March 31, 2010
Conservative Change?
There’s something paradoxical about the Conservative Party’s election message of “change” – one that is perhaps having visible consequences as the Tory poll lead collapses.
As a political outlook conservatism is hard to define. This is largely because it isn’t an ideology, but something more akin to a disposition. Political theorist, historian and political conservative Michael Oakeshott offered a still influential understanding, especially in his essay “Rationalism in Politics”. Oakeshott decried the rise of (what he took to be) overly-intellectualised attempts to abstract the political, attempts to conceptualise politics in terms of rational reflection and abstract theory dangerously divorced from the wisdom of experience. The notion of “rationalism in politics” for Oakeshott referred largely to the rise of modern “ideologies” based in philosophical reasoning; systematisations of thought that claimed to be able – from the philosopher’s armchair – to deduce the world’s problems via reason, and to construct idealised solutions accordingly.
Oakeshott rejected such schemes as misguided and dangerous. Instead, politics must progress tentatively, gradually and cautiously. Experience of what works and fosters safety and stability were paramount; intellectualisations could only caricature and simplify the complexities of the real world, pushing political agents towards disaster. The conservative – for Oakeshott – was the anti-rationalist; the man who shuns intellectual constructs and defers to gradualism based in experience. Politics accordingly becomes “organic”, developing and changing only very slowly, and not according to the fancy notions of abstract theorists. In his later work Oakeshott developed the metaphor of the boat on a boundless, unending ocean: the captain of the boat must not undertake madcap schemes to sail the boat into new uncharted waters, but concentrate on the safety of his crew by relying on the tested and trusted. Such should be the conservative politician.
Other understandings of conservatism have subsequently been offered, in particular by Oxford political theorist Michael Freeden. Freeden argues that conservatism is a bizarrely negative concept; whilst its adherents favour the status quo and gradual change as their baseline commitments, any specific policies or actions they advocate tend to be formulated in reaction to the dominant opposition of the day. Thus, conservatism becomes a sort of political “swivel-mirror”: if the dominant threat to the status quo is a call for greater economic equality, then conservatives will reflect back at that threat a privileging of hierarchy and social inequality so as to protect the status quo. Over time, however, conservatives will come to embrace policies or positions they previously rejected – for example, the existence of a basic welfare state – insofar as that becomes the status quo and some new force for change threatens it. (Think Cameron’s claim that the Tories are “the party of NHS” when the Tories originally opposed its creation under the Atlee government).
Against both these frameworks, however, stands the uncomfortable legacy of Thatcher. Her truly radical programme of economic monetarism and social conservatism changed Britain drastically. Thatcher broke dramatically with the so-called (and somewhat mythical) “Keynesian Consensus”. The post-Thatcher world of economic deregulation, greater economic and social inequality, and the ascendency of capitalist corporate interests over organised labour (which was crushed with extreme prejudice by the power of the state) looks radically different to the Britain of pre-1979. As a result, it is hard to fit the (broadly) ideologically-Hayekian Thatcher project into models of conservatism emphasising anti-ideologism, gradualism, antipathy to change and preservation of the status quo. Accordingly, some theorists refuse to class Thatcher as a conservative at all, seeing her instead as a right wing radical.
Yet Thatcherism is very much a part of the Conservative Party’s ideological inheritance, in large measure still defining its collective self-identification and outlook. Just visit ConservativeHome for confirmation that the Thatcherite wing is alive and well.
The cumulative effect, however, is to add to the deep intellectual tension in Cameron’s and Osborne’s campaign message for “change” – a message they have presumably chosen for its appeal to disaffected New Labour voters who abandoned the Tories in 1997 and still have not returned. The sorts of voters who are fed-up with New Labour and Gordon Brown especially, but do not necessarily or straightforwardly identify themselves as conservative or Conservatives.
At one level, the tension of campaigning for “change” operates at the basic level that – pace Thatcher’s legacy – many conservatives are instinctively hostile to change for the reasons Oakeshott and Freedan identify; that conservatism is broadly and anti-ideological disposition favouring the status quo. Yet this can itself cause problems when the status quo is on the move. To pick a topical example, social attitudes towards homosexuality are undergoing radical shifts in Britain with homophobia becoming increasingly illegitimate and unacceptable. However this change has occurred relatively quickly, and many with conservative dispositions have refused or been unable to keep pace with this, or are confused about how to adapt to a change social and political environment.
This puts Cameron in a terrible predicament. On the one hand, public opinion increasingly demands that he endorse gay rights and gay equality. On the other, much of his instinctively (socially) conservative party remains hostile to the rapid shift in social attitudes towards homosexuality. Cameron is forced to walk a tightrope between pleasing public opinion and not alienating his core membership – a tightrope he spectacularly fell off of last week. The result is proving mildly disastrous: panned in the press for his gay rights gaffe, Cameron is also coming under attack from his own party – witness Lord Tebbit’s complaint that Cameron is spending too much time worrying about irrelevant “African homosexuals”. The Tories may campaign for “change”, but dealing with the reality of change and what it means for the Conservative Party vis-à-vis wider society is a tall order for Cameron. And he looks increasingly unsuited to the task.
More generally, the Tory message of “change” is embraced by the Thatcherite wing of the Party – so long as it means changing back to hard-right radicalism. Although Blair and Brown have broadly accepted the market-orientated, pro-business, anti-organised Labour framework that Thatcher bequeathed, true Thatcherites loath the social-democratic state interventions that New Labour has nonetheless managed to secure (despite its myriad and notable failings elsewhere). The hated Sure Start centres, vast sums poured into education and the NHS (both of which have undergone significant improvements post-1997), reducing the pace of growth in inequality via considerable redistributive achievements, and recent moves towards an increasingly progressive tax system irk the Thatcherite faithful tremendously. The “change” they demand from Cameron is to go forwards into the past; a return to the 1980s.
Yet this is not the change that the electorate broadly demands. Whereas in the 1980s many stomached vast social unrest and repeated recession as the painful medicine required to put Britain on a new economic footing away from the power of organised labour (and whilst the Labour Party rendered itself spectacularly unelectable), things have surely changed. Few outside of the hard right would wish for a repeat of the social and economic strife of the 1980s purely to further an ideological anti-state rightist agenda.
Accordingly, the “change” Cameron promises to the electorate is left conspicuously un-explained. Presumably, he hopes to placate both sides – electorate and party – by not explaining exactly what his “change” consists in, hoping that the base-line idea of “a change away from Gordon Brown, whatever that means” is enough to get him through. But a collapsed poll lead indicates otherwise. And the growing unrest and confusion within the Tory party perhaps attests to the danger and instability of playing so loosely with the notion of conservative change when such a thing appears to be, if not completely chimerical, then at best a can of practical-cum-theoretic worms.
–
Tweets that mention Conservative Change? « Bad Conscience -- Topsy.com said,
March 31, 2010 at 3:19 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Walter Levin. Walter Levin said: Blog: Conservative Change? « Bad Conscience http://bit.ly/9Lcx6T [...]
Ronald Collinson said,
April 2, 2010 at 6:57 am
Well –
Obviously the idea of Conservative change is oxymoronic, patronising, a sell-out, misleading, meaningless and just plain silly. I can’t dispute that – actually, I’d prefer it if a few more people on the purported right would recognise it.
The point is well made that small-c conservatives have difficulties with a status quo that is ‘on the move’, but I think it’s a mistake to pick out this particular dispute. Obviously, there are people in the Conservative Party who have difficulty welcoming homosexual equality, but I dare say that’s true about the Labour Party as well; it doesn’t tell you anything about the doctrine (or even the disposition).
The picture’s a bit more complicated than you suggest. If it is taken for granted that homosexuality is a natural sexual orientation, rather than (pace Tebbit) a voluntary choice, there will be a permanent and intractable dissatisfied minority. The presence of such a minority should be a bad for any conservative, on at least two obvious grounds:
1) The minority’s exclusion from participating on an equal basis in the social settlement for an apparently arbitrary reason will tend to discredit the social settlement in the eyes of the members of the minority. This encourages disruptive behaviour (civil disobedience, protests, and so forth) that can only serve to destabilise the institutions and social structures that the conservatives value most dearly. To pick a salient example, it seems fairly obvious that the institution of marriage would be in better shape if a proportion of the population weren’t excluded simply on the basis of sexuality.
2) The minority will become more generally radicalised, find common cause with other ‘progressive’ or even seditious groups, internalising to some extent the agendas (or even specific enmities) of these subversive groups. Fairly obviously, the gay voter in 2001 had a strong reason to discount the Conservative Party altogether, seeing his ‘real’ choice as being between the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats (and perhaps even the Greens, Socialist Workers, and other even more unsound parties). If all of one’s allies are on the political left, because you have been rejected by the (‘establishment’) political right, it would not be surprising if you were to adopt a leftist agenda.
I also offer a third reason, although I think this would be more controversial amongst conservatives:
3) If one is conservative, one wishes so far as possible to avoid altering the status quo in respect to social structures, practices, and (particularly) institutions. This presumably means that one believes that there is some value in the status quo, even if that is only the absence of some projected future harm. But unless conservatism really is just the doctrine of the self-interested, it’s hard to see why some people should benefit from participation in this social settlement, whereas others shouldn’t simply in virtue of obviously arbitrary factors.
My view – simply put – is that (ceteris paribus) the more people who feel ‘at home’ with the social settlement, and the more more people who benefit from it, the better. That doesn’t mean that there might not be compelling reasons to exclude certain people (so, if I were writing a few decades ago, I would probably find the case of women more problematic to deal with in this way, given the way that the social settlement at least superficially relied on well-defined gender roles, and that these gender roles were entrenched in a deep and apparently stable manner – I don’t myself think that sexual equality is necessarily fatal to the traditional family, but the argument is harder).
On a side note, there is a fairly large gay group within the Conservative Party elite (consisting at least partly of people who’ve come up through certain disproportionately homosexual student societies in Oxford and Cambridge); indeed, I know at least one person who’s decided that the best way to building the connections necessary to become a Conservative candidate was to become a Stonewall lobbyist.
How to think about…Gay Equality and Bed&Breakfasts « Bad Conscience said,
April 5, 2010 at 11:54 pm
[...] that social attitudes are signficantly changing for the better. Second, that the Tories are in a terrible bind about dealing with the rapidly changed status quo on homosexuality. Witness Cameron’s [...]
Paul Sagar said,
April 7, 2010 at 12:56 pm
“but I dare say that’s true about the Labour Party as well; it doesn’t tell you anything about the doctrine (or even the disposition). ”
Your point about Labour is almost certainly correct; I bet a lot of the old guard are pretty homophobic, yes. However, I’m not sure this tells us all that much – except that when it comes to social issues many Labour old guard are in fact social conservatives who see a woman’s place as in the home, gays as disgusting, etc etc. You are right, however, to point out that there is not a neat small-c big-C mapping-together on this issue.
“The minority’s exclusion from participating on an equal basis in the social settlement for an apparently arbitrary reason will tend to discredit the social settlement in the eyes of the members of the minority. This encourages disruptive behaviour (civil disobedience, protests, and so forth) that can only serve to destabilise the institutions and social structures that the conservatives value most dearly.”
But surely the conservative – whose over-riding priority is the promotion and maintenance of stability and the status quo – only cares insofar as that minority is significant enough to actually cause social disruption. Last time I checked, gays weren’t gearing up for guerrilla warfare or rioting in the streets. Given that they are a minority, it’s unlikely they will significantly unsettle the status quo and hence the conservative need not really be bothered by them – unless they reach a certain level of disruption. Notice also that whilst you couch your response in terms that look like they may focus on the well being and inherent value of the excluded gays, what you actually rely on is an argument about expected consequences. You are pushed back to the instrumentalist Tory position that we care about minorities only insofar – and to the required extent – that they can be kept from rioting and disturbing the ruling classes. Which is a rather unpleasant – not to mention patronising, insulting and morally dubious (think: respecting the individual worth of people just because they’re people) – view to take of minority groups.
“2) The minority will become more generally radicalised, find common cause with other ‘progressive’ or even seditious groups, internalising to some extent the agendas (or even specific enmities) of these subversive groups. Fairly obviously, the gay voter in 2001 had a strong reason to discount the Conservative Party altogether, seeing his ‘real’ choice as being between the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats (and perhaps even the Greens, Socialist Workers, and other even more unsound parties). If all of one’s allies are on the political left, because you have been rejected by the (‘establishment’) political right, it would not be surprising if you were to adopt a leftist agenda.”
Again, this relies upon a consequentialist, instrumentalist take on the importance of gays as a minority group. It also appears to rest implicitly on an unlikely empirical claim about the extent to which gay groups can and will mobilise in order to significantly impact the status quo.
Accordingly, your measures to accommodate gays are all defensive, made only to preserve existing power structures and the general status quo. Which is a rather dubious approach to take towards minority groups, as I’ve said. Given that it’s empirically unlikely that disastisfied gays will really mess with the status quo all that much, accommodating to changed social attitudes just because they are changed social attitudes is difficult for the conservative; it’s not necessitated in order to preserve society in its current form – because society in its current form is itself undergoing change. And that’s what bothers the small-c conservative. Your recourse to unlikely empirical projections and consequentialist takes on morality that reduce gay people to instrumental units to be managed for the preservation of the established system betrays the extent to which rapidly changed attitudes to gay equality do disturb the small-c conservative mind-set.
“3) If one is conservative, one wishes so far as possible to avoid altering the status quo in respect to social structures, practices, and (particularly) institutions. This presumably means that one believes that there is some value in the status quo, even if that is only the absence of some projected future harm. But unless conservatism really is just the doctrine of the self-interested, it’s hard to see why some people should benefit from participation in this social settlement, whereas others shouldn’t simply in virtue of obviously arbitrary factors.
My view – simply put – is that (ceteris paribus) the more people who feel ‘at home’ with the social settlement, and the more more people who benefit from it, the better. That doesn’t mean that there might not be compelling reasons to exclude certain people (so, if I were writing a few decades ago, I would probably find the case of women more problematic to deal with in this way, given the way that the social settlement at least superficially relied on well-defined gender roles, and that these gender roles were entrenched in a deep and apparently stable manner – I don’t myself think that sexual equality is necessarily fatal to the traditional family, but the argument is harder).”
I’m afraid I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say here. Is your suggestion that gays should be accommodated and the status quo radically altered such that gays are part of the status quo and accordingly everyone can be a small-c conservative? A sort of “we need to be short term radical so that everyone can be long-term conservative” argument? I can see the intellectual appeal of such a position – but you’re surely right to say that other conservatives won’t like it. After all, it rather requires one to stop being conservative. Which unfortunately presses you back to my original charge that conservatives (and Conservatives) are having enormous difficulty dealing with the rapidly changed status quo on gay rights.
“On a side note, there is a fairly large gay group within the Conservative Party elite (consisting at least partly of people who’ve come up through certain disproportionately homosexual student societies in Oxford and Cambridge); indeed, I know at least one person who’s decided that the best way to building the connections necessary to become a Conservative candidate was to become a Stonewall lobbyist.”
Yes, this is extremely interesting as a phenomenon. But then, I sort of liken it to Tories like David Davis who grew up on a council estate, and then justified turning his back on the working classes by saying (basically) “well I made it so why can’t they (the lazy bastards)?” High profile gay Tories – Alan Duncan and Iain Dale, say – are extremely bad, I find, at standing up for gay rights when that means coming into conflict with the Conservative leadership, which unfortunately is a leadership attuned to giving the rabidly homophobic little Englander grass roots exactly what it wants. If I was being cruel, I’d say this is symptomatic of many-a-Tory’s tendency to gleefully pull up the ladder after they’ve ascended….