Back to Basics #16 ("Unless It's Necessary to Change, It's Necessary Not to Change" ["If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It."])

         Writing in 1946, in his introduction to a reissue of his great anti-utopia, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley complained, "For the last thirty years there have been no conservatives; there have only been nationalistic radicals of the right and nationalistic radicals of the left."  And Huxley supplies us the name of the "last conservative statesman," and the World War I situation in which his recommendation for a pragmatic resolution of the Great War was quietly silenced by the London Times. 

         Those who know the fine points of 20^th-century history can object that Huxley counted out too early internationalist radicals of the Left and Right — e.g., Trotskyites and some nonChinese Maoists, reactionaries of a religious bent; but his basic point is right: at least in the US of A, one of our central problems is a dearth of traditional conservatives.

         If that line sounds strange, it may be because our lack of traditional conservatives is so great that most people have forgotten what they are.

         So back to basics (again).

         Traditional conservatives believe in the continuity of generations: that each generation is connected to and has obligations to their ancestors and their descendants. If traditional conservatives use figurative language and images to talk and think about nature and society, they tend to avoid mechanical images and think in terms of organism; on some level, traditional conservatives tend to believe with mystics and ecologists that "Everything is connected to everything else," and "You can't change only one thing." Hence, traditional conservatives tend to be cautious and, well, conservative and have as a radically basic tenet, "Unless it's necessary to change, it's necessary not to change": don't mess with things unless you really, really have to, or — more pungently, but less exactly, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

         The "broke/fix" line is probably the best known in the US, but there are at least two problems with it, instructive problems.

         People need continuity in our lives; that's a major reason why "Unless it's necessary to change, it's necessary not to change." But we also need variety, and sometimes it's necessary to make some changes just because we're bored.

         Indeed, one of the objections to seeing New Stone Age village life as idyllic is that a fair number of Neolithic folk went over to newfangled urban living as soon as the Bronze Age brought in cities. One possible explanation is that Neolithic village life was indeed pretty idyllic — and, for some, bloody, maddeningly boring.

         I won't press that point, but sometimes it is just a good idea, and a psychological necessity, to shake things up a bit.

         Also, stasis tends to favor old people vs. the young. We old farts have the old ways down pretty pat, and the youngsters are at a disadvantage. In aneconomically ageist society such as the contemporary US — where young people are systematically screwed, there's much to be said for changes that always, in themselves, as just changes, give some help to the young.

         Still, (1) continuity is crucial; (2) most ideas are bad ideas, and we should favor ways of doing things that have survived the clichéd test of time — and (3) we should keep in mind that all changes one generation makes are risks to other generations, who lack a say.

         So traditional conservatives have been leery of change, which makes us —I move here to the first-person plural — which makes us traditional sorts suspicious of capitalism, which if not "the greatest generator of change" is at least a generator of many changes. 

         Conservatives are skeptical of the "New! Improved!!" sales pitch of much of capitalist advertising and disagree radically with the proposition "Change is good." No, change is problematic, all changes, every time, and change should be viewed with suspicion.

         Change should be undertaken only if necessary, and we see what's "necessary" as conditioned by the values of our (plural) traditions.

         All this puts traditional conservatives in a strange position in the US, and often puts us on the Left.

         What are traditional American values? Judeo-Christian values? More general ethical values?

         Applying the organic thinking traditional conservatives like, a modern educated conservative can say the US started as a republic and has evolved with fits and starts toward a republic with democratic aspirations.

         Like all other religious folk, religious traditional conservatives can pick and choose from their rich, evolving traditions and stress the Prophetic injunctions for social justice, the valuing of each human individual, and the requirement for individuals to respect the rights of others and of the society into which we are born.

         And let me make explicit a point embedded in my last sentence: traditional conservatives do believe in society, which places way outside the tradition anyone who truly believes, without modification, "there is no such thing as society."

         However we define "liberal" and "conservative" (and "libertarian" as well), both tendencies are necessary for healthy political life — though we'd do well for the next generation or so to stop using the words "liberal" and "conservative" (and maybe "libertarian").

         Aldous Huxley wrote the great anti-utopia Brave New World (1931/32): not just an ambiguous dystopia showing a "bad place" (dys-topia) but also an attack on the whole idea of establishing a utopia (eu-topia 'a/the good place'). Years later, Huxley published Island (1962), an unapologetic utopia. Both views are necessary to think about politics and to act to preserve and renew society.

                As in Huxley's day, what we need now are far fewer laissez-faire Victorian Utilitarian Radicals passing themselves off as conservatives and a whole lot more real conservatives.