A cultural conservative sees him/herself as a component of church (spiritual), community, family and tradition. The connections reinforce the sense of the individual being rooted within the components of the culture. Conservatism can not exist without appreciation and knowledge of the past; and how it relates to the present.

Conservatism thrives in agricultural areas that are not subjected to social upheaval. In urban areas, it survives within stable enclaves. It can’t survive in an area of rapid influx/turnover of people, a barrage of new ideas or the embrace of “alternative” or “multiple” values. Like liberty and freedom; conservatism needs the stability of a core set of values, common to all the participants. Globalism, a military stationed all over the world, meddling in foreign countries’ affairs, and a centralized government are anathema to cultural conservatism.

Rush is a “political conservative” in the sense that he opposes the welfare state. However, he has embraced the warfare state. Rush and “Darth” Cheney are certainly appropriate poster boys for the current GOP! That’s the problem with the Republican party; it claims to be “conservative” but its track record is anything but culturally conservative!

There is not a single reference to Buddha, Buddhism, or Zen. In fact, I would agree with you. I assume you got to this article from Rod Dreher’s site which unfortunately labeled this the Zen of Conservatism, which is an unfortunate misnomer. If you’ve read the teachings of Lao Tzu of Chuang Tzu, you will find the concepts of spontaneous order, adaptation, inaction, stillness, minimalism, and conservation.

This is not Buddhist. Do not read it as Buddhist.

Michael Canfield

What is the conservative equivalent of surface tension?

Does conservatism expand and become rigid when cooled past a certain threshold?

Conversely, does conservatism become vaporous when heated beyond a particular point?

What is the behavior of conservatism under pressure? Can it be compressed?

I have more questions, but it’s Sunday, and there’s a parade in town today.

Most Americans think libertarianism is conservatism. It simply is not, though the two have had common ground in wanting to limit the activist state and opposing communism. Libertarians also used to argue that you need virtue to attain true freedom, but they’ve largely given up on that as libertarianism has come to serve most commonly as an ideology for the simple-minded and truculent.

You have a good point about conservatism. I’d hoped to avoid that kind of conservatism by redefining it. Instead of having it be “the art of life is conseratism” I’d hoped to talk merely about “the art of life.”

Take away the word “conservative” from the post and it should seem more sensible, I hope. I understand the rigidity of conservatism these days (as what you said) by what it does.

Regardless, the community as a body is beautiful and perhaps dangerous. Both Paul’s description of the Church and Hobbes’ Leviathon come to mind. We ought to be wary of how we define and use the word “organization.” It ought to be by no means a dead thing.

In any case, life is still the question at hand–why are there even politics if there are no living people? So, living and espousing conservatism as an answer and guide to help us live is by no means fiddling as Rome blazes. Unguided action is foolishness. If I may pick up the metaphor again: water extinguishes fire.

Stewart, I do find your description a little squishy – meaning that as an organizational scientist, I’m predisposed to be skeptical of a abstract framing that that evokes primarily an emotional response in describing a construct that has, and is intended to have far-reaching practical consequences. As I said, I’ve seen this from Liberals much more than from conservatives in the past. I’ve also seen it in organizations. Pharmaceutical companies, for example, spend a good deal of time at corporate retreats talking about how their purpose and mission is to serve humanity by eradicating disease and transforming lives for the better, while the realities of making money drive them to shape or distort research results, cover up adverse or deadly effects of their products, coopt regulators, bribe doctors and misinform consumers. Which is not to say that all pharmaceutical companies do this or that any do it all the time, but certainly, in some cases the disconnect between their high-flown retreat rhetoric and their actions is stunning.

I would argue that conservatism is presently at such a point. There is no question that an idealistic, morally-sound, even exhilarating case can be made for conservatism. But there’s also no question that the actions that have been and continue to be taken in the name of conservatism in recent years bear little relationship to that case. Just as the pharmaceutical company ultimately has to answer for its actions and not its ideals, conservatism has to answer for the things done in its name. It’s no good saying, as Rachel does, that it’s inaccurate to equate Republicans and Conservatives. Almost all elected Republicans say vehemently that they are conservatives, and they are the ones supposedly acting on conservative principles. I’m sure we can all put together a long list of things done in the name of conservatism that are at odds with our conception of it. But that doesn’t change the fact that whatever we may say in retreat-like settings such as Stewart’s blog, conservatism is as conservatism does.

My comment that conservatism is necessarily self-serving is inaccurate, although that is, I believe, George Lakoff’s conclusion. The retreat version of conservatism is, I agree, misrepresented by saying it’s self-serving. The action version less so, I think. Actions have tended to preserve power and wealth, and have in my view done great injustice to the values. But as I said, conservatism is as conservatism does.

My reference to Limbaugh is unfair, and I apologize, Stewart. It was a visceral response to the feeling that Conservatism is the Art of Living evokes in me that we are fiddling while the city burns.

No mere reactionary Luddite here because it FLOWS. I’ll take a spot on the beach, at the foot of a mountain because its scenic.

I don’t think we disagree, but when you say “conservatism” you mean “rigid traditionalism that prevents change at the expense of the community.” I dislike that “conservatism” too! I criticize the same unmoving conservatism of which you speak. But a dogmatic liberalism is little better. If you are looking for something other than an unevolving conservatism, that is what I’ve offered.

Water is no bad metaphor. Evolution adapts, but is inherently conservative. It always moves towards better adapting to its environment, but resists unseemly change. For example, conservatism resists radical change pragmatically: we have evolved to this point and know how things work now. Second-guessing thousands of years of human evolution should be a gradual process.

You are right that Limbaugh’s sort of conservatism is individualistic and shows little care for the community. Better adapting to help humanity is not that rigid conservatism or an abstract liberalism.

What I spoke of is clearly not what you mean when you say “conservatism.” How does water resist change? That’s the entire point–it doesn’t. The art of living evolves naturally and changes to best fit the needs of its environment.

Did you read my post?

Conservatism is like water? When an analogy gets so extended it loses any real relevance other than to serve as a canvas for the writer’s own prejudices.

In Lakoff’s terms, Conservatism is ultimately about self-serving stasis. Liberalism is about community-serving change. Both can try to place a dewey-eyed sentimental veneer on their positions (although until now, Liberals have tended to do it more than Conservatives.) And doing so is probably good politics, which is why Limbaugh and others engage in it. The disturbing possibility is that those that do this are deluding themselves too.

I would say both are only possible with each other. But I do agree that good is and therefore innocence is good.

“Beauty radiantly manifests the good, because the experience of beauty is the experience of simply desiring that something continue to exist as what it is independently of the question of my own existence.”

I think I would agree with this, which is why I don’t think Beauty is the real point of art. I think it is holding open a world, a perpetual invitation. If existence is a gift and the proper return-gift is graciousness (according to Louis-Marie Chauvet’s wonderful Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence), then this provides an entirely different basis for ethics: gratitude. “Rights” are the commoditized version of gifts. We are owed nothing, but to someone’s graciousness we say “Gimme!” and have turned gifts into entitlements.

Authentic art itself is a gift (according to Lewis Hyde’s The Gift, always inviting the subject to complete its world and question his own existence. Art as mere imitation or re-presentation (as Plato saw it) really has died (as Hegel predicted) but it has opened up the question once more of the ontological bearing of art.

“On the separation of the “physical” and “spiritual” there is too much to say. I think it is a near-total misconception, to which the older (especially Aristotelian) philosophical tradition was not prone.”

I’m glad someone else thinks this too. I am most uncomfortable with the separation of body and soul which tends towards a sort of Gnosticism–self-indulgent or the opposite, self-denying. We are not embodied souls. No, the body operates in a “liminal position” (Chauvet) and is always meant to be. The incarnation of Christ is the affirmation of God and man. A proper anthropology or theology will not begin with one or the other, but with both–what Karl Barth calls “theanthropology” in The Humanity of God. The God-man is the center of proper theology and anthropology, affirming eternity and time, body and spirit. This is where I agree most strongly with T.S. Eliot’s quasi-Buddhist “Only through time time is conquered.” Buddhism, with its attempt to escape Becoming, tries to rid itself of the world of Time and attain to perfect Being. Much of the desperate attempt to “escape” the world of incompletion is seen in Plato and Aristotle’s writings–their discomfort with the indefinite (“infinite”) state of Becoming. I recommend Ananda Coomaraswamy on the intimate Platonic-Buddhist relationship here. But teleology tends only to affirm something once it is dead–like a happy life for Aristotle. It can only be called happy once it is dead and turned into an object. Once something has fulfilled its telos, it disappears. Only as entelechy can something be affirmed as somewhat good–but this is the unending process of Becoming. We never attain to Being in this life.