1.Rejection of ‘rationalism’ Conservatives often use the metaphor of a ship at sea
to explain their objections to what they call ‘rationalism’ (it should be noted that
rationalism is a pejorative term and those identified as rationalists by
conservatives would not use this label to describe themselves). You are at sea,
and your ship develops a fault, which if not dealt with will result in the ship
sinking. The ‘ship’ is the state, or the set of political institutions that make up
the state, while the ‘sea’ is society or culture in the widest sense. The ‘fault’ is a
metaphor intended to illustrate the stresses and strains that political institutions
frequently face. Rationalism would entail ‘analysing’ – or breaking down – the
ship into its components in the hope of understanding the source of the fault
and so rectifying it. The conservatives’ point is not hard to discern: we cannot
deconstruct the ship while at sea, but we must do something about the fault or
we will drown.
2.Experience matters Continuing with the metaphor of the ship, our response to
the fault must be based on past experience and, if necessary, a cautious process
of trial and error. The ‘conservatism’ of conservatives rests not on an irrational
veneration of the past but on a recognition of the limited nature of human reason,
and for this reason conservatives can be progressive, and embrace change. What
they fear are radical experiments: human beings cannot adequately predict the
full consequences of their actions, and while some experiments may make the
world a better place we cannot be sure that they will.
3.Human nature While there are some marked differences within conservative
thought concerning human behaviour, capabilities and motivation, there is broad
agreement that human beings are limited in their capacity to comprehend the
society in which they live. This does not mean that humans are stupid, but rather
that no individual mind can understand the complexity of social relations, and
there is no ‘super mind’ which is capable of doing so. Here the conservative
critique of socialism is most apparent: socialist planning presupposes a mind
capable of making complex economic decisions. Socialism is doomed to failure
because, first, it is inefficient, and, second (and perhaps more worryingly), it
requires a concentration of power in the hands of the state. Conservatives tend
to support the free market on the grounds that the distribution of goods depends
on the decisions made by millions of individuals without the necessity for central
control. This brings them close to the libertarian stream of liberalism but,
importantly, conservative support for markets is not based on the individualist
premise of moral rights to private property, but on a claim about the limits of
human capabilities.
4.Rejection of ‘visionary politics’ Conservative thinker Edmund Burke famously
observed that ‘at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows’ (Burke,
1975: 344). He had in mind the visionary politics of the French Revolution
(1789). Visionaries do not recognise the pluralism of everyday life – the fact that
individuals have conflicting needs, desires and values. A vision implies a common
project for society which overrides that pluralism. A later thinker, Michael
Oakeshott, makes a distinction between society as a ‘civic association’ and an
‘enterprise association’: an enterprise implies a common purpose, whereas a civic
association rests on certain rules of conduct that allow individuals to live together.
5.Respect for institutions An institution is a rule-governed activity. Conservatives
maintain that institutions evolve, rather than being created at a determinate point196 Part 2 Classical ideologies