Conservatism
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the emphasis on tradition reflects their religious faith. If the world is thought to have been fashioned by God the Creator, traditional customs and practices in society will be regarded as ‘God given’. Edmund Burke thus believed that society was shaped by ‘the law of our Creator’, or what he also called ‘natural law’. If human beings tamper with the world, they are challenging the will of God, and as a result they are likely to make human affairs worse rather than better. Since the eighteenth century, however, it has become increasingly difficult to maintain that tradition reflects the will of God. As the pace of historical change accelerated, old traditions were replaced by new ones, and these new ones – for example, free elections and universal suffrage – were clearly seen to be man- made rather than in any sense ‘God given’. Nevertheless, the religious objection to change has been kept alive by modern fundamentalists, particularly those who believe that God’s wishes have been revealed to humankind through the literal truth of religious texts. Such ideas are discussed in Chapter 12. Most conservatives, however, support tradition without needing to argue that it has divine origins. Burke, for example, described society as a partnership between ‘those who are living, those who are dead and those who are to be born’. G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936), the UK novelist and essayist, expressed this idea as follows: Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes: our ancestors. It is a democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking around. (Chesterton, 1908) Tradition, in this sense, reflects the accumulated wisdom of the past. The institutions and practices of the past have been ‘tested by time’, and should therefore be preserved for the benefit of the living and for generations to come. This is the sense in which we should respect the actions – or ‘votes’ – of the dead, who will always outnumber the living. Such a notion of tradition reflects an almost Darwinian belief that those institutions and customs that have survived have only done so because they have worked and been found to be of value. They have been endorsed by a process of ‘natural selection’ and demonstrated their fitness to survive. Conservatives in the UK, for instance, argue that the institution of monarchy should be preserved because it embodies historical wisdom and experience. In particular, the crown has provided the UK with a focus of national loyalty and respect ‘above’ party politics; for conservatives, quite simply, it has worked. Conservatives also venerate tradition because it generates a sense of identity for both society and the individual. Established customs and practices are ones that individuals can recognize; they are familiar and reassuring. Tradition thus provides people with a feeling of ‘rootedness’ and belonging, which is all the stronger because it is historically based. It generates social cohesion by linking people to the past and providing them with a collective sense of who they are. Change, on the other hand, is a journey into the unknown: it creates uncertainty and insecurity, and so endangers our happiness. Tradition therefore consists of rather more than political institutions that have stood the test of time. It encompasses all those customs and social practices that are familiar and generate security and belonging, ranging from the judiciary’s insistence on wearing formal attire, and possibly traditional robes and wigs, to campaigns to preserve, for example, conventional styles of architecture.
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