Principled Conservatism
Thomas Allen
Conservatism is a tone or attitude; it is not a set of principles. This attitude rests on the wisdom of the ages and is highly skeptical of utopian schemes, such as socialism in all its forms. Thus, the wisdom of the ages, the accumulated wisdom of generations, tradition, guides conservatism instead of abstract speculation. Nevertheless, conservatism does not eschew principles.
What conservatives seek to conserve is not what happened a few years ago or even decades ago. They seek to conserve the consensus of their civilization over the centuries since it reflects the truth derived from its being.
Moreover, conservatives reject universality. They affirm selectivity and particularism; thus, they are tribal. Also, conservatives think in terms of individual men instead of in terms of mankind or humanity as do liberals and neoconservatives.
The following describes a principled conservative, also known as a traditional American conservative. Among the principled conservatives are Jeffersonian-Calhounians, paleoconservatives, traditional Southern conservatives, fusionists, and the Old Right. Principled conservatives should not be confused with neoconservatives, establishment conservatives, or enlightened conservatives. (Establishment conservatives are conservatives who are not neoconservatives, enlightened conservatives, or principled conservatives; they include Hamiltonian-Lincolnians, big-government conservatives, the typical Republican politicians, and Buckleyites. Enlightened conservatives are the New Conservatives of the 1950s represented by Russell Kirk and who subordinate the individual to society, subordinate freedom to virtue [for them, virtue is freedom] and rights to duty, subordinate reason to undifferentiated tradition to the point of rejecting reasoning, scorn reason and principle, reduce virtue to prudence, and depend heavily on Providence.)
What follows is a description of the typical principled conservative. The typical principled conservative:
– opposes designs for the perfecting human nature and society;
– scorns uniformity, egalitarianism, utilitarianism, materialism, pragmatism, scientism, and positivism;
– prefers the familiar to the unknown, the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, and the convenient to the perfect;
– is partial to the present;
– is disinclined toward doctrine or creed and, therefore, objects to the notion that the United States are a creedal nation;
– eschews the abstract;
– rejects Rationalism and Universalism but does not reject rationality and universality as such;
– cherishes both individuality and plurality;
– believes in absolute truths and absolute values;
– believes that truth is objective and eternal;
– is not a reactionary seeking an unrecoverable lost past;
– rejects the notions of the perfect life of man, the illimitable progress of society, and materialistic determination;
– has an affection for the proliferation of variety and the mystery of human existence;
– dismisses the notion of man as a manipulable, mutable being whom social engineers can shape;
– affirms that utopia degrades man;
– believes, unlike collectivist liberals, that man is more than a tool-bearing gregarious animal whose end is material welfare;
– maintains that moral and spiritual virtues are the true end of man;
– sees man as an imperfect being, who cannot be molded into perfection (besides, perfection is subjective, and what one modeler sees as perfection, another sees as imperfection);
– believes that all people are (or should be) equal before the law (and even this equality is a chimera because of the differences in judges, jurors, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and law enforcers) but objects to universal egalitarianism (the equality of all people in all respects, e.g., all people are equal in intelligence, ability, and potentiality);
– maintains that the individual is the locus of virtue in the social order and this virtue is based on the moral and intellectual order that has been passed from generation to generation;
– accepts the historical idea that man is a rational, volitional, autonomous individual, a free being who lives between good and evil, truth and error, and who fulfills his destiny in the choices that he makes;
– understands that innate freedom is the essence of man’s being — and upon this axiom is his (the principled conservatives) political thoughts founded;
– is a proponent of tradition and prefers the traditional to the pragmatic when the two conflict;
– holds that principles should be derived mostly by convection and compromise and tested by long experience;
– favors an epistemology rooted in tradition and morality of particularity;
– distinguishes, unlike enlightened conservatives, between the good and evil traditions — using reasoning to distinguish among the possibilities;
– protects the tradition and applies it to new situations;
– does not avert change per se but does avert rapid change;
– is hesitative about change and innovation and is selective about which changes and innovations to accept;
– believes that change should be a slow and natural alteration and not some present infatuation;
– believes that change should come because of a need generally felt, not inspired by abstractions;
– prefers innovations that approximate natural growth, that is, they are intimate in the situation, and are no merely imposed;
– thus, favors change that responds to a specific defect while opposing change that is primarily designed to improve the conditions of human circumstances;
– favors change that is small and limited while opposing change that is large and indefinite;
– opposes radical change and innovation;
– cautions against change not because he opposes change but because of the severe limitation of an individual’s knowledge;
– opposes change for the sake of change, i.e., the lust for change;
– believes that tradition needs to guide reason;
– objects to the Rationalist’s idea of reason divorced from tradition, custom, and habit;
– opposes rationalist ideologies derived solely by reasoning in part because they are inflexible;
– accepts using reason operating within the bounds of tradition but opposes abstract reasoning;
– acknowledges that knowledge is a form of tradition because it passes from one generation to another;
– holds that the knowledge of any individual or group of individuals is insignificant compared with the knowledge of the nations and ages;
– conceives of knowledge as the search for and the acceptance of truth and not as the acquisition of power to control and manipulate man and nature;
– asserts that moral knowledge is gained from tradition;
– objects to the Rationalist’s notion of moral knowledge being abstract and universal, but does not reject moral universality because the development and exercise of universal moral truths depend on tradition;
– believes that morality is tradition-specific and depends on a particular time, place, and relationship (morality or moral doctrines include individualism, pluralism, natural rights, human rights, the principle of utility, categorical imperative, and social contract);
– accepts morality as consisting of principles and ideals that are universal and acknowledges that they are abstractions construed from tradition but rejects the Rationalist’s notion that they are timeless, transcultural, and tradition-neutral; that is, these principles and ideals arrive from tradition and do not beget tradition;
– places the absolute moral values of Western civilization above relativism, which he loathes;
– opposes the notion that society can be compelled with a plan of supratemporal ideals;
– maintains that rights are settled by convention and are not universal abstractions;
– holds that freedom is the first criterion of political order;
– acknowledges that freedom is essential to the nature of man and is neutral to virtue and vice, yet man has the duty to seek virtue;
– argues that rights are inherently derived from the nature of man; rights are not derived from society or the state;
– asserts that every individual has the right to live uncoerced by force or fraud in possession of his life, liberty, and property;
– asserts that each person has the duty to obey moral laws by which he respects the rights of others to their lives, liberties, and property — failure to do so results in the forfeiture of his rights and freedoms;
– promotes the freedom to choose, free will; therefore, man cannot be forced to be free;
– contends that although man may be forced to act virtuously, he cannot be forced to be virtuous — only when an individual is free to choose virtue or vice can he be virtuous;
– advocates freedom from and opposes freedom for, which is not freedom at all but a set of conceived ends;
– demands the right to bear arms (thus, condemning all forms of gun control) and all the other inalienable rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights;
– objects to political correction, speech codes, counterculture, cancel culture, sensitivity training, and other similar absurdities;
– values loyalty and sees patriotism as a virtue and not a vice;
– maintains that the United States are a European country and a White or Aryan country and, therefore, their people are a European people;
– believes that the United States are an integral part of European civilization, i.e., Western civilization;
– believes in racial preservation (or at least, use to be but now, regrettably, is most likely a racial nihilist who practices the new morality of sacrificing the races on the altar of humanity);
– opposes miscegenation and policies, such as integration, that lead to miscegenation (unfortunately, those who have become racial nihilists have abandoned this opposition);
– opposes immigration of nonwhites (unfortunately, those who have become racial nihilists have abandoned this opposition);
– supports the traditional family, which is the basic unit of human society, and, therefore, opposes weakening the family by encouraging sexual licentiousness, homosexuality, and miscegenation, and subverting the authority of the parents;
– is pro-life and, therefore, opposes abortion;
– opposes inheritance and estate taxes (they are antifamily taxes) and the progressive income tax;
– maintains that the United States are a Christian country and, therefore, opposes attempts to deny or weaken this Christian heritage;
– opposes governmental efforts to deny people their rights of religious expression and worship;
– believes in traditional education controlled by the parents instead of the government and, therefore, disapproves of the government acquiring the job of educating children (public education);
– supports teaching traditional virtues and how to think instead of what to think and, therefore, opposes using schools to indoctrinate students with propaganda to tear down traditional values and loyalties;
– asserts that the function of schools and colleges is to train the mind and to transmit the culture and tradition of the civilization to the young; thus, opposes training students for life adjustment through life experience via free activity where the teacher imposes nothing and where current prejudices are taught instead of values, which leads to value nihilism and political collectiveness, which are the basis of the current educational system;
– argues that society and state were made for man and man is not made for them — unlike socialists in all their forms, who believe that man is secondary to society and state;
– rejects the notion that society is a real entity, a living organism, with a life, rights, and moral duties of its own and, therefore, does not consider society an organism morally superior to people, nor is it a being with a corporate personality that has rights;
– considers the individual as the essential moral entity and society as merely a set of relations between persons;
– believes in a transcendental order, a body of natural laws, that rule society and conscience;
– maintains that civilize society requires orders and classes;
– opposes people who attempt or want to reconstruct society on an abstract design;
– favors a society based on noninstrumental rules of conduct, i.e., rules that do not specify a practice or routine to promote or hinder the achievement of some substantive purpose but prescribes how to live harmoniously;
– promotes a society where citizens are regarded as individuals who may severally or collectively engage in many self-chosen activities;
– maintains that all value resides in the individual and that all social institutions derive their value from individuals;
– holds that social institutions are justified only when they serve the needs of individuals;
– defines the state as a definite group of people, distinct and separate from other people, who possess a monopoly of legal coercive force; it is not an organism or being with a life of its own independent of the people who comprise it; moreover, it is not one with the citizens whom it governs in a holistic unity;
– declares that the purpose of the state is to ensure the peaceful coexistence among citizens holding diverse and disparate ideas of moral truths instead of promoting or imposing moral truth;
– identifies two natural functions of the state: (1) to protect the rights of citizens against violent or fraudulent assaults, which includes protecting citizens from assaults by foreign forces and (2) to judge conflicts of rights with rights;
– treats the state (government) as a civil association, i.e., people associating solely in their obligations to observe the law (people are not told what to do but how to do whatever they choose to do);
– maintains that the government of a state is not a manager but is an umpire, the custodian of the rules;
– affirms that the state ought to be limited to its proper function of preserving order;
– opposed the state (government) being used to bring about some specific goal or ideal;
– holds that the state has the duty to respect the rights and freedoms of individuals and to guarantee these rights and freedoms by restraining those who trespass against the lives, liberties, and property of others;
– abhors the notion of using the state (government) to create and impose a utopia;
– sees the state as necessary to maintain social order, which is necessary for a harmonious society;
– supports small, limited government;
– asserts that the sole purpose of government is to rule; therefore, objects to the government being used to impose beliefs and activities on the people, to educate them, to make them better or happier, or to direct them to undertake specific activities;
– holds that governing is specific and limited to providing general rules of conduct to enable people to pursue activities of their own choice instead of imposing substantive activity and, therefore, opposes the government enacting positive laws directing people how to live;
– prefers the constitution that the founding fathers gave the United States to the one that Lincoln gave them, which is the one under which they now operate;
– maintains that the United States consists of 50 sovereign nations or bodies politics, States, as set out in the original Constitution and founding documents (Regrettably, most likely has abandoned the Constitution that the founding fathers gave the country in favor of the Constitution that Lincoln and the Radical Republicans gave it; thus, he claims that the United States is a sovereign nation.)
– adheres to the doctrine of States’ rights;
– remonstrates all treaties, agreements, conventions, alliances, international organizations, etc. that impinge on the sovereignty and independence of the United States or any State;
– opposes the Supreme Court and other federal courts revising the Constitution and rewriting federal and State statutes;
– condemns bureaucrats issuing and enforcing administrative decrees (regulations) that interfere with personal liberty and dignity, private property, and the sanctity of the family;
– favors the dispersal and decentralization of political and economic power and abhors the concentration and centralization of political and economic power;
– advocates a free-market, free-enterprise economy;
– ardently supports private ownership of property and the right of the owner to control his property;
– advocates an economy that is independent of the state (government) and, therefore, loathes governmental economic planning no matter the form;
– opposes Marxism in all its forms (communism, fascism, national socialism, democratic socialism, etc.) and Keynesianism and related economic systems (such as the current economic system of the United States) — thus, opposing all economic systems designed to control the economy;
– loathes the notion that bureaucrats can better invest capital than capitalists can;
– abhors the notion that bureaucrats know better how consumers should spend their money than consumers do;
– opposes governmental control of credit and interest rates either directly or indirectly through its central bank;
– opposes the redistribution of wealth including the redistribution of wealth through punitive taxation or inflation;
– rejects egalitarianism and accepts unequal acquisition of property, wealth, influence, honor, etc. and the right to pass them to the heirs of the holder; the only equality that he supports is the equal right of all men to be free from coercion against their life, liberty, and property;
– opposes greed and the drive to exploit and prefers to enjoy rather than to exploit;
– has the propensity to use and enjoy what is available instead of longing for something else;
– favors a foreign policy that places the interest of the United States first;
– prefers peace to war;
– believes that the United States armed forces should only be used to defend the territory of the United States;
– opposes meddling in the affairs of other countries and an interventionist foreign policy;
– views welfarism, the welfare state, with disfavor;
– disapproves of the government providing insurance against the hazards of life;
– prefers voluntary aid associations and programs to governmental welfare programs;
– supports protecting the environment;
Thus, a principled conservative esteems tradition, is cautious about change, and is devoted to the preservation, maintenance, and extension of the tradition of freedom and virtue. He uses tradition as a guide for reasoning and reason to distinguish between desirable traditions and undesirable traditions.
Further, the essential principles of the principled conservative are virtue and liberty, the freedom of the individual. Virtue depends on freedom, and virtue should be the goal of freedom. (This goal requires the government to be limited to providing general rules of conduct to maintain the social order by protecting the rights of citizens against violent or fraudulent assaults, which includes protecting citizens from assaults by foreign forces, and judging conflicts of rights with rights; however, it should never be used to impose beliefs and activities.)
A principled conservative is skeptical of collectivism and statism as they move toward totalitarianism. He favors the primacy of the individual, which requires the division of power, that is, limited government and a free economy.
Moreover, a principled conservative abhors attempts to establish a utopia and the notion that society and mankind are perfectible, yet he strives to improve human institutions and conditions. Thus, he trusts the free function of free individuals either individually or in voluntary cooperation.
Some principled conservatives may deviate from several of the above items. However, most principled conservatives adhere to nearly all, if not all, of these items.
Reference
Francis, Samuel. “Statement of Principles [of the Council of the Conservative Citizens].” 2005.
Gottfried, Paul Edward. Conservatism in America: Making Sense of the American Right. New York, New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2007.
Kerwick, Misguided Guardians: The Conservative Case against Neoconservatives. Las Vegas, Nevada: Stairway Press, 2016.
Meyer, Frank S. In Defense of Freedom and Related Essays. Indianapolis, Indiana: Liberty Fund, Inc., 1996.
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Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen.
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