide for political decision making because it involves modifying existing structures, or making altogether new ones, to achieve a better state of affairs. It also provokes disagreements not only about how to achieve progress, but also more fundamentally, about what constitutes progress in the first place. This familiarity with change, ambiguity and complexity however gives an advantage to progressives when adaptation is the only option.
So Progressivism requires a lot more thought on behalf of its adherents, a lot more effort if you believe its harder to make something new than it is to keep things as they are, and often leaves progressives at odds with each other about what to achieve and how to achieve it. Fortunately on the whole it also seems to attract smarter, more compassionate people.
And then of course there’s Neo-Liberals, who pretend to be conservative while really seeking radical change, but that’s another story…
Facebook
Twitter
Scoopit!
It’s not. This is science, not opinion. Your opinion does not matter at all, as it has been proven over and over again. You can read the research for yourself. There’s over 30 years’ worth to go through.
That is one of the few places in our society you might find left wing authoritarians (radical Maoists and so on), but there are so few of them that they make no real difference. Right wing (supportive of the established authorities) authoritarians, however, are ten a penny. It was the same in the Soviet Union, where the right wing authoritarians supported the communist party to the hilt.
Trying to define progressives and conservatives in ideological terms is pointless. One reason is that conservatism isn’t an ideology. The idea that you preserve things simply because they exist is ludicrous on the face of it, as is the caricature of progressivism as wanting change for its own sake.
As I said above, if you want a scientific basis that cuts through all the BS and provides a better explanation of what is going on than ideological explanations. The authoritarianism test was given to a bunch of US legislators and you could have picked their scores with 95% accuracy. The Republicans were almost always more authoritarian than the democrats, and the only democrats that were to the left of Republicans were the Dixiecrats. The more “liberal” the state, the less authoritarian its legislators and vice versa. It’s far too much of a coincidence.
People are wasting their time by cleaving to ideological explanations that just generate more and more hot air.
Bit superficial Sprout.
Conservatism under capitalism means keep the market and the family intact. eg patriarchy. The one supports the other. They are conserving the ownership and control of private property and male dominance therein.
Progressivism means reforming the market and the family in keeping with the development of capitalism. Eg gender equality. Has a more specific usage in the US where it was a 19th century political movement to the left of today’s Democrats. Usually equated with Labourism or Social Democracy in Britain and Europe including Australasia. Doesn’t challenge private property but argues that the market needs the state to moderate its excesses like bursting bubbles. Usually held by bureaucrats who get jobs reforming things.
Neo-liberals are just born again conservatives who had to go back to basics to throw out the progressives who interfered in the market during the post war boom. They are conservatives in a hurry because they fear the loss of everything they hold dear, namely their profits. While they might use so-called radical means their ends are conservative. eg Gordon Brown who belongs to subspecies of neo-liberals called Blairites or 3rd wayers who want to con us into believing that the state looks after us all provided we are good boys and girls and eat our sprouts.
The real radicals go to the root cause the poor get rooted. They blame societies ills on the rich exploiting the poor by underpaying and overtaxing them. For them public ownership and production of public goods rather than private commodities is the answer. Usually workers or middle class bleeding hearts and ultimately reformers. The creeping nationalisations of Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales are like a dream come true. Viva Che!
Marxists are nobody that anybody wants to hear about on this list as they are popularly associated with old books and prison camps rather than the workers. However, Wall St has occasionally tipped its hat at our Karl for being right about the inherent failures of capitalism and the inevitability of crises and massive destruction of capital. Funny that. A Marxist reading of the ecosphere is also pretty well bang on.
Funnily enough Marxists are the only real conservatives because they are committed to revolutionising capitalism before it blows up or melts down and takes out planet Earth not mention our wages and pensions.
It seems clear to me that over the many millenia of human existence both conservativism and progressivism have been essential to human survival and advancement. Conservativism has been at times essential, and similarly progressivism. One without the other would never work.
Imo both have equal standing as components for human existence. For one to claim some form of superiority over the other is quite simplky foolish.
Which is probably why most people (well, the wise ones like me anyway) have a mix of both and get annoyed at the silly labels and pigeon-holing that goes on. It may also point to why a large number of people swing vote. Etc.
No burt, The Sprout is looking at something from a binary perspective and you are talking about something else from a binary perspective and you don’t understand that they’re not necessarily the same thing.
My point is that there are an infinite number of possible non-exclusive binary sets and yes, you are failing to grasp the nuances of this and demonstrating as much with every keystroke.
vto: Right. It hinges on the meaning of `progress’, which is a positive sort of change toward a goal. Try to bear with me, there are some tortured metaphors and linguistic entanglements in this post.
In principle, progressivism selects only for `improvements’ thereby making society better (according to a given assessment of what the goal is), whereas conservatism selects for the status quo (thereby keeping society the same).
Thus there are two aspects to conservatism: 1. skepticism about the means by which progressives aim to achieve the societal goal and 2. disagreement over the nature of that societal goal.
So in the first place, conservatism acts as a sort of handbrake on the most enthusiastic forms of progress, ensuring that only those forms of progress which can prove their worth in practice over the relatively long term are adopted; and when it grudgingly accepts some aspect of progress, conceding that it has finally demonstrated its worth, it attempts to alter the direction, as it were, of that aspect to send it toward its own ideal society, rather than the ideal society posited by progressivism.
So I’m what one might consider to be a conservative progressive; that is to say, I agree with the direction most progressives advocate, but not with the speed with which they want to operate. I’m a great believer in civil society’s ability to work things out, and I have a terrible fear of the law of unintended consequences. I often find progressives to be impatient, intolerant of stasis, and fearful of temporary regression – like economists chasing permanent economic growth, they seem to think that a year without double-digit profit growth is a failure. I’m very socially patient – I prefer progress built up gradually over a long time to that which falls swiftly to earth, but which evaporates in the next shower of conceptual rain.
I place great value on the conservatism which advocates for skepticism; which aims to slow the advance of untried and potentially socially dangerous progress – the sea-anchor as Anita at kiwipolitico recently termed it. I don’t care so much for those who want to change the direction.
L
There’s been plenty of evidence here that plenty of people here haven’t dealt very well with the change in November
I struggle with the view that someone is better or worse than me because of what they think. People simply have different opinions. Some of the most bitter battles have been between groups who had slight differences in views.
As many others have pointed out, labels aren’t all that helpful.
Daveski: Some of the most bitter battles have been between groups who had slight differences in views.
I’d say almost all: Islam/Christianity/Judaism; the Stalinists v the Trotskyites; the Balkan adage “no war is a war until a brother kills a brother”; Obama v McCain; Clark v Key; Libertarianz v ACT; Chomsky v Lakoff …
Add your own!
L
Felix
Oh god you are trying hard… the sprout filed this under the tags Labour & National – do you think he/she is saying that one is only conservative and the other is only progressive. Is that why he/she used blue and red tags while describing how one wants status quo and the other wants progress. Forward and reverse etc.
Perhaps I was clumsy saying that he/she is trying to equate left vs right with conservative vs progressive when I was saying that dividing things along binary lines is a dim-bulb thing to do when it comes to peoples views on politics. What I was saying, and are still saying, is that the sprout has tried to classify things as being god/bad based on conservative/progressive just like other dim-bulb partisan hacks classify things as good/bad based on left/right or National/Labour.
The sprout did the National/Labour = conservative/progressive thing, I pointed out how it was too simple just like left vs right.
Take a deep breath Felix, you can understand what I’m saying if you think about it.
Lew
Don’t forget the Commando-Elite and the Gorgonites.
Mensheviks v Bolsheviks
What I like is that the Menshies (literally small/smaller) were actually much larger than the Bolsheviks (large/larger).
With my boring music trivia and now Russian for Dummies, IB is likely to ban me for being a boring prick and he’d be well within his rights to do so!
You still haven’t got it, burt.
It’s perfectly sensible to divide people along binary lines. You just need to understand that there are many different binary divisions which may be acting on each other. People are complex, societal groupings exponentially more so.
I don’t see a good/bad value judgment in The Sprout’s post which is why I don’t see any meaning in your complaint.
Conservatism versus Progressivism aside here’s an interesting piece on the larger political spectrum:Karl Hess: the Left-Right spectrum
Felix
I think you stand in one half of a binary set when you say you don’t see any good/bad judgment in what the sprout wrote.
When I read a post with the basic layout.
And then in closing on Progressivism
That kinda gives me a hint of good/bad judgment.
Conservatism is all about maintaining the status quo ..
An obvious and uncontroversial statement, provided that you know what the word “conservative” means. I don’t know why you’ve quoted it to be honest.
The weakness of a conservative position
Is discussed in the post, yes. That’s half a sentence.
Progressivism on the other hand takes the view that regardless of how things are now they can always be better
As opposed to a conservative position which takes the view that keeping things as they are is better. That’s what the words mean.
So Progressivism requires a lot more thought on behalf of its adherents
I tend to think this follows from the definitions given of “conservative” and “progressive”, but it’s definitely arguable.
.Fortunately on the whole it also seems to attract smarter, more compassionate people.
I agree with you here, I don’t think that’s necessarily true.
Apart from the last quote, I don’t really see what you find controversial about any of it.
Top post sprout – you’ve essentially nailed the nature of broad political evolution (carrying on from the last post I saw prior to hols, an invigorating 1st-world whistlestop tour) – a gradual but accelerating progress in the Christian/Marxist direction. True to form, conservatives will always attempt to “handbrake” such analysis by harping back to an individualist focus (witness comments above), but you only have to look at modern “right-wing” parties (including and especially our own ClarKey-Lite version) to see that the huge changes wrought by progressive parties over decades are now permanent.
(On the other hand, such change can also occur in microcosym: witness our own burt’s now-comprehensible comments and the occasional embryonic original thought – leaps and bounds on from the obtuse rhetorical grasping and retrospective validation of his partisanship of the early Standard – onya burt
Lew’s right too: Mao isn’t the only one that showed us it’s gotta be gradual and able to be aborted swiftly if necessary. Cue the progress towards the sea-anchor of community empowerment via education and a strong, independent media.
On the other hand, as Karl noted, technology is the driver: and it continues to accelerate with vigor (e.g. – only three short years from Orewa One to the current tory/MP hongifest). Getting back to Darwin, the GFC can be seen as a mutant gene with promise for further political progression. Rudd’s floated a $30/wk increase in benefits, Brownie’s nationalising banks, and China and Obamarama are talking big internal “socialist” investment. You can bet your butt that little Johnny Mitu will tag along too. Sorry, Roger, but this time there are heaps of alternatives – (prediction: “closing the gaps” finally cemented into our DNA in the very near future)
This has been an interesting thread. Well done, Sprout, on provoking such a useful debate.
I thought Daveski made an interesting observation:
That’s what gets me a lot, too. I get frustrated by the tribalism of the two main political parties. In the past ten elections, I’ve voted for Labour five times, and National five times. The policy differences between the parties are often not very large, but from a lot of the rhetoric we get from the most partisan people, you would think that the world was going to end if their opponents maintained power.
I get particularly annoyed with the attempt to demonise political opponents. I’m nominally reasonably conservative. I don’t believe that socialism works. I do believe that capitalism, with less state intervention, achieves better outcomes. There’s not really anything that somebody on the Left can say to make me change my mind. Likewise I don’t think there’s much I can say to move a socialist away from their beliefs. I don’t for a moment think they’re stupid, or attribute blind self-interest to their motives (although occasionally that’s true, as self-interest is a motive for both sides). I do believe that most people hold their political positions because they believe that their positions will achieve better outcomes than the alternative.
A really constructive debate would acknowledge the other side’s desire for better outcomes and not try to demonise opponents while respectfully debating the mechanisms to achieve them.
I do wonder whether too much of New Zealand politics centres on demonising opponents and their objectives, just to pander to core constituencies. I think by doing this a big bulk of voters caught in the centre, who aren’t partisan and care more about the outcomes than the means of achieving them, get turned off by the debate.
Personally, I found the post an intersting one, though slightly biased if one were to perform some kind of content analysis on it (like burt above.. sort of).
Sprout: above, you stated: “The liberality dimension is another kettle of fish. Sometimes liberality can lead to profound conservatism if State intervention is needed for change. Sometimes liberality can lead to progressivism if it’s authoritarianism that’s keeping things from changing.”
It would seem to me that conservatism and progressivism are the more fluid concepts. To me, liberalism is a far more well defined philosophical position that involves the things you earlier ascribed to conservatism (e.g. individual liberty and less state influence). Those things only become the goal of conservatives if the society in question is a liberal minded one. And like someone mentioned above, China is a very conservative society, though that involves conserving a very pervasive state and limits on individual liberty. So in my mind conservatism and progressivism are more impulses than they are philosophical positions. I guess this is all very subjective though, and these words are used to describe very different things very regularly.
wo .. Finally
Fuken Finally an article with a few brains, gee I thought NZ was a complete bunch of idiots, but this is almost OK. Useless media here, I have wanted a good description of the Conservative / Labour approach to things. No doubt John Key little Homo do nothing, conserves his turds to make tea pots.
I am a Act supporter by the way. And Labours still over controlling and too self righteous to be given power.
But at least you have a nice article. PS. only half decent politician I think is Rodney Hyde. PSS: See ya. Anthony.
PSS: yes John Keys a cok and I have a few you nat friends. Helen if constrained but a better budget – parliament constraints , Civil liberty , would be awesome.
PSSS: Anyone mention Helens teeth agin on the Left I want to smack them.
Anthony, have you been drinking?
[sprout: comment deleted, undue abusiveness to commenter. first warning]
Tim was very clear, Anthony. Are you Winston Peters?
Winston was OK in someways I miss him. at least he had a opinion.
That’s not quite true. Neoliberalism aims to promote Berlin’s negative liberty and nothing else, for the simple reason that neoliberals think that the promotion of any positive conception of liberty inevitably leads to totalitarianism. This is more or less the Hayekian view. Profits are secondary to freedom, which is why some of them say that they’d take a much poorer but freer (in their sense) society than a richer but less free (in their sense) society. Sure, there are a lot of social dominators and businessmen who profess neoliberalism because they think it will benefit them financially, but financial profit is not really at the heart of the theory.
Sure it’s nutty, but that’s what they believe. There’s an excellent Adam Curtis doco on Google Video about this, called “The Trap”. It’s probably the best short explanation of neoliberalism as an ideology I have seen.
That’s funny, I’ve been viewing China as an increasingly right-wing nation- social orthodoxy coupled with communitarian values and an increasingly liberal economy driven by a sense of duty. I certainly wouldn’t call them communist anymore, they’re just social authoritarians in drag.
But anyway, it’s highly irrelevant whether China is left-wing or right-wing. There’s a bigger difference which means they have less in common with any New Zealand political party than our parties have in common with each other: We believe in, to varying degrees, a pluralistic multi-cultural state with meaningful elections and debate. China believe in one-party monolithic state that can dictate whatever it likes. Let’s all be thankful for a minute that nobody who believes in that sort of BS is taken seriously in our country, because the idea of supreme centralised power, especially without debate or dissent, is the really conservative throwback.
Oh, and back on the main topic, I should point out that while the left-wing tends to be progressive, and the right-wing tends to be conservative, there are definitely notable politicians that cross those lines. Think of Katherine Rich, who was widely expected before her resignation to be in cabinet this time around, or Phil Goff’s views on prisons. There’s also issues-based divergence too: The Green Party’s view on local food could be described as conservative, ACT is often behind on civil liberties and to a minor degree supports queer rights, etc…
Framing an issue as one of conservatism against progressivism is useful because it talks about an idealogical focus, not because the parties all fit neatly into those categories. It’s a question of whether you view society as capable of progressing or just degenerating.
Lew, way back up there somewhere.. ta, I kind of hoped that someone would jump in and explain in more detail rather than try myself and mangle it up. As I said, both have been responsible and essential for basic human survival and growth since, well, probably Lucy and earlier.
Interesting times right now with the global meltdown – are people becoming conservative or progressive? Somebody further up suggested progressive with some of Rudd’s actions, Obama’s election and the like. But equally, people I think are retrenching in reaction to the turmoil, which is entirely natural and to be expected. Things like planting vege gardens and putting money under the mattress.
Felix
It’s not controversial, it’s just simple and pathetic general nonense. Still it’s not about the content of thread for you is it?
The thing that gnaws away at me about this post and some of the comments is the emergence of a form of left wing fundamentalism.
What worries me is that some here believe in the moral superiority of their views.
As with other forms of fundamentalism, if you truly believe you are superior, that provides a moral and ethical justification to do whatever you think is right based on that superiority.
Strangely, that’s not a very progressive attitude!
Any view of the world that proclaims its own superiority over others based only on its own views should be eschewed by us all.
Anthony: So all that’s required is to have an opinion? Because, let me tell you, I have plenty of opinions about boneheaded confused homophobic pseudo-libertarians such as you seem to be. I’m sure a few others here do too.
L
“George Bush was not a conservative, but rather a curious hybrid of reactionary and progressive.”
Pinched from
btw, links to some great political cartoons, on the mefi page.
Why is my previous comment awaiting moderation? While I take an opposing view, I don’t think I have been out of line.
I notice this post has gone through fine, without the “awaiting moderation” sign.
Also, a good portion of my post seems to have disappeared and I can’t edit.
[sprout: sorry about that, not sure why but it's not intentional. appears to be displaying ok now]
[lprent: There are a number of words that will cause comments to get auto-moderated. Typically deliberate misspellings of peoples names or words or phrases that consistently get over-used in out of context statements. It auto-moderates them so we can look to see if it should be handled as a comment by a troll.
Have a look at your comment and you'll figure out the word pretty fast. Massively used out of context in 80% of all statements. Usually a pretty good troll indicator. You just happen to be the exception. But think of it as the cost of having minimal trolling here.]
It’s true that my characterization of C and P is pretty superficial, so I’m grateful to those who’ve contributed some meat to the rather bare bones. Rather than being a high-brow philosophical thesis it’s meant to be a starting point for a consideration of the two positions.
I chose this dichotomy specifically because the terms themselves can be quite blurry, indistinct and at times paradoxical – which makes them unhelpful for the fruitless excercise of pigeion-holing, but useful as a starting point for discussion.
What I noticed in sprouts postings that there was only negatives on the C side of the ledger none at all on the P side
.Is the world really like that? If the P side is so perfect why doesn’t the whole world change now? Or is sprouts objectiveness clouded perhaps by ideology
“The weakness of a conservative position (apart from the obvious moral problem of disregard for those at the bottom of the heap), is that it doesn’t deal with change very well.”
Interesting observation by economist David Friedman (Milton’s son) on the different approachs to evolution by Christian conservatives & those who I guess you’d say were progressive:
“”And the religious right has been the chief force against teaching evolution.”
(Quoted from Barbara Forrest, a Southeastern Lousiana University philosophy professor and prominent critic of creationist science.)
It’s a widespread view, but true in only a narrow sense. People who say they are against teaching the theory of evolution are very likely to be Christian fundamentalists. But people who are against taking seriously the implications of evolution, strongly enough to want to attack those who disagree, including those who teach those implications, are quite likely to be on the left.”
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2008/08/who-is-against-evolution.html