conservatism

• Liberals and socialists tend to assume that human beings are naturally 'good', or that they can be made 'good' if their social circumstances are improved, but conservatives disagree and view humans to be flawed, selfish and greedy.
• Conservatives see human beings as both imperfect and unpredictable.
• Human beings have been thought of as psychologically limited, fearing isolation and instability, and being drawn to the safe and familiar.
• The conservative view of human nature is that humankind is innately selfish and greedy; the desire for 'power after power' is the primary human urge, according to hobbes.
• Conservatives emphasise the importance of social order, being suspicious of the attractions of liberty.
• While other political philosophies trace the origins of immoral behaviour to society, conservatives believe it is rooted in the individual - human beings are morally imperfect.
• Crime is not a product of inequality or social disadvantage, as socialists or modern liberals tend to believe, but a consequence of base human instincts.
• The only effective deterrent for expressing the violent and anti-social impulses of humans is law, backed up by the knowledge that it will be strictly enforced.
• The concepts of 'law' and 'order' are very closely related in conservatism.
• Conservatives view society as an organism, a single living entity with an existence outside of the individual and is, in a sense, prior to the individual; it is held together by the bonds of tradition, authority and common morality.
• Unlike a machine, this organism is not only made up of individual parts but is sustained by the relationships within these parts.
• Neoliberals subscribe to a form of liberal atomism.
• The conservative belief that humans are dependent and security-seeking implies that they desperately need to belong to a society and have 'roots'.
• Social conservatism is the belief that society is fashioned out of a fragile network of relationships which need to be upheld through duty, traditional values and established institutions.
• Edmunde Burke argued that 'a state without the means of change is without the means of its conservation'.
• Michael Oakeshott argued that conservatism is 'to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried'.
• Conservatives support evolutionary change in society as an organism that changes and evolves gradually over time in order to meet the needs of its members.
• A cohesive society requires a degree of hierarchy and a sense of deference towards authority figures.
• Genuine social equality is a myth - there is a natural inequality of wealth and social position, justified by a corresponding inequality of social responsibilities.
• The New Right has held that society is a product of the actions of self-seeking and largely self-reliant individuals.
• Margaret Thatcher expressed the New Right view that society is made up os self-reliant individuals when she said 'there is no such thing as society; there are individual men and women and there are families'.
• From a conservative viewpoint, the 'social contract' is quite temporal and differs from the past, present and future.
• Burke claimed that society needs to reflect the past, consider the present and meet the needs of future generations.
• One of the fundamental flaws with the French Revolution, according to Burke, is that it completely ignored the past.
• Traditional conservatives do not accept the liberal belief that authority arises out of contracts made by free individuals, instead, they believe that authority, like society, develops naturally.
• Authority arises 'from above', as in a parent recognising the need to tell their child what to do, and not 'from below'.
• Authority is rooted in the nature of society and all social institutions.
• Conservatives have placed a special emphasis on the capacity of government and the state to provide society with leadership, which has the capacity to give direction to others.
• Traditional conservatives have often seen leadership in personal terms, viewing political judgement as either natural gifts or products of privileged circumstances.
• Thinkers such as Burke embraced the idea of a 'natural aristocracy', the idea that talent and leadership are innate qualities that cannot be attained through effort or self-advancement.
• The stress on the need for leadership has created a pro-state tendency within conservative ideology.
• Conservative fears of an 'over-government' or nanny state are substantially strengthened by the rise of the New Right, which is characterised by a strong antipathy towards government intervention.
• There are two basic positions taken on the economy within conservative ideology: traditionalist and paternalist, both of which are based on a defence of private property.
• Traditional conservatives link property to advantages such as security and a sense of assurance.
• Traditional conservatives believe that having a 'stake' in society through property gives individuals incentive to maintain law and order.
• Traditional conservatives have used arguments about security and law and order in support of a paternalistic approach to economic matters, insisting that all rights entail obligations.
• Liberals believe that property rights are unconstrained by obligations or wider social responsibilities, as those who work hard and possess talent will, and should, acquire wealth.
• Liberals argue that property reflects merit, and that those who work hard and possess talent will, and should, acquire wealth.
• The liberal stance on the economy is often seen as incompatible with any system of welfare or redistribution.
• Conservatism is defined as a political ideology, characterized by the desire to conserve, reflected in a resistance to, or at least a suspicion of, change.