Conservatism

Conservatism is a major political philosophy supporting traditional values or an established social order. Etymologically, the word conservatism implies that conservatives seek to conserve the existing social order or to reinstate an ideal social order now in decline. This can take a peaceful democratic form or violent radical form, and there are historical examples of both.

Value conservatism and tradition

Value conservatism seeks not simply to preserve traditional or established values, but to ensure that society is ordered according to these values. Contemporary western political conservatism - the actual politics of self-identified conservative individuals and parties in the liberal democracies - is generally a value conservatism. In English-speaking countries it is also called social conservatism, to distinguish it from free-market 'economic conservatism'. The values are cultural as well as social, and primarily relate to individual behaviour and social norms, rather than the state and its structure. It is, for many western non-conservatives, the archetypical form of conservatism.

Related Topics:
Western - Social conservatism - State

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Value conservatism can be classified as a traditionalist conservatism: it promotes and defends certain older, pre-existing elements in a society's culture. They may be a tradition in the sense of folklore, but more often traditional values, by which social practice and personal behaviour should be judged. Like Burkean conservatives, value conservatives are sceptical of rapid social change, but primarily because it erodes the things they value.

Related Topics:
Folklore - Traditional values

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Value conservatism illustrates the inevitably political aspect of conservatism. Value conservatives do not seek to preserve values as a non-functional museum item, they want those values adhered to. Often there is no problem in personal adherence. However, conservatives believe that these values are universal, that they should apply to others, and be enforced as norm. That inevitably brings conservatism into the political arena, as a voter preference in democracies, and in the form of conservative organisations. Political conservatism in the broad sense, seeks to use of the power of the state, to enforce a social or cultural value, on those who do not voluntarily adhere to it. Political conservatism may radicalise, and may result in a conservative revolution, such as the overthrow of the pro-western Pahlavi regime in Iran.

Related Topics:
Political - State - Pahlavi

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If conservatives are successful in the political process - which may include the formation of a conservative government or a conservative regime - then there are two strategies for the enforcement of values. The first is compulsion - a legal or quasi-legal requirement to act in a certain way, in accordance with a certain norm, as if in adherence to a certain value. The quasi-legal enforcement of the chador in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the legal requirement for women to wear a burqa or equivalent under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, are classic examples. There is no doubt, that many orthodox Muslim women in these countries voluntarily dress like this: the law however compels the other women to act as if they shared their values.

Related Topics:
Regime - Chador - Islamic Republic of Iran - Burqa - Taliban

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The second strategy is prohibition - the ban on certain acts, or certain things, that contravene the values of the conservatives. All states enforce prohibitions, but value-related prohibitions can be distinguished by their non-functionality for the state. For the economy to function, the state must necessarily ban counterfeit currency, but bans on the sale of condoms, or on pole dancing, or on the bikini are non-functional in this sense. Prohibition is more likely to be used to prevent social change in the sense of value innovation, or value erosion.

Related Topics:
Condoms - Pole dancing - Bikini

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Conservative participation in the political process, with the intention of altering government policy, is the visible face of conservatism in western democracies. When people there speak of 'conservative politics' they are generally referring to this kind of campaign. Value-conservative campaigns are often focussed on a single issue. Conservative governments may promote broad campaigns for a return to traditional values, such as the Back to Basics campaign of British premier John Major. In the European Union, a conservative campaign sought to constitutionally specify certain conservative values, in the proposed European Constitution. Most prominently, Pope John Paul II lobbied for inclusion of a reference to God, which was narrowly defeated.

Related Topics:
Back to Basics - John Major - European Union - European Constitution - Pope John Paul II

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The conservative campaign against same-sex marriage is a typical recent single-issue campaign in western democracies, directed against a recent legal innovation. Until 2001, no country recognised same-sex marriage. Under conservative regimes, from Francisco Franco to Ayatollah Khomeiny, any official recognition of homosexuality was unthinkable. Value conservatives in western countries are vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage, although the number of these marriages is small. It is symbolically important precisely because it undermines the traditional social fabric, and the traditional values related to the family and marriage, and because it contravenes the widespread religious taboo on homosexuality. So the (usually Christian) campaigners seek to prohibit it. They do that through a campaign to oppose its introduction, repeal the relevant law, ban it by new law, or to constitutionally re-define marriage as 'between a man and a woman'.

Related Topics:
Same-sex marriage - Single-issue campaign - Francisco Franco - Ayatollah Khomeiny - Family - Marriage - Taboo - Constitutionally re-define

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While some classical conservatives may be wary of government intervention into the private lives of citizens, even when that intervention is in support of traditional values, conservative movements in general tend to support such causes. The almost universal support by secular, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim conservatives for anti-abortion movements is the most prominent example.

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There are distinctions among 'traditional views' and culture-specific versions of 'family values'. To the Muslim, for example, social conservatism may entail support for polygamy. The traditions themselves may be a relatively recent invention. The prevalence of the nuclear family is, at most, a few centuries old (as is western democracy).

Related Topics:
Muslim - Polygamy - Nuclear family

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Religious conservatism

Value conservatism is often inspired by religious values, and in religious conservatism the values correspond to the doctrines of one religion. Islamic conservatism in Islamic countries is usually religion-specific, but value conservatism in western countries has secular supporters as well. Doctrinal orthodoxy is not necessarily equivalent to conservatism. For instance the position of the Catholic Church on stem cell research is not traditional doctrine, because the issue did not exist until recently. The opposition can be considered conservative, in the sense that the technology is an innovation. Catholic opposition to abortion, however, is not conservative in that sense, because abortion itself is not a recent innovation, although until the 20th century it was so unsafe to the life of the mother that it formed its own deterrent.

Related Topics:
Orthodoxy - Catholic Church - Stem cell research - Abortion

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Radical movements in Islam illustrate the divergence from the etymologically accurate sense of conservatism. The Salafist movement is often politically radical, and violently repressed for that reason, although there is a pro-government Salafism in Saudi Arabia. The Islamist opposition in Algeria, which fought a civil war with the military-appointed governments in the 1990's, has a strong Salafist element. Yet Salafism seeks to re-create the Islamic society which existed at the time of Muhammad's death and for a short time thereafter, rejects the later development of Islamic societies, and can therefore be classified a a radical traditionalist conservatism. Salafists also base their personal behaviour on the standards of a past society, and are conservative in the sense that the Amish are conservative. The Salafi also give great prominence to a disputed hadith (reported statement of the Prophet), which is classically conservative:Every innovation is misguidance...http://www.islamicacademy.org/html/Articles/English/BID'AH%20-%20Innovation%20in%20Islam.htm

Related Topics:
Islam - Salafist - Civil war - Salafist element - Muhammad - Amish - Hadith

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In southern Europe, there is a long tradition of Catholic-inspired social and cultural conservatism. The term integralism is used for those who seek an unified society ordered on Catholic principles, usually opposing liberal democracy. In recent years, the term 'integralism' has also become a synonym for Islamic fundamentalism in southern Europe.

Related Topics:
Integralism - Liberal democracy - Islamic fundamentalism

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Religious fervour, and the belief in divine sanction, can make religious conservatism intense. Campaigns can be agressive and sometimes violent. It is a classic example of radical conservatism. In Europe, the orthodox-Protestant conservative tradition produced the Dutch SGP, the only openly theocratic party in the European Parliament.

Related Topics:
SGP - Theocratic

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The full force of religious conservatism is visible when such a movement attains power. The Taliban regime was an exemplary display of conservative obligations and prohibitions, for the purpose of creating an orthodox-Islamic society, or at least one which looked that way. The Taliban banned, among other things, guitars, kites, cinemas, recorded music, weather forecasting and white socks. They compelled women to wear a burqa and men to grow beards of a specified length, see Life under Taliban rule. Such regulations are enforced under Islamic regimes by a mutaween or religious police.

Related Topics:
Taliban regime - Weather forecasting - Burqa - Life under Taliban rule - Mutaween

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Rigorous enforcement of behavioural norms, especially related to sex and the family, is characteristic of conservative religious regimes. The Iranian penal code is exemplary in its enforcement of family values by stoning:Article 83: Adultery in the following cases shall be punishable by stoning: (1) Adultery by a married man who is wedded to a permanent wife with whom he has had intercourse and may have intercourse when he so desires;

Related Topics:
Family values - Stoning

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(2) Adultery of a married woman with an adult man provided the woman is permanently married and has had intercourse with her husband and is able to do so again.

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Barney Frank observes that the issue is not that morals be applied to public policy, it's that conservatives bring public policy to spheres of our lives where it should not enter.http://www.kuow.org/defaultProgram.asp?ID=9423

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