Brits Stumbling Towards "National Conservatism"

ans everybody sneers

The Brits had a conference on National Conservatism recently and the experts agree that it was a bit of a shambles.

Lefty academic Kathleen Stock, who was canceled from the University of Sussex for TERFiness (she’s a lesbian), wonders “Can the NatCon Revolution Escape the Past?” It’s all about the confusion of ex-Thatcherites mixing it up with the new “Tory socialists” And the Tory socialists!

The bad news is they also want us to be heterosexual, married to the person we’re having sex with and avoiding contraception while we do it. Working motherhood, free childcare, and quickie divorces are out. Babies and the “normative family held together by marriage” are in.

Not good, if you are a TERFy lesbian, even if you have had to resign from the University of Sussex to stay one step ahead of the trans mob. Just to make sure, she notes that National Conservatism “starts with ‘National’ and ends with ‘-ism’” — nod nod, wink, wink, know what I mean.

Then there is Dr. David McGrogan, who asks in “The Besieged Right versus the Paramoid Left” to

be forgiven for wondering, from the rather hysterical media coverage of the ‘National Conservatism Conference UK 2023’, a) what all the fuss was about; b) what on earth ‘national conservatism’ is…

But, McGrogan’s interest is in what a national conservatism is supposed to be. He asks:

Is capitalism a good thing that increases prosperity and opportunity and means people need the state less since they can look after themselves? Or is it a dangerous thing that reduces us all to a swarm-like borg of alienated, atomised worker-cum-consumer drones lacking culture, family or community?

He thinks that national conservatism hasn’t really figured out what it wants to be.

Tom McTague agrees with McGrogan. So conservatism needs to get itself sorted out and decide: “does it trust the people or not?”

Easy for you to say, old chap. So let’s do an Ike and make the problem bigger. Let’s start with this. The National Conservatism organization is sponsored by The Edmund Burke Foundation, and the essence of Edmund Burke is his great line about human society.

A partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.

Note that Burke does not get into “justice” or “change” or politics. He is saying that human society is an ongoing project in which we the living are a fragile link between our ancestors and our future generations. And when he puts it that way he describes the situation of the living rather well. How do we live, how should we live, in order to honor the work and the sacrifices of our forebears and leave a flourishing world for our descendants?

Now the first thing we should understand is that we really don’t have a clue how to “honor the work and the sacrifices of our forebears and leave a flourishing world for our descendants.” Every religion, every culture, every society, every community is a deeply flawed effort to do it.

In fact, I would say that the only sure thing about this world is that anyone that says they have the answer is certainly and completely wrong.

Equality is not the answer.

Capitalism is not the answer.

Politics is not the answer.

Justice is not the answer.

Change is not the answer.

Government is not the answer.

Religion is not the answer.

Forty-two is not the answer.

The only thing for certain is that we do not know the answer.

But you try making any changes to the current society, its state, its law, its structure!

That’s why an operation like National Conservatism gets itself tangled in knots, and gets sneers from all the usual suspects. Everyone is all in favor of “change” except any change that might negatively affect their status and benefits.

So as soon as you suggest to lesbian academic Kathleen Stock, the daughter of academics, that maybe the future should be more heterosexual, more married, less contraception, less women in the workforce, etc., you get her back up. Of course you do.

I believe that our human society should have less politics, less force, less worker bees in big organizations, more person-to-person communication, more spending time helping others, less hierarchy, less “programs,” less activism, less canceling. And more people sitting down person-to-person to discuss their differences rather than blasting each other from the political hustings and through social media.

I also realize that nobody has a clue about how to get started. But I do believe this. The future will not be a Big Plan, or a New Religion, or a fundamental restructuring of capitalism.

No. I believe in little changes by little people trying to solve little problems and finding out that they have made the world just a little better. To me, that’s the way the world works.

After half a century of that, then maybe it will be a good time to have a National Conservatism conference, and say to the world: “wow, look what ordinary people can achieve if left in peace to get on with it.”

But I could be wrong.