My feeling is that conservatism does not try to divide people by identity groups, but allows people to associate freely. However, it is based on certain concepts of rights, duties, and responsibility that are closely related to, and perhaps drawn from, Christian concepts like the golden rule, the creative nature of mankind, free will, unchanging God-given laws such as the Ten Commandments, and human equality in the eyes of God and the law.

Friedrich Hayek was founder and president of the Mont Pelerin Society, and accounts differ on whether Kirk challenged him to a debate at his own society, or whether Kirk was invited as a respondent, since the essay was obviously a response to “The Conservative Mind”, Kirk’s world-grabbing book from 1953. They were probably on friendly terms (although I have seen one claim to the contrary), but in their writings they sparred quite a bit. In the large scheme of things, I would say they were in-house squabbles.

What prompted what I wrote (and sure enough, my memory was a little exaggerated) is the quote from Henry Regnery, who was there. According to Regnery, Kirk won the day:

Hayek is the founder of the society, and was still its president when he gave his paper “Why I am Not a Conservative,” at the 1957 meeting. Although neither The Conservative Mind nor Russell Kirk was specifically mentioned in the paper, it was obviously inspired by the success of Kirk’s book and the influential position the ideas it set forth had attained. This is attested to by the fact that Kirk was invited to defend his position immediately afterward, which he did extemporaneously, without notes of any kind, and with great brilliance and effect. The encounter in an elegant Swiss hotel before a distinguished international audience between one of the most respected economists of the time, who had been honored by professorships at the universities of Vienna, London, and Chicago, and the young writer from Mecosta, Michigan, was a dramatic and memorable occasion. As a rather biased witness, I would not be prepared to say that the young man from Mecosta came out second best.

I got the quote from here. The whole paper is interesting, although I don’t know enough about Bradley Birzer to say how trustworthy the whole account is.

So, FWIW.

I just found the Rand quote approps, given the “white guilt” prevalent this last election. I’m glad that she hit the ball out of the park at a time when literature was (and still is) the domain of Marxists, but her almost Nietzchian ideas concerning people and business don’t seem true to life, and really don’t sit well with me at all.

I see where you’re coming from much better now. And OK, many conservatives subscribe to that “gilded past” thing to a degree that’s unhealthy. I probably border on that. I am a Founding Fathers junkie, and the more I study modern politics the more I am convinced that they were absolutely genius. For 90% of what a body can think of, the answer “do it like the FF did” is the balls-on right answer.

But to your issue, I just would implore you to take Russell Kirk at his word. Principles 2,3,4, and 8 preach the old-school. Principles 5, 7,8, and 9 (5 being the current one) very strongly back the “leave the individual to his own” thing. 10 moderates somewhat the strong wording of 2,3, and 4.

In my humble opinion, it’s only when we take any of the ten principles in isolation that we get in trouble with imposing societal will on individuals. Taken as a body, I think Kirk’s 10 are a very, very nice balance.

My impression at the moment is that I ran across that somewhere in the Heritage.org libraries. But like I said I’ll try to dig up both that reference and the two lectures if possible.

Obviously Hayek was more an economist and Kirk was more a political theorist, although the overlap is great. I think in general they tracked broadly similarly – although a Hayek essay titled “Why I am not a Conservative” tends to suggest otherwise. Kirk’s strong attachment to the “socon” side of conservative put his cross-grained of a great many others, particularly the classical liberals. To my knowledge they were personally friendly.

I consider myself more of a libertarian-conservative, personally.

Nope! I’m a Christian myself (preacher’s kid), and I don’t necessarily see a conflict between common morality and individuality. I do see some problems with government enforcement of the same, but I value Christianity greatly and, on a personal level, my relationship with Jesus has made me more of an individual, not less.

No, I was referring more to the concept of permanence that conservatism in general is in favor of, i.e., this is what worked in the past/with X group of people, therefore, it will work for group Y, which assumes at the least that groups X and Y are fungible. In addition, many forms of conservatism preoccupy themselves with either reverting society to a heralded golden age, or with reinforcing cultural norms of the past where they don’t fit (ex: attempts to keep feudalism alive in Europe in the 1700s), which again assume that humans, or groups of humans, are fungible. Granted, US conservatism doesn’t suffer from this problem to the extent of other conservative groups around the world (mostly because what they seek to “conserve” is really quite radical and revolutionary), but it should still be noted that fungibility of humans, and at least groups, is part of conservatism (though certainly not to the degree that it is found in collectivist movements!).

If I get the story right, once upon a time (before he was deemed a demi-god) he followed a lecture by Freidrich Hayek with a lecture of his own that destroyed Hayek’s premise. He had a bitter running feud with Frank S Meyer.

Of course, 18th-century Whig-Tory differences did not really break cleanly on modern-day left-right lines as we now know them. In fact, it was often asked of Burke why, with his philosophy, he was not a Tory instead.

I agree that there’s a tension between Burke-Kirk conservatism and classical liberal-modern libertarianism, and that it falls on Kirk’s first principle (existence of a enduring moral order).

But I disagree profoundly that “Conservatism necessarily sees people as fungible, in that it by definition expects and wants people to conform to basic socially-prescribed standards as informed by custom and tradition”.

If I may say among friends, fungible my ass. I spent alot of this diary demonstrating quite the opposite. I’m just guessing here, but I suppose you, like most libertarians, conflate “enduring moral order”, with the requirement of conformity to Christian ideals on the part of citizens.

Conservatism is 100% about governance, and requires no particular behavior from citizens except the basic respect of the rights of others. If you replace “wants people to conform to” with “expects the government to respect” in the latter part of that statement, then you are very near the truth.

Its a shame we will never hear a President of the United States say, “The average progressive don’t take a dump with out a plan, son!”

Love ya!

Because, other than it’s been a long time between those and this one, it also gives you the chance to legitimately say Fred’s! name that many more times.

Far as I’m concerned, you could just put up a diary with” Fred Dalton Thompson” written 100 times. Meditating upon his name is much like meditating upon the essential truths of the political universe.

keep it up!

Of course I’m quite happy to admit that Fred Thompson was my first choice.