How to be a Conservative

How to be a Conservative Plot Summary

Introduction

Conservatism stands as a philosophical stance that emphasizes the value of preserving what is good in society while allowing for measured and organic change. It transcends mere political partisanship to offer a comprehensive way of viewing human affairs, societal structures, and the relationship between individuals and their communities. The conservative worldview recognizes that beneficial social institutions, cultural practices, and political arrangements emerge gradually through human experience rather than through abstract theories or revolutionary upheavals. At its core, conservative thought maintains that human societies possess inherited wisdom embodied in traditions, customs, and institutions that have evolved over generations. This perspective does not reject change but insists that transformations should respect the complex social fabric that binds communities together. By examining various ideological positions—nationalism, socialism, capitalism, liberalism, multiculturalism, environmentalism, and internationalism—and extracting the partial truths contained within each, a more complete and nuanced conservative vision emerges. This approach demonstrates that conservatism is not merely reactionary but incorporates valid insights from across the political spectrum while remaining grounded in an appreciation for the fragility of social bonds and the importance of preserving what works well in society.

Chapter 1: The Essence of Conservatism: Preserving What We Value

Conservatism begins with a sentiment that most mature people readily understand: good things are easily destroyed but not easily created. This applies especially to collective goods like peace, freedom, law, civility, and public spirit, which depend on cooperation but cannot be unilaterally established. The work of destroying these goods is quick and exhilarating; building them is slow, laborious, and often unglamorous. This fundamental insight explains why conservative arguments often appear less exciting than revolutionary proposals—their position may be true but boring, while their opponents' position is exciting but false. The conservative perspective recognizes that human beings are naturally home-building creatures who form attachments to places, traditions, and communities. These attachments are not arbitrary but constitute the foundation of our identity and social existence. Through our associations with others, we create realms of value that give meaning to our lives. The conservative seeks to protect these realms from both well-intentioned but destructive reforms and the erosive forces of unconstrained markets and bureaucratic control. Unlike abstract political theories that begin with idealized individuals making rational choices, conservatism starts with the reality of human beings as they actually exist—embedded in relationships, shaped by history, and motivated by complex desires beyond mere self-interest. It acknowledges that we are born into a world we did not make and inherit obligations we did not choose. Our freedom emerges not from the absence of constraints but from living within a moral framework that gives our choices meaning and consequence. Conservatism values local knowledge over abstract expertise, evolutionary change over revolutionary upheaval, and civil association over enterprise association. While enterprise associations form around specific goals, civil associations develop organically around shared understandings and ways of life. A conservative society leaves space for both but recognizes that meaningful human relationships cannot be reduced to instrumental collaborations aimed at predetermined outcomes. What distinguishes conservatism from mere nostalgia is its recognition that traditions must adapt to changing circumstances. The conservative does not wish to freeze society at some arbitrary point in the past but to ensure that necessary changes occur in ways that preserve essential continuities. This requires judgment—the ability to distinguish between innovations that enhance our inheritance and those that threaten to destroy it.

Chapter 2: The Political Landscape: Finding Truth in Competing Ideologies

Political philosophies often present themselves as comprehensive systems that explain all social phenomena through a single lens. Yet each ideology typically captures some aspect of social reality while distorting or neglecting others. A thoughtful conservative approach recognizes partial truths in competing perspectives while rejecting their tendency toward totalization. From nationalism, conservatives acknowledge the truth that political order requires pre-political bonds. Democratic compromise becomes possible only when citizens identify with each other through shared territory, language, customs, and historical experience. The nation provides a secular basis for political community that transcends religious and tribal divisions. However, this insight becomes dangerous when distorted into ethno-nationalism or when national identity becomes an object of worship rather than a framework for cooperation among different individuals and communities. From socialism, conservatives accept the reality of mutual dependence and the need to extend the benefits of social cooperation to those unable to secure them through individual effort. No society can flourish when significant portions of its population are excluded from its common goods. Yet socialism errs when it reduces complex social relations to economic transactions and when it assumes that central planning can replace the distributed knowledge embodied in traditions and markets. Capitalism contains the essential truth that private property and voluntary exchange are necessary for economic coordination in complex societies. Markets generate information about needs and resources that no central authority could possibly possess. However, markets themselves depend on moral norms they cannot produce, and left unconstrained, they can erode the very social bonds and cultural practices that make economic cooperation possible. Liberalism rightly emphasizes individual liberty and limited government, recognizing that human flourishing requires protection from arbitrary power. The rule of law, procedural justice, and basic rights form the essential framework for civil society. But liberalism becomes self-defeating when it treats all traditions as arbitrary constraints on individual choice, failing to recognize that meaningful freedom emerges within cultural contexts that give choices significance. Each partial truth requires qualification by others. Political wisdom consists not in exclusively embracing one perspective but in balancing competing insights within a coherent framework that acknowledges the complexity of social life. The conservative approach refuses both radical transformation and rigid preservation of every aspect of tradition, instead seeking to reform society in ways that maintain essential continuities while addressing genuine problems.

Chapter 3: National Identity: The Foundation of Political Order

National identity provides the foundation for stable democratic politics by creating a shared sense of belonging that transcends other divisions within society. Unlike religious or tribal identities, nationality is primarily territorial and civic rather than based on blood relationships or theological commitments. This distinction is crucial for understanding how modern democratic societies function and why attempts to bypass or transcend national attachments often fail. In nations with established democratic traditions, citizens view themselves as participants in an ongoing intergenerational project. They accept the legitimacy of laws and institutions not primarily because these serve their immediate interests but because they are expressions of a collective identity in which citizens have a stake. This makes possible the politics of compromise that democracy requires—we can accept decisions that go against our preferences when we recognize fellow citizens as legitimate participants in a shared political community. The territorial nature of national identity facilitates peaceful coexistence among people with different beliefs and backgrounds. By defining membership in terms of residence within borders rather than adherence to particular doctrines, national citizenship creates space for religious and cultural pluralism. Citizens can disagree about ultimate questions while cooperating on matters of common concern. This explains why secular nation-states have generally been more successful at accommodating diversity than polities organized around religious or ideological principles. National feeling provides the emotional foundation for democratic citizenship. Abstract commitments to universal principles rarely generate the mutual trust and willingness to sacrifice necessary for sustaining political communities through difficulties. National identity creates bonds of solidarity that motivate citizens to consider the welfare of strangers within their borders and to contribute to collective endeavors without calculating immediate personal benefits. The sense of shared fate that nationality engenders makes possible the social trust upon which democratic institutions depend. Critics often portray nationalism as inherently exclusionary or aggressive, but this conflates nationality with ethnocentrism or jingoism. Healthy national feeling involves love of one's own country without disparaging others. It recognizes that all nations have legitimate interests and distinctive contributions to make to human civilization. The conservative defense of nationality rejects both aggressive nationalism that seeks dominance over others and cosmopolitan ideals that neglect the importance of particular attachments.

Chapter 4: Civil Society: The Space Between Individual and State

Civil society consists of the network of voluntary associations, cultural institutions, and social practices that exist independently of both the market and the state. These intermediate structures—families, religious congregations, clubs, charities, professional associations, and local communities—provide contexts in which individuals develop capabilities and virtues necessary for both personal fulfillment and responsible citizenship. Their autonomy from central control allows them to serve as laboratories of social innovation and bulwarks against totalitarian tendencies. The institutions of civil society emerge organically from human interaction rather than being designed or imposed from above. They embody practical wisdom accumulated through generations of trial and error as people seek solutions to recurring problems of social coordination. Their value often lies precisely in aspects that cannot be readily explained in instrumental terms—rituals, traditions, and forms of mutual recognition that create bonds of trust and cooperation. These "purposeless" associations often prove more durable and satisfying than arrangements organized around explicit goals. A healthy civil society depends on both legal protection and cultural support. Laws must secure the right of association and protect institutions from arbitrary interference, but legal guarantees alone cannot sustain civil society if cultural attitudes undermine commitment to shared endeavors. The willingness to participate in common projects, to accept responsibilities within associations, and to honor obligations to others forms the essential cultural foundation for civil society's flourishing. The conservative emphasis on civil society contrasts with both individualistic and collectivist approaches to social organization. Unlike radical individualism, conservatism recognizes that human fulfillment requires participation in communities that transcend self-interest. Unlike collectivism, it insists that these communities must emerge voluntarily rather than through centralized direction. Freedom consists not in atomistic independence but in the capacity to form meaningful associations with others on terms we freely accept. Civil society represents the primary sphere of moral education where individuals learn virtues necessary for maintaining social order. Through participation in families, religious institutions, and voluntary associations, people develop habits of cooperation, trustworthiness, and respect for others that make possible both market exchange and democratic governance. These virtues cannot be produced by either market incentives or government mandates alone—they emerge from concrete experiences of reciprocity within communities.

Chapter 5: Freedom and Tradition: Reconciling Apparent Contradictions

Freedom and tradition often appear as opposing forces in political discourse. Advocates of unconstrained liberty portray traditions as arbitrary limitations on individual choice, while defenders of tradition sometimes view freedom primarily as a threat to established ways of life. Yet properly understood, freedom and tradition exist in a relationship of mutual dependence rather than fundamental opposition. Traditional practices provide the contexts within which meaningful freedom becomes possible, while liberty allows traditions to adapt and remain vital. Authentic freedom involves more than the absence of external constraints—it requires the development of capacities that enable individuals to pursue worthwhile goals. These capacities emerge through participation in traditions that embody accumulated human wisdom about how to live well. Language acquisition provides a model for understanding this relationship: we learn to speak not by inventing our own private language but by mastering established linguistic conventions. This mastery then enables creative expression within and beyond those conventions. Similarly, moral and cultural traditions provide frameworks that make possible meaningful choices rather than merely limiting options. Traditions remain vital only when participants understand them as responses to enduring human needs rather than as arbitrary impositions. This understanding develops through critical engagement that distinguishes between essential principles and contingent applications. The conservative approach seeks to maintain continuity with the past while allowing for adaptations that preserve core insights in changing circumstances. This differs fundamentally from both reactionary resistance to all change and revolutionary rejection of inherited wisdom. The apparent contradiction between freedom and tradition resolves when we recognize both as necessary aspects of human flourishing. Traditions without freedom become rigid and eventually meaningless as their connection to human purposes fades. Freedom without traditions becomes empty, offering choices without the frameworks needed to make those choices significant. The conservative vision seeks to maintain both by fostering contexts in which individuals can freely participate in and contribute to evolving traditions. This reconciliation has practical implications for social and political arrangements. It suggests that both markets and democratic processes must operate within cultural frameworks that guide their development. Economic freedom produces genuine benefits only when market participants observe moral norms beyond mere compliance with formal rules. Similarly, democratic decisions reflect collective wisdom only when citizens share commitments to values that transcend immediate interests. Freedom flourishes not by eliminating all constraints but by preserving those that direct human energies toward genuinely valuable ends.

Chapter 6: Beauty and Culture: The Conservative Defense of Aesthetics

Beauty occupies a central place in conservative thought not as a luxury or superficial concern but as a fundamental human need connected to our sense of belonging and meaning. The experience of beauty involves recognizing order, harmony, and rightness in our surroundings in ways that transcend utilitarian calculations. Through encounters with beauty in art, architecture, literature, music, and landscapes, we gain intimations of a world that makes sense and in which human flourishing is possible. The conservative approach to aesthetics differs from both relativistic conceptions that reduce beauty to subjective preference and ideological perspectives that evaluate cultural expressions primarily in terms of political content. It recognizes that while aesthetic judgments involve subjective responses, they also make claims that invite agreement and can be supported by reasons. These judgments connect us to traditions of evaluation that have developed over generations as communities discern and articulate standards of excellence. High culture represents a particularly important realm of aesthetic experience because it gathers and preserves insights about human existence that might otherwise be lost. Great works of art, literature, and music address perennial questions about meaning, mortality, love, and justice in ways that expand our moral and spiritual horizons. They offer encounters with beauty that reveal possibilities beyond immediate circumstances and connect us to a cultural inheritance that transcends our individual lives. Cultural conservation involves maintaining not only physical artifacts but also the capabilities needed to understand and appreciate them. This requires education that introduces each generation to cultural achievements of the past and develops capacities for discriminating judgment. Such education is not elitist in intention but aims to extend access to cultural treasures that belong to humanity as a whole. It recognizes that meaningful participation in cultural traditions requires both knowledge of their development and creative engagement with their possibilities. The defense of beauty stands against both commercialization that reduces aesthetic experiences to commodities and ideological critiques that dismiss aesthetic values as masks for power relations. It insists that beauty matters precisely because it offers experiences that cannot be reduced to economic transactions or political statements. Beauty speaks to aspects of our humanity that transcend both marketplace and legislative chamber, connecting us to a dimension of value that grounds and orients our more practical concerns.

Chapter 7: Conservative Solutions to Modern Challenges

Conservative principles offer distinctive approaches to contemporary problems that differ from both progressive and libertarian alternatives. Rather than seeking comprehensive transformations of society or relying exclusively on market mechanisms, conservative solutions aim to strengthen social fabric and cultural resources while addressing specific difficulties through targeted reforms. This approach recognizes both the complexity of social systems and the importance of maintaining continuities while adapting to changing circumstances. Environmental challenges illustrate the potential of conservative approaches. Rather than relying primarily on international bureaucracies or market incentives, environmental conservation succeeds most reliably when it connects with love of place and cultural traditions of stewardship. Local communities with deep attachments to particular landscapes often prove more effective at sustainable management than distant experts or profit-maximizing corporations. Conservative environmentalism focuses on fostering the cultural conditions that make people care about natural surroundings while developing practical approaches that work with rather than against existing social patterns. Educational reform represents another area where conservative insights prove valuable. Rather than centralizing control or treating education primarily as economic investment, conservative approaches emphasize the autonomy of educational institutions and their role in cultural transmission. They recognize that effective education depends on relationships of trust between teachers, students, and parents that cannot be reduced to measurable outcomes. This perspective supports pluralism in educational models while maintaining commitment to excellence and the preservation of cultural inheritance. Technological changes present both opportunities and challenges that require conservative responses. New technologies offer benefits but can also disrupt communities and undermine human relationships when adopted without consideration of their broader effects. Conservative approaches neither reject technological innovation nor embrace it uncritically, instead seeking to guide development in ways that enhance rather than replace human capabilities and social bonds. This means creating cultural and legal frameworks that direct technological power toward human flourishing. Immigration and demographic changes raise questions about maintaining national cohesion while respecting cultural diversity. Conservative approaches recognize both the importance of integration processes that connect newcomers to national traditions and the enrichment that cultural exchange brings to society. Rather than treating national identity as fixed and unchangeable or dismissing its importance entirely, conservatives understand it as an evolving inheritance that can incorporate new elements while maintaining essential continuities. In each case, conservative solutions avoid both rigid defense of the status quo and wholesale rejection of existing arrangements. They seek to identify what works well in current practices, what requires reform, and how changes can occur in ways that preserve social fabric while addressing genuine problems. This balanced approach offers a constructive alternative to ideological positions that oversimplify complex social realities.

Summary

The conservative worldview offers a distinctive perspective on political and social questions that transcends simplistic divisions between left and right. It recognizes partial truths in competing ideologies while rejecting their totalizing tendencies, creating a more nuanced and balanced approach to human affairs. By acknowledging both the necessity of change and the value of continuity, conservatism provides a framework for addressing contemporary challenges without sacrificing the inherited wisdom embedded in traditions and institutions. What emerges from this exploration is not a rigid doctrine but a temperament and approach characterized by humility about human knowledge, appreciation for organic social development, and commitment to preserving valuable inheritances while allowing for necessary adaptations. This conservative disposition recognizes that human flourishing depends on maintaining connections across generations and between individuals and their communities. It values the realms of meaning that give purpose to human existence—religion, family, culture, and civil association—while acknowledging their vulnerability to both well-intentioned reforms and market forces. For those seeking orientation in a rapidly changing world, this vision offers not nostalgic retreat but a constructive engagement with modernity that preserves essential continuities while meeting new challenges.

About Author

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Roger Scruton

Sir Roger Scruton was a writer and philosopher who has published more than forty books in philosophy, aesthetics and politics. He was a fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He taught in both England and America and was a Visiting Professor at Department of Philosophy and Fellow of Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, he was also a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington D.C.In 2015 he published two books, The Disappeared and later in the autumn, Fools Frauds and Firebrands. Fools Frauds and Firebrands is an update of Thinkers of the New Left published, to widespread outrage, in 1986. It includes new chapters covering Lacan, Deleuze and Badiou and some timely thoughts about the historians and social thinkers who led British intellectuals up the garden path during the last decades, including Eric Hobsbawm and Ralph Miliband. In 2016 he again published two books, Confessions of A Heretic (a collection of essays) and The Ring of Truth, about Wagner’s Ring cycle, which was widely and favourably reviewed. In 2017 he published On Human Nature (Princeton University Press), which was again widely reviewed, and contains a distillation of his philosophy. He also published a response to Brexit, Where We Are (Bloomsbury).

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