Conservatism

by Jerry Z. Muller (Editor)

“A richly diverse, intelligently designed, and helpfully annotated introduction to the world of conservative theory. No comparable collection that I know of is as broad and unparochial as this one.” — Thomas Pangle, University of Toronto

At a time when the label “conservative” is indiscriminately applied to fundamentalists, populists, libertarians, fascists, and the advocates of one or another orthodoxy, this volume offers a nuanced and historically informed presentation of what is distinctive about conservative social and political thought. It is an anthology with an argument, locating the origins of modern conservatism within the Enlightenment and distinguishing between conservatism and orthodoxy.

Bringing together important specimens of European and American conservative social and political analysis from the mid-eighteenth century through our own day, Conservatism demonstrates that while the particular institutions that conservatives have sought to conserve have varied, there are characteristic features of conservative argument that recur over time and across national borders.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, History, Nonfiction, Social Science, Government, Political Science

472 pages, Paperback

First published April 14, 1997

About the author

Jerry Z. Muller is professor of history at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great read. Conservatism as a monolithich ideology is hard to define because what is being conserved is always changing: monarchy, moral systems, aristocracies, the American Constitution, etc. But the editor argues that there are underlying conservative principles that do not change, and he demonstrates this through a selection of conservative authors dating from before the French Revolution to the current day.

A few conservative ideas that I found particularly fascinating. First, conservative thought is centered around epistemological modesty. That's kind of a mouthful, but it basically means that it acknowledges limits to human reason. Sure, in theory an idea might sound good, but you don't know what will happen when you implement it. There will be unintended consequences. Hand in hand comes latent functions. Conservatives acknowledge that some institutions (recently, the Electoral College comes to mind) that seem clunky or outdated. But some of their purposes may not seem immediately apparent in their design, or weren't intended by the founders (I think of how the Electoral College preserves a two-party system).

I liked the editor's summary at the end of the conservative dilemma:

"Because the articulate defense of existing institutions usually comes about only when their stability has been challenged, and given the tendency of conservatives to identify the decline of existing institutions with the decline of institutions as such, conservatism sometimes appears as a defense of lost causes, or a fighting retreat from one institutional outpost to another."

[Jan Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just watched an annual "Supreme Court Review" put on by the ADL via Zoom in which one illustrious panelist characterized this past year as the most conservative for the Court since 1931. So about time to review this book that I finished almost a year ago. But, it was hard to get through. And the idea of reviewing it has been daunting.

The book consists of excerpts from the works of various conservatives over the years chosen to illustrate the editor/author's introductory material.

I read it because I like Jerry Muller's work, especially The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought and Capitalism and the Jews, and also because Jonathan Haidt wrote in The Righteous Mind that it was life changing for him. I didn't find it life changing, although I did learn a lot and will be holding on to it as a reference book. I quit in the middle to read a book that was more exciting to me and required self discipline to return to it and complete it.

Before beginning Conservatism, I started The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot by Russell Kirk. I had both the audio version and the book and was ready to listen and follow along in the book, but I couldn't get beyond the author's apparent proselytizing. I thought he wanted to convince or convert more than teach; eventually I'd had more than I could take.

Kirk's book is widely read and celebrated. Muller's has gone out of print. (At least there is an e-book.)

Particularly memorable was Muller's explanation of the difference between conservatism and radical conservatism. Conservatives consider institutions to have valuable aspects and want to save -- conserve -- them. Radical conservatives see those institutions as so corrupt or sick that they want to ditch them and start over. A third group or type wants to bring back superannuated (obsolete) institutions; those are the reactionaries or, sometimes, nutcases.

As I reflect on the book and how I might review it, it seems to me that conservative arguments tend toward the ad hoc, that is, designed in the moment to counter the left-leaning arguments of the day.

By the way, I read somewhere that "Left" and "Right" came from the sides of the edifice in which the National Assembly was debating the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

Well, it's probably the case that things are taken for granted until challenged, and then someone has to put into words a defense of the way things are.

Some typical aspects of that defense is that institutions have arisen over the years to meet important human needs, and even if we don't know exactly why/how they work, we should avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Similarly, custom and even "prejudice" (Burke's term) have arisen for good reason: as proven guides. Habits and institutions arise, not for human "rights," but because they work in important and valuable ways. Conservatives say that track record must be included in any equation.

Here's one aspect that sounds ad hoc: because "the social contract" was part of emerging theories, conservatism espoused anti-contractualism. Everything can't suddenly become voluntary and contractual, since established duties toward authority and governments can't be thrown out willy-nilly.

By the way, men's -- we'd now at least say people's -- passions require guidance. That's part of the function of institutions, habits, and customs.

Nowadays we tend to associate religion with conservatism. But actually conservatives writing over the last three or four centuries have considered religion in its utilitarian sense, meaning what it as an institution does for society, not what one must believe.

Nor is religious belief identified with being a conservative as we might think today. In fact, one of the roles of conservatism is to control excessive religious enthusiasm, should it arise.

Conservatism has been hostile to abstract "theory," that is, new and untested sociopolitical models. Conservatives aren't against the use of knowledge per se but rather the disregard for functional institutions and their evolved complexity. It is from that perspective that conservatives might consider the proponents of such untested models to be "radicals."

Conservatism has traditionally been anti-humanitarian, what with with humanitarianism involving the demand for human rights inimical to institutions on which human flourishing depends.

And that is an example of where conservatism seems to be fighting a losing battle -- when it positions itself with aims that seem dated and outmoded.

For example, in another book, Constantine's Sword, James Carroll, in his theological training for the priesthood, had to swear an oath against "Americanism" and take a stand against "modernism." Similarly, Rebecca Goldstein wrote in Betraying Spinoza that her very conservative Jewish secondary school required her to be educated against "modernity." More currently, the late great Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks of Great Britain pointed out not only Kierkegaard and Nietzsche but also Bob Dylan and John Lennon for the world's troubles.

But that may be inherent in these types of debates in which all parties (both sides) are desperate to establish their own brands and, in the words of Aaron David Miller, leave the dead cat at the door of the other side.

Jonathan Sacks had useful and positive things to say, too, and maybe that's the point: in their efforts to establish their own brand, political writers of whichever flavor tend toward polarization. But life is in the middle.

To get back on track, a quote about the difficulties of defining conservatism:

It is difficult to arrive at meaningful generalizations about the specific policies favored by conservatives. ... ...(C)onservatism tends to be more nationally particular than liberalism or socialism, which aspire to be universal in their reach. And because conservative thought often arises as a response to attacks on existing institutions and practices, the conservative reply is determined in good part by the specific nature of those attacks, which vary across time and space. Moreover, since conservatism emphasizes the need for institutional and symbolic continuity with the particular past, its symbols and institutional ideals tend to be more tied to specific, usually national contexts.

Thus, Muller looks at the "the constellation of recurrent assumptions, themes, and images" instead of particular institutions and the like, but avoids the overly broad brush of looking at conservatism as psychological traditionalism. Conservatism is rooted in history and needs to be looked at in context; hence the value of this book for reference, even if I accelerated too fast through the excerpts he uses as examples.

Conservatism is for me best seen as part of the wide swath of civil dialogue. We need it to get the whole picture. We need it to constrain excessive enthusiasm for replacing past social habits and patterns with their reverse. Here one of my mother's favorite maxims applies: two wrongs don't make a right. Sometimes we need to slow down and think: look before you leap.

We need all voices to be heard, and no one should be shut up.
We need to reweave the social fabric.

Don't forget the big reversal that occurred toward the end of the nineteenth century with the advent of socialism, cultural permissiveness, and economic redistributionism. Now conservatism began to value the patterns and institutions of market capitalism that had when they emerged constituted liberalism.

Not only can things change, they can flip.

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent time with this and took lots of notes. I enjoyed systematizing my understanding of political conservatism; learning where I agree and don't with it. Also to what extent the modern Republican party adheres to its intellectual underpinnings.

I am a person who wants to be an independent thinker. Am I? Well that's not for me to judge. As part of that identity I'm not interested in being part of a political party that dictates to me what I should believe, especially in the modern age of strong political orthodoxy culture.

But understanding the theories and thoughts behind beliefs? Yes please! This anthology was great because the editor gave historical context before each one. Those were frankly more valuable to me than the essays themselves. Otherwise how would I know that the author is responding to a contemporary critic from the 19th century? My historical knowledge is not nearly that deep.

Loved this read and may buy it for reference.

[S.M.Y Kayseri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a stellar anthology on the keyworks expounding on the political doctrine of Conservatism. It manages to outline the complex breadth and depth of Conservatism without reducing it to mere caricatures and polemics. From Hume down to Schumpeter, this anthology is a must read for everyone who wishes to understand one of the persistent themes in ideological war.

Conservatism, despite the name that insinuates rigidity and backwardness, is in reality one of the more effervescent of political ideas. Conservatism implies to conserve something that is already is, and something that is already is a constant factor that nevertheless evolves over time. The defense of an institution does not mean championing its monolith, but rather making more space for eventual expansion. Conservatism thus, in a glance, occupies many different positions and ideologies, depending on the country, simply because conservatism is a positional ideology rather than a catch-all view of governance. This is crystallized, in a phrase, by the words of Keynes, “When the data changes, so does my opinion. How about you (gentlemen)?”.

It is a positional ideology that follows closely to the Land, a society that has experienced specific episodes of history compared to the free-floating and blatant rationalism of Liberalism. Conservatism insisted that a universalistic notion driven by rationalism would overestimate the benefit of revolutions while at the same time underestimate its consequences- as shown by the French Revolution. It is the voice of reform, the Conservatives, believes through peaceful revolutions (such as the Magna Carta and to a certain extent, the Glorious Revolution) that insists on the prevailing concord between the ruler and the ruled, or through the more violent American Revolution- which, in essence, is a positional and specific response of the Americans defending their colonial freedom. Nowhere the Conservatives believed in constant revolutions everytime the society experienced a mental change or trauma, but seek for a stable government that allows the nursing of such traumatic experience.

Conservatism also, due to its suspicions towards rationalism (Burke wrote that “their abstract perfection is their practical defect), does not waste its time in weighing political events with the scale of good vs. evil. For the Liberals, there is indeed a boogeyman that stands as a force of evil that constrains and sucks on the blood of the people, for the Conservatives, there is only maladaption that requires reform. It is not within the limited wisdom of men to enforce its own privations of good versus evil to the ruled, there is no solution to the dreamt battle against evil, there is only trade-offs and reforms responding to specific situations. What is politically right is then not necessarily the Good (because what is good as conceived by a person, is not necessarily Good to all, and it is a rat-chase to discover such a priori truth in a complex society), but it is Utility. In Utility there resides Good (albeit not in its definitional form), while Good not necessarily resides in Consequentialism of the Liberals.

Thus, the essence of conservative thoughts would be of historical utilitarianism. It is specific to the Land it prospers, and it champions constant reform rather than free-floating radical positivistic measures. That is why the conservatism of America would be different in its specific policies and standing in comparison to the conservatism of Malaysia, but nevertheless they share the thoughts of stability.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great non-biased overview of the history of conservatism. Think 18th Century liberalism and not the modern day 'conservative' party.

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a white man entering a higher tax bracket, my eventual heel turn towards conservatism seems inevitable, so I thought I ought to learn something about my new ideology.

Jerry Z. Muller’s “Conservatism: An Anthology of Social and Political Thought from David Hume to the Present” is well described by its title. Muller compiles chapters quoted from prominent conservative writers, and provides context and continuity with his own introductions to each text. Obviously, a tidy, monolithic definition of any political ideology is impossible, but there’s some clear underlying principles worth tracing. Coming from an overwhelmingly progressive environment, this is far better equipped to help me “see from a different perspective” than any writing focused on the present day (where our views tend to be far more entrenched).

The mapping from the abstract ideology outlined here to the actual modern American political movement that bears its name is often tenuous (modern Democrats do plenty of things that would be deemed “conservative” under the framework of this anthology). But this isn’t trying to be a work of political persuasion, and overall, I thought it was quite effective & enjoyable (I skipped some boring suctions, but that’s the nice part of an anthology). Three quibbles spring to mind.

First, I’m occasionally skeptical of Muller’s eagerness to justify adherence to tradition in consequentialist terms. It’s not that I think it’s a bad argument, I’m plenty sympathetic, I’m just dubious that it is the genuine motivation for these writers. Sometimes it’s simply not the argument they cite (i.e. when they praise tradition on its own merits, not because of concerns of epistemic humility or any modern argument like that), or even when they do feint towards that consequentialist framework, it can sometimes feel like they start from the point of loving tradition, and backfill the arguments necessary to justify it.

Second, I’d love to read some more writing on the extreme cases: when could revolution/sweeping radical change be justified? Like, I know arguing against that is the typical conservative schtick, but most people aren’t extremists, and ideology has its limits. When Rufus Choate writes about how “such and such institution has preserved for a long time, so it have merit, even if we don’t perceive it”, I’m quite sympathetic (I’m sure that’s a personal bias of mine, we all like to think we know better). But then he uses that to claim that while we might perhaps need reform of the “individual”, we would never need to reform the American political system (with its rock solid foundations), at a time when slavery was still legal, and we were decades from it tearing apart the country with civil war. What’s the limiting case?

Third, the endless debates on “human nature” soon become numbingly repetitive. At a certain point, you’ve just gotta stop yapping and make some empirical, well-defined claims, and articulate some observable stakes to the disagreement (I mean this for both sides!). I can confidently say I know nothing more about human nature than when I began the book (and for once, I think that’s on the writers, not me).

[Karen Hough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an easy book, but very worthwhile. Covers the historical roots of conservative ideology. Early writers are difficult reading. More current writers are easier. The author’s introductions to each selection are a well written and an important part of placing the writers and their writings in context. Worth the time if you are interested in the roots of our current political divide.

[Philip Bunn]

I’m not persuaded to draw as hard of a line between “conservatism” and “orthodoxy” as Muller has here, but I’m looking forward to teaching this anthology in my conservative political thought class!

[Hek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic introduction to theories of what Conservatism is. Much food for thought.

[David Freudenburg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read only the Introduction. It was very academic, but very helpful. Although a hallmark of conservatism is to preserve institutions, I didn't see any readings about slavery.

[Andy C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Mr. Muller, this was a great book.