Roger Scruton is a political philosopher who continues a tradition of common law conservatism going back to Edmund Burke. His A Political Philosophy is a short sketch of that philosophy on various issues of the day - with the bioethical and social thought foregrounded and economic consequences a side effect. It is a book for mainline conservatives, old countryside Tories, a book where settled law and cultural convention carries weight.
It is also an environmentalist book. Scruton has recast the old arguments for conservatism in the language of twenty first century biology. Conservatism, here, is the process of preserving and enriching the social ecology; of defending it from entropy and death; from generation to generation. (more)
One of the results of an exception being created is that the politics become unitary. Essentially the politics around the exception or emergency become the executive and executive's alone. The health of liberal democracy is dependent upon political competition, discussion and deliberation. Removed of its liberal component democracy is reduced to the mechanical action of voting. (more)
The current conservative philosophy for governance is well described by Paul Kelly in a recent op-ed titled: At war over the law. This is the new brand of conservatism which is now competing with liberalism as the basis for governance. Forget left-right, that is gone as a binary distinction and the only use for it is to construct strawmen. Conservatism is based on executive dominance where the interests of the state trump individual rights. This is the opposite to republicanism and liberal democracy. (more)
Mark Richardson is a bit unique in the Australian blogsophere. One, he is a genuine conservative rather than a partisan conservative; two, he recognizes that left-right is meaningless since the collapse of marxism and that the new rival to liberalism is conservatism; and three, he is one of the few writers that is willing to engage the liberal blogs which includes progressives, liberals, republicans and libertarians, and question the basis of their political philosophy. This makes him much more interesting than the 'red meat' chucking that most blogs seem to do these days. (more)
One of the areas where conservatism suffers internal conflict is in collectivism. Because conservatism cannot describe human progress with breaking its own internal logic it turns to economic liberalism while trying to maintain conservative collectivism in culture, society, politics and nationalism. Consequently it breaks the liberty of collectivism in the economy but tries to promote or enforce it everywhere else. (more)
I know Avo is of the opinion that any op-ed which uses television to make a point turns the argument into farce; however, Albrechtson is arguing for a permanent state of exception and directly repudiating liberalism. (more)
I have been
a bit tough
on conservatism recently, I don't want that to be construed as conservatism being without value, which is untrue. Conservatism's 'steady as she goes' and empirical view of history are both good methods in determining the adoption of constitutional and statutory technologies. Neither of those are incompatible with republicanism, though republicanism does allow for the liberal rationalistic leap, the best example of this being the American Republic. As long as conservatism places its foundation as individual-centric it finds agreeance with Australian Republicanism. An example of this is the American Goldwater Conservatives.
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There are two possible dominant political entities in liberal democracy, the individual and the state. Progressivism, republicanism, liberalism and libertarianism see the individual as the dominant entity whereas conservatism and nationalism sees the state as the dominant entity. Most of history has been a struggle for the individual to rise to the position of political dominance, suffering all manner of arbitrary governance, from monarchy, to tyranny, and even colonialism. Liberal democracy is currently the best technology to represent the relationship between governed and governor, but may be replaced if a better technology to represent the individuals interests is found.
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There are two competing dominant political forms in liberal democracy, these are the individual and the state. Political philosophies can be divided along these lines. In Australian Republicanism, the individual is the dominant, indivisible and discrete political entity.
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OZ Conservative has a well written and interesting article on Michael Ignatieff. The differences between the liberal, nationalist and conservative views on citizenship are looked at in detail. (more)
