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TEN CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES
by Russell Kirk
Being neither a religion nor an ideology, the body of opinion
termed conservatism possesses no Holy Writ and no Das Kapital to
provide dogmata. So far as it is possible to determine what
conservatives believe, the first principles of the conservative
persuasion are derived from what leading conservative writers and
public men have professed during the past two centuries. After some
introductory remarks on this general th eme, I will proceed to list
ten such conservative principles.
A witty presidential candidate of recent times, Mr. Eugene
McCarthy, remarked a few months ago that nowadays he employs the
word "liberal" as an adjective merely. That renunciation of
"liberal" as a noun of politics, a partisan or ideological tag, is
some measure of the triumph of the conservative mentality during
the 198os--including the triumph of the conservative side of Mr.
McCarthy's own mind and character.
Perhaps it would be well, most of the time, to' use this word
"conservativell'as an adjective chiefly. For there exists no Model
Conservative, and conservatism is the negation of ideology: it is a
state of mind,- a-type of character-, a way of looking at the civil
social order.
The attitude we call conservatism is sustained by a body of
sentiments, rather than by a system of ideological dogmata. It is
almost true that a conservative may be defined as a person who
thinks himself such. The-conservative movem ent or body of opinion
can accommodate a considerable diversity of views on a good many
subjects, there being no Test Act of Thirty-Nine Articles of the
conservative creed.
In essence, the conservative person is simply one who finds the
permanent things m ore pleasing that Chaos and Old Night. (Yet
conservatives know, with Burke, that healthy "change is the means
of our preservation.") A people's historic continuity of
experience, says the conservative, offers a guide to policy far
better that the
Russell Kirk is a Distinguished Scholar at The Heritage
Foundation.
He spoke at The Heritage Foundation on March 20, 1986.
ISSN 0272-1155. Copyright 1987 by The Heritage Foundation.
abstract designs of coffee-house philosophers. But of course there
is more to the conservative persuasion than this general attitude.
It is not possible to draw up a neat catalogue of conservatives'
convictions; nevertheless, I offer you, summarily, ten general
principles; it seems safe to say that most conservatives would
subscrib e to most of these maxims. In various editions of my book
The Conservative Mind I have listed certain canons of conservative
thought--the list differing somei4hat from edition to edition; in
my anthology The Portable Conservative Reader I offer variations
upon this theme. Today I present to you a summary of conservative
assumptions differing somewhat from my canons in those two books of
mine. In fine, the diversity of ways in which conservative views
may find expression is itself proof that conservatism is no fixed
ideology. What particular principles conservatives emphasize during
any given time will vary with the circumstances and necessities of
that era. The following ten articles of belief reflect the emphases
of conservatives in America nowadays.
First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring
moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it:
human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.
. This word order signifies harmony. There are two aspects or types
of o rder: the inner order of the soul and the outer order of the
commonwealth. Twenty-five centuries ago, Plato taught this
doctrine, but-even the educated nowadays find it difficult to
understand. The problem of order has been a principal concern of
conserva tives ever since conservative became a term of politics.
Our twentieth century world has experienced the hideous
consequences of the collapse of belief in a moral.order. Like the
atrocities and disasters of Greece in the fifth century before
Christ, the ru in of great nations in our century shows us the pit
into which fall societies that mistake clever self-interest, or
ingenious social controls, for pleasing alternatives to an
oldfangled moral order.
It has been said by liberal intellectuals that the conse rvative
believes all social questions, at heart, to be questions of private
morality. Properly understood, this statement is quite true. A
society in which men and women are governed by belief in an
enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wro n g, by
personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good
society--whatever political machinery it may utilize; while a
society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of
norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be
a bad society--no matter how many people vote and no matter how
liberal its formal constitution may be. For confirmation of the
latter argument, we have merely to glance about us in the District
of Columbia.
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Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and
continuity. It is old custom that enables people to live together
peaceably; the destroyers of custom demolish more than they know or
desire. It i 's through convention--a word much abused in our
time--that we contrive to avoid perpetual disputes about rights and
duties: law at base is a body of conventions. Continuity is the
means of linking generation to generation; it matters as much for
society as it does for the individual; without it, life i s
meaningless. When successful revolutionaries have effaced old
customs, derided old conventions, and broken the continuity of
social institutions--why, presently they discover the necessity of
establishing fresh customs, conventions, and continuity; but t hat
process is painful and slow; and the new social order that
eventually emerges may be much inferior to the old order that
radicals overthrew in their zeal for the Earthly Paradise.
conservatives are champions of custom, convention, and continuity
becaus e they prefer the devil they know to the devil they do not
know. Order and justice and freedom, they believe, are the
artificial products of a long social experience, the result of
centuries of trial and reflection and sacrifice. Thus the body
social is a kind of spiritual corporation, comparable to the
church; it may even be called a community of souls. Human society
is no machine to be treated mechanically. The continuity, the
life-blood, of a society must not be interrupted. Burke's reminder
of the nece ssity for prudent change is in the mind of the
conservative. But necessary change, conservatives argue, ought to
be gradual and discriminatory, never unfixing old interests at
once.
Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of
prescr iption. Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on
the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors
only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in
time. Therefore conservatives very often emphasize the import a nce
of prescription--that.is, of things established by immemorial
usage, so that the mind of man runneth not to the contrary. There
exist rights of which the chief sanction is their
antiquity--including rights to property, often. Similarly, our
morals are prescriptive in great part. Conservatives argue that we
are unlikely, we moderns, to make any brave new discoveries in
morals or politics or taste. It is perilous to weigh every passing
issue on the basis of private judgment and private rationality. The
i n dividual is foolish, but the species is wise, Burke declared.
In politics we do well to abide by precedent and precept and even
prejudice, for the great mysterious incorporation of the human race
has acquired a prescriptive wisdom far greater than any man 's
petty private rationality.
Fourth, conservatives are q ided by their principle of prudence.
Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief
among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its
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probable long.run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage
or popularity. Liberals and radicals, the conservative says, are
imprudent: for they dash at their objectives without giving much
heed to the risk of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to
sweep away. As John Rando l ph of Roanoke put it, Providence moves
slowly, but the devil always hurries. Human society being complex,
remedies cannot be simple if they are to be efficacious. The
conservative declares that he acts only after sufficient
reflection, having weighed the consequences. Sudden and slashing
reforms are as perilous as sudden and slashing surgery.
Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety.
They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of
long-established social institutions and modes of life, as
distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening
egalitarianism of radical systems. For the preservation of a
healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders
and classes, differences in material condition, and many so r ts of
inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the
Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other
attempts at leveling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.
Society requires honest and able leadership; and if natur al and
institutional differences are destroyed, presently some tyrant or
host of squalid oligarchs will create new forms of inequality.
Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of
imperfectibility. Human nature suffers irremediably from certai n
grave faults, the conservatives know. Man being imperfect, no
perfect social order ever can be created. Because of human
restlessness, mankind would grow rebellious under any utopian
domination, and would break out once more in violent discontent--or
el s e expire of boredom. To seek for utopia is to end in disaster,
the conservative says: we are not made for perfect things. All that
we reasonably can expect is a tolerable ordered, just, and free
society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering w ill
continue to lurk. By proper attention to prudent reform, we may
preserve and improve this tolerable order. But if the old
institutional and moral safeguards of a nation are neglected, then
the anarchic impulse in humankind breaks loose: "the ceremony of
innocence is drowned." The ideologues who promise the perfection of
man and society have converted a great part of the twentieth
century world into a terrestrial hell.
Seventh, conservatives are persuaded.that freedom and property are
closely linked. Se parate property from private possession, and
Leviathan becomes master of all. Upon the foundation of private
property, great civilizations are built. The more widespread is the
possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a
commonweal th. Economic leveling, conservatives maintain, is not
economic progress. Getting and spending are not the chief aims of
human existence; but a sound economic basis for the person, the
family, and the commonwealth is much to be desired.
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Sir Henry Maine, in his Village Communities,.puts strongly the case
for private property: "Nobody is at liberty to attack several
property and to say at the same time that he values civilization.
The history of the two cannot be disentangled." For the institution
of seve r al property--that is, private property--has been a
powerful instrument for teaching men and women responsibility, for
providing motives to integrity, for supporting general culture, for
raising mankind above the level of mare drudgery, for affording
leisu r e to think and freedom to act. To-be able to retain the
fruits of one's labor; to be able to see one's work made permanent;
to be able to bequeath one's property to one's posterity; to be
able to rise from the natural condition of grinding poverty to the
s ecurity of enduring accomplishment; to have something that is
really one's own--these are advantages difficult to deny. The
conservative acknowledges that the possession of property fixes
certain duties upon the possessor; he accepts those moral and legal
obligations cheerfully. Eighth, conservatives uphold voluntary
commu ity, guite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. Although
Americans have been attached strongly to privacy and private
rights, they also have been a people conspicuous for a successfu l
spirit of community. In a genuine community, the decisions most
directly affecting the lives of citizens are made locally and
voluntarily. Some of these functions are carried out by local
political bodies, others by private associations: so long as they a
re kept local, and are marked by the general agreement of those
affected, they constitute healthy community. But when these
functions pass by default or usurpation to centralized authority,
then community is in serious danger. Whatever is beneficent and p r
udent in modern democracy is made possible through cooperative
volition. If, then, in the name of an abstract democracy, the
functions of community are transfeired to distant political
direction--why, real government by the consent of the governed
gives w a y to a standardizing process hostile to freedom and human
dignity. For a nation is no stronger than the numerous little
communities of which it is composed. A central administration, or a
corps of select managers and civil servants, however well intention
e d and well trained, cannot confer justice and prosperity and
tranquility upon a mass of men and women deprived of their old
responsibilities. That experiment has been made before; and it has
been disastrous. It is the performance of our duties in communit y
that teaches us prudence and efficiency and charity.
Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints
upon power and upon human Passions. Politically speaking, power is
the ability to do as one likes, regardless of the wills of one's
fel lows. A state in which an individual or a small group are able
to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is a
despotism, whether it is called monarchical or aristocratic or
democratic. When every person claims to be a power unto himself,
then
society falls into anarchy. Anarchy never lasts long, being
intolerable for everyone, and contrary to the ineluctable fact that
some persons are more strong and more clever than their neighbors.
To anarchy there succeeds tyranny or oligarchy, in which pow er is
monopolized by a very few. The conservative endeavors to so limit
and balance political power that anarchy or tyranny may not arise.
in every age, nevertheless, men and women are tempted to overthrow
the limitations upon power, for the sake of some f ancied temporary
advantage. It is characteristic of the radical that he thinks of
power as a force for good--so long as the power falls into his
hands. In the name of liberty, the French and Russian
revolutionaries abolished the old restraints upon power; but power
cannot be abolished; it always finds its way into someone's hands.
That power which the revolutionaries had thought oppressive in the
hands of the old regime became many times as tyrannical in the
hands of the radical new masters of the state.
Knowing human nature for a mixture of good and evil, the
conservative does not put his trust in mere benevolence.
Constitutional restrictions, political checks and balances,
adequate enforcement of the laws, the old intricate web-of
restraints upon will a nd appetite--these the conservative approves
as instruments of freedom and order. A just government maintains a
healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of
liberty.
Tenth, the thinking conservative understands-that permanence and
chan ge must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society.
The conservative is not opposed to social improvement, although he
doubts whether there is any.such force as a mystical Progress, with
a Roman P, at work in the world. When a society is progressi n g in
some respects, usually it is declining in other respects. The
conservative knows that any healthy society is influenced by two
forces, which Samuel Taylor Coleridge called its Permanence and its
Progression. The Permanence of a society is formed by t h ose
enduring interests and convictions that give us stability and
continuity; without that Permanence, the fountains of the great
deep are*broken up, society slipping into anarchy. The Progression
in a society is that spirit and that body of talents which urge us
on to prudent reforms and improvement; without that Progression, a
people stagnate. Therefore the intelligent conservative endeavors
to reconcile the claims of Permanence and the claims of
Progression. He thinks that the liberal and the radical, b l ind to
the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage
bequeathed to us, in:an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious
Terrestrial Paradise. The conservative, in short, favors reasoned
and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progres s,
whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior
to everything old.
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Change is essential to the body social, the conservative
reasons,.. just as it is essential to the human body. A body that
has ceased to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to
be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing
with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a
monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The
conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be
wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the
means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of
conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society
requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of
an age and a nation. Such, then, are ten principles that have
loomed large during the two centuries of modern conservative
thought. Other principles of equal importance might have been
discussed here: the conservat ive understanding of justice, for
one, or the conservative view of education. But such subjects, time
running on, I must leave to your private investigation.
W ho affirms those ten conservative principles nowadays? In
practical politics, commonly a body of g eneral convictions is
linked with a body of interests. Marxists argue, indeed, that
professed political principle is a mere veil for advancement of the
economic interests of a class or faction: that is, no real
principle exists--merely ideology. Such is n o t-my view:' but we
ought to recognize connections between political doctrines and
social or economic interest groups, when such connections exist;
they may be innocent enough, or they may make headway at the
expense of the general public interest. What in t erest or group of
interests back the conservative element in American politics? That
question is not readily answered. Many rich Americans endorse
liberal or radical causes; affluent suburbs frequently vote for
liberal men and measures; attachment to cons e rvative sentiments
does not follow the line that Marxist analysts of politics expect
to find. The owners of small properties, as a class, tend to be
more conservative than do the possessors of much property (this
latter often in the abstract form of stock s and bonds). One may
remark that most conservatives hold religious convictions; yet the
officers of mainline Protestant churches, together with church
bureaucracies.,' frequently ally themselves with radical
organizations; while some curious political aff i rmations have
been heard recently among the Catholic hierarchy. Half a century
ago, it might have been said that most college professors were
conservative; that could not be said truthfully today; yet
physicians, lawyers, dentists, and other professional people--or
most of them--subscribe to conservative journals and generally vote
for persons they take to be conservative candidates.
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In short, the conservative interest appears to transcend the usual
classification of most American voting blocs accordin g to wealth,
age, ethnic origin, religion, occupation, education, and the like.
If we may speak of a conservative interest, this appears to be the
interest bloc of people concerned for stability: those citizens who
find the pace of change too swift, the l o ss of continuity and
permanence too painful, the break with the American past too
brutal, the damage to community dismaying, the designs of
innovators' imprudent and inhumane. Certain material interests are
bound up with this resistance to insensate chang e : nobody
relishes having his savings reduced to insignificance by inflation
of the currency. But the moving power behind the renewed
conservatism of the American public is not some scheme of personal
or corporate aggrandizement; rather, it is the impulse f or
survival of a culture that wakes to its peril near the end of the
twentieth century. We might well call militant conservatives the
Party of the Permanent Things. Perhaps no words have been more
abused, both in the popular press and within the Academy, t han
conservatism and conservative. The New York Times, not without
malice prepense, now and again refers to Stalinists within the
Soviet Union as conservatives. Silly anarchistic tracts, under the
label libertarian, are represented in some quarters as con s
ervative publications--this in the United States of America, whose
Constitution is described by Sir Henry Maine as the most successful
device in the history of politics! Even after more than three
decades of the renewal of conservative thought in this lan d , it
remains necessary to make it clear to the public that conservatives
are not merely folk content with the dominations and powers of the
moment; nor anarchists in disguise who would pull down, if they
could, both the-political and the moral order; nor persons for whom
the whole of life is the accumulation of money, like so many
Midases.
Therefore it is of\\ importance to know whereof one speaks, and not
.to mistake the American conservative impulse for some narrow and
impractical ideology. If'the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who
shall go forth to battle? For intellectual development, the first
necessity is to define one's terms. If we can enlarge the
understanding of conservatism's first principles, we will have
begun a reinvigoration qf the conserva t ive imagination. The great
line of demarcation in modern politics, Eric Voegelin used to point
out, is not a division between liberals on one side and
totalitarians on the other. No, on one side of that line are all
those men and women who fancy that the t emporal order is the only
order, and that material needs are their only needs, and that they
may do as they like with the human patrimony. On the other side of
that line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral
order in the universe, a constan t hum&n nature, and high
duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal.
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Conservatives cannot offer America the fancied Terrestial Paradise
that always, in reality, has turned out to be an Earthly Hell. What
they can offer is politics as the art of the possible; and an
opportunity to stand up for that old lovable human nature; and
conscious participation in the defense of order and justice and
freedom. Unlike liberals and-radicals,.conservatives even indulge
in prayer, let the Supreme Court s a y what it may. This general
description of basic assumptions by conservatives I have thrust
upon.you, ladies and gentlemen, in the hope of persuading you to
think upon these things at your leisure, for the Republic's sake.
Conceivably I may have succeeded in rousing some tempers and some
hopes. Pax vobiscum.
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