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The Anatomy of Conservatism
By A.M. Siriano (12/13/05)
I frequently meet conservatives who tell me they were former liberals who discovered, often unwittingly, that they had become something better. To some, coming into the light was indeed enlightenment, the beginning of thinking and the abandonment of sheer emotionalism fueled by the herd mentality upon which liberalism thrives; to others the experience was more visceral: conservatism simply worked for them and jibed with the reality of their lives.
For this latter group, it is just common sense that we should not be paying taxes so that others can avoid earning an honest living; common sense that we should execute or put away murderers, rapists and child molesters, and that doing so makes our streets safe; common sense that if our country has been attacked, someone has to pay for it, and we might have to send in the troops to put down future attacks; common sense that America is better off surrounded by peoples more like us than ones entrenched in socialism and totalitarianism.
These conservatives don’t have to think much about these things, because they are now working hard, raising families, and willing to defend their land if it comes to that. Many of them are sending their own sons and daughters off to war, knowing that if their good soldiers die in a foreign land, their deaths at least will matter to the well-being of the country that helped to create their bold and vibrant hearts.
There are some conservatives, of course, who sit around and contemplate all these things, but the vast majority that I have met—whether on-line or in person—don’t need anyone to tell them why they have become what they are. Admittedly, I do run into the unthinking types—those who believe disagreement with all things conservative is a sin—but most conservatives are their own persons, something liberals, who aren’t their own persons, simply do not understand. The truth is, while many conservatives are Republicans by registration, they are in reality independents.
Still, as with all alliances, it worthwhile to discover the common threads; in this case, to ask what makes a conservative a conservative. I have personally noted that conservatives are, in some way or another, three things:
§ Theophiles,
§ Famulists, and
§ Individualists
Two of those words I may have just invented, for I can’t find them in my dictionaries, so I will expand upon each. In short, they are, respectively, God-lovers, believers in family, and defenders of individual rights.
Not all theophiles are lovers of God in any blatant fashion, but if you press them, you will find that they at least believe in what God hath wrought—namely, a moral universe, a framework, the divine Will to power. I know many conservatives who aren’t Christians, but they would not be surprised much to discover that they are espousing Judeo-Christian virtue and not something else. Even the South Park conservatives—who love the humor of the baser side of life and might be found laughing about less than honorable activities (slapping someone around for giving them grief, for example)—don’t hold sordidness as being something to follow in actuality. That’s because they believe in God’s moral universe, even though they don’t often honor God in public. (Contrast this to Hollywood liberals, who love to talk about high standards and morality, but encourage decadence as an acceptable life choice.)
It is natural for theophiles to be religious, and they may be churchgoers or practice their own brands of devotion at home, but even agnostics can be theophiles. Most agnostics are liberals, but I have run into some who love the idea of God, or at least see its power to bring light to a dark world. Like the philosopher Unamuno, they hold that a moral universe, God-driven or not, should be protected, even when their own faith has died.
Famulists are believers in the power of the family, and that it is the foundation of a good society. Famulists do not accept nontraditional notions about family life, such as single-parenting as a preference or the encouragement of gay adoption, except as necessary substitutions for the ideal. It is easy to find, for example, conservative single parents who will rightly, and righteously, defend their ability to assume all roles as required to deal with absent spouses and raise their children correctly (and the good Lord knows that many do it better than traditional couples), but most of them will not say it is the best situation, or the one designed by God. Likewise, most conservatives, even Christian ones, believe that gay adoption, as a last resort, is better than leaving a child to the crapshoot of foster care or other state-run programs.
Famulists may also be single people who have no present desire to leave their free-and-easy, sometimes promiscuous, lifestyles to find spouses and have children. But single conservatives, even those who profess to not liking children, betray their famulism by constantly talking about their parents or reminiscing about their own enjoyable childhoods. (I have noted, also, that those who haven’t been nurtured in a strong familial environment have a more difficult time leaving the liberal herd.)
Finally, conservatives are individualists, which means they believe that freedom—to speak, to pray, to make their own way—is a natural thing. It is amazing to individualists that there are people out there who are not. To be a collectivist (aka socialist, or communist) is repulsive to them, because it means that they must force their ideas upon others; it also means that if they accept such an anti-libertarian mindset, their own liberties will eventually be squashed.
Individualists know that they can only practice this doctrine in a framework that protects them, thus they believe in government in so far as it allows everyone to be free without stepping on the toes of others. Being a famulist does not cancel out individualism, but rather allows it to thrive; and the same goes for a well-ordered society. Liberalism, on the other hand, is like a family gone awry, where the parents are out of balance and assume too much or too little control, and the children have lost (as a consequence) all respect for tradition. (I have also noted that some modern Christians resist individualism, which is ridiculous: at the base of the Judeo-Christian foundation is the volunteer’s response—the man coming to his Creator because he wants to—which is completely unlike all other religions. Islam, for example, is fascist in nature, and its extreme theophilism cancels individualism. Other religions, like Hinduism, mythologize the individual, which essentially turns man into God and thus makes becoming a theophile impossible.)
Obviously any attempt to pigeonhole conservatives is as foolish as trying to define people as mere members of groups, as liberals commonly do. I hate names like “neo-con” and “paleo-con”—and even just plain “con”—because people are infinitely diverse. But it serves a different purpose to uncover the character of conservatism, just as it does to define its principles; such exercises reveal not copy-and-paste adherence to a nebulous ideal, but distinctive and diverse beliefs that are always critical of man’s nature and respectful of God’s universe.
Conservatives are many things, and some might object that I have excluded other themes, such as love of country, obedience to the law, reverence for tradition, or a belief in free trade. But if you think upon the declarations made above, you may find that most other characteristics are emanations of the three. Love of country, for example, is a natural outcrop of the desire to protect our individualistic freedoms, and of our appreciation for a nation founded upon the love of God. Obedience to the law is almost pure theophilism, for at its core one will find a belief in a moral universe. Reverence for tradition is hardly more than respect for family, and free trade abets individualism, which in turn promotes prosperity and allows tradition to recreate itself with each new generation.
Most people come to conservatism as they mature, for it is the responsibility inherent in maturity that moderates the rampant and unreasonable emotionalism of their liberal youth and finds them adapting the conventions I have listed. They become theophiles, famulists and individualists, and all three work together to mirror the way they live. In short, they find out what life is really about: God, family, and freedom.
(Printer friendly version) Email: A.M. Siriano
A. M. Siriano is a developer of applications and websites who lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his wife and three children. He is a die-hard Christian, Protestant from both sides of the family, and a proud right-winger. He has been writing all his life, but only recently started to post his material on his website. He has been a guest twice on "The Barry Farber Show" and has completed two collections of poetry.
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Site: http://www.amsiriano.com/
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United Progressive Socialist States of America
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