What Does It Mean to be “Conservative”?

MK:  In [William F. Buckley Jr.’s book, God and Man at Yale (1951)], which arguably launched the conservative movement in America, a 24-year-old Buckley wrote: “I believe that if and when the menace of Communism is gone, other vital battles, at present subordinated, will emerge to the foreground. And the winner must have help from the classroom.”  Do you think Buckley was correct? If so, what are these “other vital battles”?

Sir Roger Scruton: Yes, Buckley was right. There is the vital battle to defend fundamental institutions, such as marriage and the family, and to counter the censorship of all opinions that express an attachment to our cultural and political inheritance. . . .

MK: What are the main differences between classical liberalism and conservatism? 

SRS: Conservatives believe in unchosen obligations (pieties), whereas classical liberals think that the only source of obligation is choice.

MK: And yet they are, you observe, on the same side in today’s culture war. Why is that? 

SRS: Because there are so many people who wish to control us, and in doing so to wipe away the image of the past. . . .

MK: What is the difference between a reactionary and a conservative? 

SRS: A reactionary is fixed on the past and wanting to return to it; a conservative wishes to adapt what is best in the past to the changing circumstances of the present. . . .

MK: Why do many on the left consider conservatism to be inherently evil (rather than cuddly)? 

SRS: The principal reason is that people on the left have illusions about human nature and think they prove their virtue by broadcasting those illusions. Anyone who punctures those illusions is therefore not just a spoilsport but a threat. What the self-declared “virtue” of the left amounts to can be witnessed in what happens to ordinary humanity when the left takes power. . . .

MK: Can one be a hopeful conservative without God? 

SRS: Yes, but it helps to believe in God, since then one’s hopes are fixed on a higher reality, and that stops one from imposing them on the world in which we live. . . .

MK: You mention a reluctance on the part of some conservatives to self-identify as such. Surprisingly, perhaps, you include George Orwell and Simone Weil in this category. Can you explain why they, too, belong to the “great tradition”? How can you spot a conservative? 

SRS: I try to explain this in my book. Conservatives reveal themselves through their care for ordinary human things, and their recognition of the fragility of decency and the need to protect it.

[Keep reading. . .]

Lots to consider here, including Buckley’s point that whoever wins the battles to come “must have help from the classroom.”  Notice what sides most classrooms today–whether from elementary schools to Yale–are helping.  Though there are now alternative classrooms–in homes, classical Christian schools, and seriously Christian colleges–that are helping the other sides.

Other points to contemplate:  Conservatives believe in “unchosen obligations (pieties),” as opposed to “classical liberals” whom we might term “libertarians” who think that “the only source of obligation is choice.”  And yet those two kinds of “conservatives” are often allied today.

Note Scruton’s emphasis on “attachment to our cultural and political inheritance,”  his desire to “to adapt what is best in the past to the changing circumstances of the present,” and his opposition to those on the left who would “wipe away the image of the past.”

I was most struck by his answer to the question about “hot to spot a conservative.”  “Conservatives reveal themselves through their care for ordinary human things.”  By this standard, despite his innovative economic theories and calls for social reform, G. K. Chesterton has a conservative sensibility.  I think radicals can also “care for ordinary human things.”  I think of Walt Whitman.  But Whitman perhaps lacked the other half of Scruton’s description of conservatives:  “their recognition of the fragility of decency and the need to protect it.”