Both articles, though particularly Heywood, discuss the tendency to view conservatism as a "negative" or "reactionary" ideology because conservatives have trouble identifying any principles behind those that they do not like. I think that a lot of this confusion about what exactly conservatives do stand for results from the tension. It is difficult for conservatives to justify their love of economic freedom with a belief in a society that is dominated by a particular set of morals or values.
The conservatives are, at heart, hypocritical. They want to preserve the status quo, but it is impossible to make economic progress without permitting social freedoms. They are against big government because they value an unregulated market, but they feel the need to control every aspect of an individual's life. the conservatives have chosen to identify the principles they stand against because they have no idea what principles they stand behind.
3 comments:
After reading this blog I realized that the reading by Heywood had a negative undertone of conservatism. I feel as if while I was reading the whole article he would describe an aspect of the idea and then offer a negative example to back up his idea. This obviously left people with a bad taste for conservatism and that is evident in this blog post. The Heywood article really put down conservatism
I most definitely agree with your last paragraph. I've never understood, also, how American conservative ideology can advocates such paternalistic, and morally single-minded social issues... but at the same time, calls for smaller governments because they apparently value individualism. It seems that if they really valued individualism, they'd all be like Ron Paul, socially liberal and in favor of government deregulation simultaneously! But that's not to say that the same thing can't be said for the Democrats and American liberals... strong, centralized government and allowing people to do their own thing, if you will, hardly seem to go hand in hand.
I think that if you are going to call conservatives hypocrites, you should apply the same term to democrats. Like Norah said, individual freedom and high government regulation of the economy seem to be in conflict with one another just as much as social rigidity and laissez faire market. I think a huge problem is that there has grown such a need to categorize everything; I think it should be totally acceptable for someone to believe in freedom in one aspect of society and control in another. While it may seem like hypocrisy, I don't see it that way. If someone supported the freedom of a woman to terminate her pregnancy, for example, that should not mean that this person must also believe in allowing corporations to operate without restrictions. Personal liberties and economic freedoms are different, and I don't think we should demand that they go hand in hand.
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