A Few Preliminary Thoughts on the Conservative Character
Some thoughts I've been having
“The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can’t make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values.”
The Unabomber Ted Kaczynski didn’t have much to say about conservatives, but what he did have to say in his manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future, wasn’t flattering—but it was totally right.
Kaczynski believed the conservative, unlike the leftist, was not a primary manifestation of the “craziness of our world”—i.e. the modern industrial society that must be destroyed for the good of humanity and world. As a result, he didn’t feel the need to examine the psychological basis of conservatism in any detail. Leftism, according to Kaczynski, is driven by two main character traits: “oversocialisation”—overidentification with social norms—and “feelings of inferiority,” which is pretty self-explanatory.
Even so, what Kaczynski does say about conservatives is penetrating and useful. That conservatism in the modern world is, in some fundamental sense, a loser doctrine built on a series of mismatches between conservatives’ professed aims—“conserving”—and the things they actually do and advocate for. Their staunch support for capitalism and the free market, in particular, the most transformative productive forces in the history of mankind, means the only things they end up conserving are… capitalism and the free market.
“Fools,” Kaczynski says. Or, to use a language I’m beginning to develop myself, raped.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the conservative character, mainly because I want to understand why conservatives behave in such a self-destructive, self-sabotaging manner and have done so for basically as far back in time as you care to look. We see this in the US right now and we also see it on this side of the Pond, in the UK. It’s unmistakeable. Power has been won or the road to power seems open—but then the raped retraumatise themselves, as raped people do, and the whole thing starts to fall apart. They can’t help themselves. They do everything they can to thwart themselves and to drag as many people down with them. They’re not content with suicide. It has to be a murder-suicide and—guess what?—you’re going with them.
A few notes before we continue. First, on terms. By “conservative,” I also mean “right wing” more generally.
Yes, the two labels aren’t co-extensive. More often than not there’s antagonism between conservatives and those who consider themselves right-wing and not primarily conservative. What usually happens is the conservatives “punch right,” sacrificing anybody to the right of them whose views they believe are discrediting in the eyes of their opponents; and in return the right-wingers engage in absurd purity-spiralling and accuse the conservatives of cucking, being bought and so on. But both groups are seen as a single team by their enemies, even if they don’t behave like one, and they do share plenty in common, not only in terms of beliefs and goals, but also psychological makeup.
Being on the outside, in opposition to the left, has shaped conservatives and right-wingers in the same important ways. Even when they’ve been in power, the general trend of democratic society has been leftward, frustrating their efforts and shaping their thought and behaviour in ways that reinforce and exacerbate the weakness of their position. They anticipate their efforts will fail, which tricks them pre-emptively into seeking out ways of failing for which they themselves are completely guilty. They fool themselves into thinking that they somehow “own” their own defeats just because they’ve chosen them of their own free will, and strangled their friends and allies with their own hands instead of waiting for their enemies to do it. Rather than victory, they choose failure and death: a “principled last stand”. From now on, unless I say otherwise, I’ll be referring to conservatives and right-wingers interchangeably.
Second note: I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with the basic human instinct to conserve things, and it is a basic human instinct that you’ll find in every single human society that has ever existed. In fact, I think it’s good, and I can think of plenty of things that we should fight to conserve. But conservatism and the right wing are about much more than just expressing or satisfying this instinct. The instinct to conserve is not pathological, but “conservatism” as a political philosophy might be.
Third, I don’t think everything that’s wrong with conservatives is the result of some kind of archetype. Not everybody who is conservative or right-wing fits the type. Very many don’t—but very many do. That character, regardless of whether or not I describe it fully or correctly, isn’t an explanation for why conservatism exists either. Kaczynski didn’t believe “oversocialisation” or “feelings of inferiority” are the reason why leftism exists: He believed they explain why certain kinds of people are attracted to or become leftists, and why they persist in being leftists. That’s what I’m trying to do too, to explain that attraction and persistence, or at least to begin to. Personal history and inheritance, by which I mean genetics, are obviously important to a significant extent. Social psychological research suggests political attitudes might be as much as 40% heritable from our parents. This is a subject that can be attacked from multiple angles, and almost certainly has to be.
So, my basic position is this—and humour me, because I’m still ironing it out. Conservatism, as expressed through the conservative character, is a kind of trauma-response. By that I mean it’s something like a state of learned helplessness, whereby an animal or individual is conditioned to believe it has no agency, for example by being restrained. When the restraints are removed, the animal still believes it’s powerless. Or it might be the result of something like Pavlovian conditioning, wherein a particular repeated trauma, say an electric shock, gradually conditions an involuntary response in an animal, such as flinching, even when the shock ceases to be delivered. The expectation is enough to elicit the response. And in particular, the conservative character is a trauma-response to decade upon decade of social and political failure.
Without putting too fine a point on it, we should remind ourselves that conservatives have lost every single battle they have fought over the last century, on every single terrain. Any notable victories they’ve won—like Spain, for example—were short-lived and quickly overturned. At best, conservatism is simply a rearguard action that is doomed, in the end, to fail. “What have conservatives ever conserved?” is one quip, and of course it’s true. Try to think of something. Another quip: “In ten years’ time, conservatives will be defending what liberals are promoting today.” Is it unfair though? I don’t think so.
A rearguard action—which leads us nicely on to William F. Buckley. We have many things to thank William F. Buckley for, or so I’m told, but I’d like to thank him for providing the most obviously raped definition of conservatism that’s ever been given: “Standing athwart history yelling STOP!” The image of course suggests a man attempting to straddle a speeding train, but it could just as easily be a small woman screaming “STOP!” as a huge hairy man—perhaps a newly arrived doctor or engineer from Iraq—forces himself upon her and invades her body. No man can stop the progress of history, just as no women, really, can fight off the unwanted advances of a man who’s crossed the whole of Europe and the English Channel in a dinghy with one single purpose in mind.
Rape is, of course, an unpleasant thing, and I don’t mean to trivialise it by comparison. I wanted a harsh metaphor but one that also rings true and actually works as an analogy. I think this does.
I’ve been thinking this way for the better part of a year, but I only started committing my thoughts to screen last week because of Rod Dreher. I consider him to be an archetype of the raped conservative. He’s started calling his friend—now definitely former friend—JD Vance a “von Papen conservative,” because of his supposed embrace of “anti-semitism” and the groyper movement led by Nick Fuentes. Franz von Papen, if you didn’t know, is the German politician who entered a coalition with Hitler and the NSDAP, thinking he could control the soon-to-be dictator. This wasn’t the first time Rod had criticised Vance in a way that looked very much like a public betrayal, but it was certainly the worst—for now.
