I have been much concerned that so many people today with Conservative
instincts feel compelled to apologize for them. Or if not to apologize
directly, to qualify their commitment in a way that amounts to
breast-beating. “Republican candidates,” Vice President Nixon has
said, “should be economic conservatives, but conservatives with a
heart.” President Eisenhower announced during his first term, “I am
conservative when it comes to economic problems but liberal when
it comes to human problems.” Still other Republican leaders have
insisted on calling themselves “progressive” Conservatives.[1] These
formulations are tantamount to an admission that Conservatism is a
narrow, mechanistic _economic_ theory that may work very well as a
bookkeeper’s guide, but cannot be relied upon as a comprehensive
political philosophy.
The same judgment, though in the form of an attack rather than an
admission, is advanced by the radical camp. “We liberals,” they say,
“are interested in _people_. Our concern is with human beings, while
you Conservatives are preoccupied with the preservation of economic
privilege and status.” Take them a step further, and the Liberals will
turn the accusations into a class argument: it is the little people
that concern us, not the “malefactors of great wealth.”
Such statements, from friend and foe alike, do great injustice to the
Conservative point of view. Conservatism is _not_ an economic theory,
though it has economic implications. The shoe is precisely on the other
foot: it is Socialism that subordinates all other considerations to
man’s material well-being. It is Conservatism that puts material things
in their proper place--that has a structured view of the human being
and of human society, in which economics plays only a subsidiary role.
The root difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals of
today is that Conservatives take account of the _whole_ man, while the
Liberals tend to look only at the material side of man’s nature. The
Conservative believes that man is, in part, an economic, an animal
creature; but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs
and spiritual desires. What is more, these needs and desires reflect
the _superior_ side of man’s nature, and thus take precedence over his
economic wants. Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of
man’s spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy.
Liberals, on the other hand,--in the name of a concern for “human
beings”--regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant
mission of society. They are, moreover, in a hurry. So that their
characteristic approach is to harness the society’s political and
economic forces into a collective effort to _compel_ “progress.” In
this approach, I believe they fight against Nature.
Surely the first obligation of a political thinker is to understand
the nature of man. The Conservative does not claim special powers of
perception on this point, but he does claim a familiarity with the
accumulated wisdom and experience of history, and he is not too proud
to learn from the great minds of the past.
The first thing he has learned about man is that each member of the
species is a unique creature. Man’s most sacred possession is his
individual soul--which has an immortal side, but also a mortal one.
The mortal side establishes his absolute differentness from every
other human being. _Only a philosophy that takes into account the
essential differences between men, and, accordingly, makes provision
for developing the different potentialities of each man can claim to
be in accord with Nature._ We have heard much in our time about “the
common man.” It is a concept that pays little attention to the history
of a nation that grew great through the initiative and ambition of
uncommon men. The Conservative knows that to regard man as part of an
undifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery.
Secondly, the Conservative has learned that the economic and spiritual
aspects of man’s nature are inextricably intertwined. He cannot be
economically free, or even economically efficient, if he is enslaved
politically; conversely, man’s political freedom is illusory if he is
dependent for his economic needs on the State.
The Conservative realizes, thirdly, that man’s development, in both its
spiritual and material aspects, is not something that can be directed
by outside forces. Every man, for his individual good and for the good
of his society, is responsible for his _own_ development. The choices
that govern his life are choices that _he_ must make: they cannot be
made by any other human being, or by a collectivity of human beings. If
the Conservative is less anxious than his Liberal brethren to increase
Social Security “benefits,” it is because he is more anxious than his
Liberal brethren that people be free throughout their lives to spend
their earnings when and as they see fit.
So it is that Conservatism, throughout history, has regarded
man neither as a potential pawn of other men, nor as a part of
a general collectivity in which the sacredness and the separate
identity of individual human beings are ignored. Throughout history,
true Conservatism has been at war equally with autocrats and with
“democratic” Jacobins. The true Conservative was sympathetic with the
plight of the hapless peasant under the tyranny of the French monarchy.
And he was equally revolted at the attempt to solve that problem by
a mob tyranny that paraded under the banner of egalitarianism. The
conscience of the Conservative is pricked by _anyone_ who would debase
the dignity of the individual human being. Today, therefore, he is at
odds with dictators who rule by terror, and equally with those gentler
collectivists who ask our permission to play God with the human race.
With this view of the nature of man, it is understandable that
the Conservative looks upon politics as the art of achieving the
maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with
the maintenance of social order. The Conservative is the first to
understand that the practice of freedom requires the establishment
of order: it is impossible for one man to be free if another is able
to deny him the exercise of his freedom. But the Conservative also
recognizes that the political power on which order is based is a
self-aggrandizing force; that its appetite grows with eating. He knows
that the utmost vigilance and care are required to keep political
power within its proper bounds.
In our day, order is pretty well taken care of. The delicate balance
that ideally exists between freedom and order has long since tipped
against freedom practically everywhere on earth. In some countries,
freedom is altogether down and order holds absolute sway. In our
country the trend is less far advanced, but it is well along and
gathering momentum every day. Thus, for the American Conservative,
there is no difficulty in identifying the day’s overriding political
challenge: it is _to preserve and extend freedom_. As he surveys the
various attitudes and institutions and laws that currently prevail
in America, many questions will occur to him, but the Conservative’s
first concern will always be: _Are we maximizing freedom?_ I suggest we
examine some of the critical issues facing us today with this question
in mind.