…A commitment to the defense of the particular habits, mores and
institutions of the United States against those socioeconomic trends
that threaten to undermine them, and those political movements
(generally on the left, but sometimes on the right) that seek to change
them radically in the pursuit of particular ideological goals.
Here is the post, which is interesting throughout. I should not speak for Ross but having read his blog for a while I believe he would prefer a modified definition to allow some of those habits and mores to be judged. Ross circa 1958 for instance need not defend segregation. But it is hard to invoke a standard of judgment without moving away from conservatism in the philosophical sense and becoming a rationalist.
Insofar as I am conservative (debatable) I would rewrite the definition:
A realization that we will do best by building on the strengths of the particular habits, mores and
institutions of the United States (and other successful nations) rather than trying to reshape the nation radically in the pursuit of particular ideological goals.
You can then pick a rationalist standard of judgment (e.g., utilitarianism, virtue ethics, Rawls, whatever) while keeping this vision intact. Conservatism is then an empirical claim about the resilience and power of national and cultural strengths. There is no "pro status quo" trap lurking in the background here and no reason why you can’t be both a conservative and a rationalist at the same time.
Tyler,
I like your definition. It addresses that we should build on our and other’s strengths, but what of our weaknesses? Do we ignore them wholly and focus only on addressing what makes us strong?
The definition seems overly broad and would encompass most people who define themselves as liberal. For example, is there anything in there that Barack Obama would object to? I’m sure he sees his healthcare plan as building on the strengths of American institutions.
Indeed, it seems Tyler has merely defined conservative as “not radical.” Neat.
My definition is shorter: I am a conservative b/c I believe most attempts to reshape nations radically fail, and even the good ones have unintended consequences.
Scheule, wph, and matt are all correct of course: conservative is the opposite of radical, not the opposite of liberal, and Obama is demonstrably more conservative than anyone who thinks invasions can spread democracy. There is no contradiction in him being both the most liberal and the most conservative candidate this year.
Conservative is something that someone else calls you… usually when they want to imply that your support of free-markets means that you must be a warmonger or religious zealot. Conservative is a way to try to lump you in with the ugliest parts of the right-wing. I don’t know why any intelligent person would willingly label themselves a “conservative”.
Let me amend Chris’s signaling statement:
“I would define a conservative as someone who seeks to protect accumulation of capital (economic, human, social, and moral) from predation and erosion.”
Notwithstanding any predation required in accumulating said wealth to begin with, of course.
See: 2008 hedge fund and i-bank failures.
“Conservatism is then an empirical claim about the resilience and power of national and cultural strengths.” Well, it’s a *very vague* empirical claim, because the group that constitutes *we* is left unspecified.
I believe that I am conservative/libertarian because I believe in this simple definition:
Laws are in place to protect property rights and only laws that do this are justifiable.
Definition: Conservative – n., a liberal running for political office.
At least that’s true a good portion of the time where I’m from.
It was an argument about the best way to preserve the existing habits, mores, and institutions of liberty.
In which case why on earth risk your all in such a war? I’m still bewildered as to the disparity between the pretext and the action. What can it really have been about?
“…I am conservative/libertarian…”
If George Bush and his followers are conservatives, then by most important measures (e.g. interventionist foreign policy, curtailed civil liberties, record new entitlements like Medicare part D, record government borrowing, increased government funding and supporting religious activities, government emphasis on morality with respect to activities of consenting adults, increased secrecy, appeals to nationalism, dramatically increased executive power to imprison people without charges, modify laws, and issue executive decrees, etc) then conservatives are the pretty much the opposites of libertarians.
Where does teaching creationism in public schools fit in?
With some abuse of terminology, I think of this as the difference between positive and normative conservatism. The first is a statement about how you think the world is, the second about how you think the world should be.
anon: No it can’t. You don’t own skies, newspapers, or elections…
That’s a fair enough definition, although it seems a bit of an aspirational re-definition. George W Bush is exactly what conservatives should aspire not to be.
This is why I’m not a conservative or a progressive. By analogy, Edison famously proved 10,000 different ways not to produce a light bulb. Most endeavours fail. Therefore, where ignorance prevails, caution is warranted before committing major scarce resources toward any initiative.
However, when you KNOW the right way to produce a lightbulb, caution is stupid. Where a populace is ready for libertarianism, anything less than radical progress in that direction is stupid.
This is not a commentary on compact fluorescents, but it could be.
greenish,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem
that the definition must include the qualifier “the United States (or other successful nations)” defeats any notion that conservatism is divorced from value judgments. at best, it reduces to the statement that “things that successful societies did to make themselves successful are likely to keep them that way.” is that so surprising? does anyone really disagree with that? the challenge is to discover what things the society is doing that are no longer likely to make it successful once it has acheived success or things it has been doing that have, to this point, placing a limit on the success the society could have acheived (i’ll let historians argue about where slavery in the usa fits here). also, feel free to replace “successful” with whatever other value judgment (e.g. just, virtuous, egalitarian, religious, etc) you wish to smuggle into your definition of conservative.
How does Social Security fit into the definition? All successful countries have SS. Mandatory SS, whether defined benefit or defined contribution, is a serious restriction on economic liberty (and of course, Chile with a defined contribution system is not a “successful” country). Yet, the lower economic middle class and down never did and probably never will sufficiently save for retirement. Few people outside of libertarian circles would trade this social insurance (and Medicaid too) off for the increased liberty (and federal budget improvement) of eliminating it, if nothing else to guarantee their parents’ and siblings’ retirement living standards
“It’s a one in a million success story that Americans keep trying to replicate in other coutries.”
By “trying to replicate”, you must mean “succeeding in relicating”
-Germany
-Japan
-Korea
-The former soviet union
-Iraq (although afghanistan is a mess)
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