Political arguments invite insults. But not all insults are equally learned and deserved. Take the word "conservative", which is regularly spat out by pundits and punters alike.
Conservatives, we learn, are dim, vulgar, vain and greedy. To be a conservative is necessarily to be a prosperous torturer of the poor, a crude provincial racist, or the like. No doubt privileged abusers and smug xenophobes exist; no doubt some are elected to parliament or work in universities. No doubt there are genuine conflicts of value, which rightly provoke passionate debate: how to best help (rather than punish or exploit) asylum seekers, for example. But that some conservatives are apologists for poverty or bigotry, or believe shocking things to be true, does not make the category itself a slur.
Take the arguments of Michael Oakeshott, one of the 20th century's most prominent conservative thinkers. In Rationalism in Politics, the English philosopher argued against the reduction of political and ethical life to technical expertise. His point was not that such specialised knowledge was bunkum, but that it simply did not apply everywhere. Technique can be written down and taught; can be turned into rules and maxims. However, much of civilisation is actually what Oakeshott called 'practical knowledge', which can only be learned by doing.
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This does not make it mysterious or esoteric. It is the kind of knowledge familiar to doctors, carpenters and artists alike. It is cultivated in habits, customs, traditions. But it cannot be turned into some universal law or official statement without losing much of its nuance and agility.
One reply to this conservatism is that all kinds of cruelties and illusions are hidden away in 'the old ways', which are then sanctified. For example, we accept that women cannot vote, or that indigenous land ownership is void, simply because of The Way Things Are. This is a genuine danger, and conservatism can easily turn into ideology. But so, as Oakeshott points out, can liberalism when it is 'living by the book'. Knowing the difference between just wisdom and malicious prejudice, and then knowing how to keep the first or reject the second, requires practical wisdom. Put another way: progressive politics, if successful, will involve some conservative know-how.
Another important thinker is Alasdair MacIntyre, whose After Virtue supports many conservative ideas, and remains central to modern ethical debate. MacIntyre argues that the modern ideal of the rationally calculating ethical individual is flawed. Not because we are naturally selfish animals (this criticism comes from elsewhere), but because the self is a social achievement. Character is cultivated with more or less autonomy, yes – but only within some context. 'I am born with a past,' writes MacIntyre, 'and to try to cut myself off from that past … is to deform my present relationships.'
MacIntyre argues that these contexts, and the people who strive within them, can be best understood as narratives. They are not atoms or instants – they are enacted, entangled stories. Laissez-faire policies that call for pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps, however stamped with a 'conservative' brand, are faulty from the start.
We might take issue with these concepts, but the basic point is obvious: they are carefully advanced and articulated, and deserve neither blithe rejection nor vitriolic ridicule. And, as MacIntyre himself points out, reasonable debate about ideas and values is part of any vibrant society. '[W]hen a tradition becomes Burkean,' he writes, referring to the divorce of context from criticism, 'it is always dying or dead.'
Put another way: insults can end political arguments, but never do away with the necessary conflict of social life. Better for thoughtful 'progressives' – another smear, by the way – to engage with thoughtful conservatives, and avoid slurs from the partisans of either clique.
Dr Damon Young is a (progressive) Melbourne philosopher and author. damonyoung.com.au
