Change and Conservatives

Roger Scruton, British writer and philosopher, wrote in his latest book about how he discovered his conservatism. He discovered it during the sociopolitical upheavals of the 60s. Many newly minted conservatives (neoconservatives) find or found their routes in that time. They see those years as a loss of innocence and civility, lost in the 'sexual revolution', the civil rights movement, feminism, students demanding social and academic change, affirmative action and so on. It was a heady time for change. Conservatives are traditionalists and don't like change. That is why Scruton became a conservative, because he didn't like the supposedly progressive changes that occurred in the 60s. He saw most of what transpired then as undermining Western values and way of life. He sees our civilization poorer for it today.

Scruton said Edmund Burke (1729-97), a political philosopher, helped him discover his conservatism. Conservatives point to Burke as the founder of modern conservative thought. However, I am still a little hazy about what Scruton learnt from Burke and what connects them as conservatives. Some aspects of their conservatism differ and are vague. Perhaps one connection is that Burke romanticized about aesthetics as does Scruton (for instance, the dislike for modernism) - an endeavor that seems to be a mark of conservatism. Another aspect of conservatism is a deep suspicion for abstract ideas, a suspicion both men share. Both men tend to see things in black and white - no nuancing - another sign of conservatism. Conservatives seem to me to be rigid and inflexible.

Burke said something interesting, "A state without the means of change is without the means of its conservation." That is profound. But I would think it is also contradictory and confusing for conservative thinkers. Conservatives don't like change. Yet, they follow someone who said that you have to change in order to continue to be. It is probably from this contradictory statement that the expression comes, "you have to change to remain the same". It does sound like something a conservative might say as a way of squaring it with Burke’s contradiction.

Burke’s remark is certainly contradictory. But, then, it speaks to the contradictory nature of the world. It talks about change and conservation, two ideas that seem to oppose each other. The contradiction is that change is generally associated with undoing things rather than conserving them. However, I think most of us understand what is meant and how this contradiction works. For instance, if one doesn’t change the oil in one’s car engine, periodically, one isn’t conserving or protecting the workings of the engine. What Burke means is that if you don’t periodically change or reform the sociopolitical nature of the State, it will in time, under pressure from the forces of change, fall apart. Change is also needed to combat the atrophy that naturally undermines things. And this is what happened to the communist State; it died from atrophy and the lack of change that would have combated it. Communism didn’t have the means to change and thus lacked the means of conserving itself. In contrast, Democracy is with us and expanding because it has the structural means for change and reform. Democracy maintains itself through change and remaining flexible.

Burke doesn’t account for the origins of change. Why is it necessary for a state to change in order to conserve itself? Burke didn’t offer any empirical evidence for it. Perhaps, though, he got the idea from experiencing the French Revolution, knowing that the same thing had happened in England during its “Glorious Revolution”. In both cases these States, as they were, were toppled because they resisted change. They broke under pressure. Neither wanted to change their ways of governance, so they suffered the consequences. Each State would not relinquish any of its powers so the people could participate in their own governance. In both cases the stubbornness of the State in not wanting to change was the reason for its collapse. Perhaps it was from Burke's utterance that Hegel got the idea that history is determined by change. Burke's idea also may have led Darwin to his theory of evolution.

Conservatives must have a difficult time of it, living in this world that is always changing. Change is inevitable. New elements and circumstance are always entering into it, requiring change and accommodation. And there is something unsettling about their resistance to change because one would think that they believe it once was a perfect world, that is until so-called progress and liberals started mucking things up. Maybe they don’t think it was once a perfect world, but instead it was somehow complete, at equilibrium and couldn’t be improved on. They keep resisting but the world marches on, demanding change. They would like to go back to the “good old days”, if they ever existed, when women were women and men were men. Ironically, conservatives are responsible for a lot of the social changes they bluster about. That change has come in the form of a backlash, provoked by the years of their colonization and trying to reinvent the world. It is as a result of "chickens coming home to roost".

Historically, why do things change? There are two forms of change that have bearing on us. One is induced by the natural flux of the universe, such as changes in the day (day, night), the seasons, the weather and those caused by the natural forces. Our existence is essentially determined by those changes. But that is not the change conservatives like Scruton are talking about. He is talking about social and political change. And in many respects that change is as natural as the first. The problem is that Scruton doesn’t think so. It comes as natural as thinking. When humans began thinking, things began to change. Thinking begets thinking and thus change begets change. People always have wondered how things could be different. That wondering is followed by action, which in turn causes change. People get restless and that also causes change. People think they can improve their lot in life. And with all this thinking and changing there is bound to be a change of unintended consequences. This unintended change/consequence is perhaps what Scruton is really railing about.

However, resistance to change can be a good thing. It keeps and consummates the worthy social and political changes made. Liberals and progressives go forth and instigate necessary change, but conservatives are the ones who contain the change and keeping it, as they can, to a minimum. A sort of compromise is reached between liberals and conservatives and on it goes. Sometimes they find themselves changing positions on themselves. This is how our governing system developed and works. It takes both of them to create a workable and legitimate governing system, through the give and take of both. The toughest thing is reaching and maintaining a balance. Overall, I think we have achieved it

I think there is at least one thing Scruton and I can agree on, that there is little truth to the idea that “The more things change the more they remain the same. That is imaginary. Things never remain the same.