Liberalism And Conservatism

[poliphilo]

David Mamet had a piece in the Village Voice the other day about how he's no longer a liberal. Only he didn't just say "liberal" he said "dead head liberal" or something equally colourful. it's sort of depressing- because predictable- how famous literary types cross the stage from left to right in the course of their careers. No-one ever makes the journey in the other direction, do they? 

Why does it happen? Is it because these guys become wise, or because they become old and rich? Mamet says his conversion grew out of the realisation that he doesn't want to change people any more. They are fine as they are. They all want money and advancement and security and stuff but- on the whole- within the structure of existing law- they rub along pretty well together and don't do one another much harm. This leads him to a neat definition of the difference between liberalism and conservatism. Liberals believe people can change for the better, conservatives believe they're pretty much stuck the way they are- and that's fine.

Mamet is a benign conservative. If he doesn't want to change the world, it's because he thinks it works pretty well the way it is. Others are despairing conservatives. My man Balzac for example: his people are awful, just awful- driven by greed, ambition, lust,  revenge. If he supports the political status quo- as he does, even though it disgusts him- it's because it puts some sort of restraint on all these utterly selfish egos. 

This is where he differs most radically from Dickens. Dickens is a liberal. For him human nature is fundamentally good and his plots habitually hang on the possibility that the wicked man may turn from his wickedness and live. Institutions, for him, are corrupt and corrupting. Do away with the workhouse, the Court of Chancery, a Utilitarian system of education- and things will improve. Balzac disagrees profoundly. Do away with the straitjacket of institutions and the madmen run wild.

When Dickens writes a fairy story, he writes A Christmas Carol- in which a miserly old man is changed overnight into a cheery philanthropist. Balzac has his misers too- and they all of them die stretched out upon their moneybags. No-one, in Balzac, so far as I can see, ever changes- except for the worse. When he writes a fairy story he writes Le Peau de Chagrin- in which an ambitious young man aquires a magic skin which shrinks every time he makes a self-serving wish- and when it finally shrinks to nothing, he dies.

Dickens was one of those few who, for all the despairing heaviness of his later life, never stopped being a liberal. I admire him for that. To be a liberal is to entertain hope. As you get older you see how history repeats itself and bad people triumph and good people let you down- and the conservative position becomes ever more and more attractive and harder to oppose. Better to stick with what we've got for fear of something worse. But where does a conservative turn to for hope? To religion or occultism or some weird, fetishistic worship of the state and its symbols- to that great foetid, glittery heap of  treasure and old bones.  

I'm sorry Mamet has gone over to the other side. I believe I undestand why he's done it and why it seems like the rational and grown-up thing to do. There's something childlike in the way liberalism is always grasping after some unreachable star.  It keeps failing. It gets shown to be foolish again and again and again. There's no dignity in it.

But then I don't greatly value my dignity.

Comments

[jenny_evergreen]

Thank you. I love this. Do you mind if I pass it on to a few people?

[wolfshift.livejournal.com]

because they become old and rich?

Probably. I don't know this Mamet person, but I'm pretty sure there's a correlation between conservatism and membership in a certain level of social class. (The other cause of conservatism is ignorance.)

I'm highly biased, of course, but I think of liberalism as optimistic, and conservatism as pessimistic, as you described above. Conservatives are also paranoid, closed-minded, fearful, fragile, weak, and desperately clinging to the familiar and to any scrap of power they manage to get hold of.

And, since much of my focus is on religion and spirituality, I think being conservative is an act of bad faith, even--or especially--when it's dressed up in religious clothing.

liberalism is always grasping after some unreachable star. It keeps failing. It gets shown to be foolish again and again and again.

Does it? I think that in the grand scheme of things, liberalism has accomplished an awful lot, and continues, like the slow and steady tortoise, to win out in the long run even when it appears that in the short term its efforts are being squashed by the mighty conservatives. Women's suffrage, minority rights, the many scientific achievements that came about because of the Enlightenment. Christianity started out as a radically liberal form of Judaism. Even conservatives are more liberal than they used to be, simply because society in general is more liberal than it used to be.

So I would say that while individual liberals may give in to the selfish temptations of conservatism, liberalism in general ultimately conquers.

[algabal.livejournal.com]

Very well-put. I am an old-style conservative, but agree with you that it ultimately comes down to your view of humanity and its limitations: are humans and society perfectable on earth or is only God perfect?

One thought: doesn't liberalism attempt to substitute its own quasi-religious institutions in place of religion and social tradition?

[bodhibird.livejournal.com]

I can't say why exactly, but this piece is a big help to my thinking about a lot of things. Your writing so often is. Thank you.

[margaretarts.livejournal.com]

Thanks, well said.

Just finished reading "The No-Nonsense Guide to World Poverty." The author says that the most poverty-stricken people don't want to be Bill Gates; they want to be *safe*. They want to be taken care of in their old age, surrounded by family. They want to be in a community where they are known and understood.

I wonder if this is also true of the bulk of us, whether liberal or conservative.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

doesn't liberalism attempt to substitute its own quasi-religious institutions in place of religion and social tradition?

Here in America, I"m inclined to agree wholeheatedly. the gods may be different between conservativsm and liberalism, but the methodology (and human failings) are exactly the same.

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

Wow! What a well-stated comment! I was going to comment on this, but you said everything I was going to say, only much better.

So, my comment is, "What he said!"

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

It's the quintessential question. Man as essentially good vs. man as inherently corrupt. Personally, I think either extreme is an immature perspective. The former puts too much faith in man, the latter too much in divinity.

I'm often struck by the general blindness of both self-proclaimed liberals and conservatives on this basic issue. Liberals often condemn conservatives for placing faith in religion and/or the state, two institutions that routinely if not consistently disappoint. Conservatives turn around and point to centuries of human history and our collective evil/destructiveness, and wonder where liberals get the idea that humans are instinctively ethical.

Human beings are inherently evil. And inherently good. We are forever subject to circumstance in this regard. The only constant in our behavior lies in its inconsistencies. I don't want to lose the sense of wonder I had as a child. But I don't mind shedding the ignorance of that age, either.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

The phrase that eludes you is "brain dead liberal."

I think with age comes a certain experience that says that, although man may be perfectable and humankind may be essentially good, there are significant number of folks who have not gotten there, and who crave power. There are two ways to protect the good from the power-hungry in society. One is to erect ever more complex systems of safeguards, protections, regulations.

The other is to keep the institutions of power small enough that they won't be an attractive nuisance. The smaller an engine of government available to a demagogue, the less of a threat to the body politic s/he will be.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Please do. I'd be honoured.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Mamet is an American playwright and film maker. His best known work is Glengarry Glenross.

Without liberals there'd be no progress at all. On the other hand a state of "permanent revolution" is unsustainable- see China in the later years of Mao Tse Tung.

And, yes, you're right- the individual liberal can make a difference. Dickens is a good example of a liberal artist who shook up consciences and affected social change across the board.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think institutions are, of their nature, conservative- even when they enshrine liberal principles.

Liberals and conservatives need one another. Without liberals society would stagnate. Without conservatives it would fly apart.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm very happy to be of use. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that's true.

On the other hand people are rarely content with their lot. They achieve that basic level of well-being, see there are still people above them, and hunger to move a step up.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Few people are wholly one thing or the other. Dick Cheyney is the conservative's conservative- but seems to be wholly accepting of his lesbian daughter.

The tension between liberal and conservative is creative. I don't think civil society is possible without a mixture of both.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"brain-dead"- that's the one!

I do admire the American constitution with all its in-built checks and balances. It's like the game of stone, scissors, paper. No-one ever has ultimate power.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs at work. I've some issues with his concept in that I don't think the lines between the states are as concrete as he does - and I also believe that once you get past the "staying alive" part (I see that as the bottom two pieces), the pieces can move up or down, but still it's a decent model.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

We had a similar thought - another LJ friend of mine was having issues with some war protesters in Canada, and made a comment that they weren't consistent in what they were saying, and immediately into my head popped:

"The only consistency about humans is their inconsistency."

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

I don't think civil society is possible without a mixture of both.

Or a civil individual, for that matter.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Right. We admired your system of government and then improved on it.

But we have one problem -- the thing has grown too damned big. It's possible for folks to dip their snouts in the trough and rake off unconscionable sums of money for themselves and their friends with hardly any accountability...and an ever-bloated bureaucracy creates nonproductive and non-accountable [union] jobs that will be held by an ever-expanding number of people who can be counted on to vote for candidates that will continue to expand the bureaucracy. The feeding trough just keeps getting biggier and messier. [sorry for multiple edits on this...]

I'm also deeply disturbed by the messianic fervor with which folks are supporting Barack Obama. When large numbers of them are chanting a full-throated chant, it's scary how much "Yes We Can" sounds like "Sieg Heil."

[margaretarts.livejournal.com]

True. Charles Pasternak said that what makes humans different from other creatures is their "propensity to quest," believing there's something better just beyond the next rise.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Which can lead to both creativity and discovery and also mindless social-climbing.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think Western democracy is going through a bad patch. Over here in Britain no-one (I exaggerate of course) turns up to vote any more and the membership of political parties just drops and drops. There is a widespread disenchantment with the political process and with politicians of every type. What comes next I shouldn't like to guess, but it could be something significantly nastier than what we have now.

[oakmouse]

Getting old and rich is definitely a factor.

I also know a number of people who were screaming liberals in their youth and who have toned down in middle age because they've internalized the fact that you can't force people to change. You can show them how to change and explain why it's a good idea, but you can't open minds by fiat. This has caused some of the liberals I know to give up on liberalism because they despair of it ever achieving anything, which is a pity; as someone else commented, it does create change over time. Others, however, have looked at the same issue and decided that the way to express their liberalism is to be the change they want to see in the world, to live their ideals and let those rub off (or not) on those around them.

Interestingly enough, both groups have given up on the political process.

[oakmouse]

I have a nasty sinking feeling that Nick Griffin may play a role in what comes next. Not that America has any cause to point fingers; we've got our own equivalents, and I'm thinking of rereading "It Can't Happen Here" to remind me that yes, it can and quite possibly will.