ILLUSTRATION  &  DESIGN

When conservative is not liberal:

Who do you call conservative, and why? - Tinus de Bruyn

People like to class Christians as conservatives. Creationists especially, are considered extremely conservative. By contrast, atheists, naturalists and cynics are automatically associated with “liberalism,” as though they have discovered some greater freedom. But the whole idea of classing people as conservative versus liberal is really a misnomer; a strawman at best, designed to insult, and not a reasonable proposition.

To get the full picture, I have to tell you about Jack, Paul and Tom…

Jack, Paul and Tom; the very average guys:

Paul, Joe and Tom are all convinced of one thing; that they are pretty average guys, even though Paul is “conservative,” Tom a “wild liberal” and Joe somewhere “in-between.”

Paul almost always wears a suit, goes to church on Sundays and has a steady job at the municipality. Just like his dad and granddad, he’s a straight up-and-down sort of guy; dead-boring and predictable.

Joe is a bit more “relaxed.” He’s a lawyer, and good at it, because he knows when to lie. He also lies to his wife, mostly about the secretary. People generally like Joe better than they like Paul or Tom.

Tom is a real wild card. People are a bit afraid of him, and that includes a long string of ex-girlfriends and a few blokes he had beaten up in bar fights. Tom goes through life wrecking things, getting high and driving his bike, but some of his buddies are even rougher than him. They make him look pretty average.

Who is the conservative and who is the liberal? In reality, none, and all.

Paul is “pretty average,” because he’s just doing what his dad does. To his friends, he is-middle-of-the-road.

Joe is “pretty average” too, and most people will judge him so. To his friends, he is-middle-of-the-road.

Tom is just as “pretty average” too, because he’s just going along with his buddies. To his friends, he is-middle-of-the-road.

In their own way, each of them is simply seeking social approval. None of them are actively seeking to be conservative or to “do their own thing.” In their respective ways, they are all doing the “herd-thing.” Tom simply chose his friends from the “wilder side” of the herd than Paul did. Or perhaps they chose him. At any rate, real conservatism and real liberalism implies something very different:

Conservative, liberal or both?

True conservatism and true liberalism has nothing to do herd instincts; the words themselves tell us as much. True conservation is the only way to keep and protect anything of value. The opposite of true conservatism is not liberalism, but bad conservatism; a despotic totalitarianism, which protects and upholds all that is evil. Bad conservatism is the harbinger of bad liberalism, for it breeds anarchy and licentiousness. Tue liberalism, by contrast, sets people free from pointless rules and cruel totalitarianism. True liberalism is the only way to establish sensible morality in societies where it is lacking. The opposite to true liberalism is not conservatism, but bad liberalism; anarchy, lust and wanton destruction.

Considered in this way, it is obvious that one person can both be extremely conservative and extremely liberal at once -caring both about establishing new values and caring about conserving the existing good ones. True morality includes both liberal-and conservative elements, just as true immorality contains liberal and conservative elements.

If there’s anything wrong with our “conservative” Paul, it is that he is too legalistic, doing things simply because that is how his father did them. Equally, Tom’s fault is not being “liberal,” but being immoral and destructive. Joe is no better off, though he may seem so at first…

The false security of public opinion:

The problem with Joe is that he thinks he’s keeping the “safe middle ground,” when there is no such thing. Public opinion is never stable, but forever shifting with the winds of politics, media and industry influence. As long as he stays in the middle, following the herd, Joe remains oblivious to those winds. When society drifts into the murky waters of immorality, he drifts with it. Those of us who are a bit older, may have noticed this drift in our own lives. Thinking back on the values that your parents used to hold, when you were still a child,  and the values you now hold, you may notice a definite shift.

We tend to justify this shift by saying that we have grown in understanding; that we are less naive than our forefathers or more mature, or are less legalistic.  The fact that we can justify this shift does not annul the fact that it exists, or that it has damaging social consequences.

For Joe, remaining in the middle is by no means a guarantee of staying on the right track. Instead, Paul will be slipping more and more into Joe’s shoes, Joe into Tom’s, and Tom is going right off the edge, but as long as his buddies stay with him, he’ll never notice.

Once again, the herd-thing is not conservative or liberal, because it remains essentially mindless. People follow the norm, whether that means cannibalism, watching the blood sport in the coliseum, burning firstborn children to the gods, or persecuting minorities such as the Jews. When William Carey went to India, he encountered a people for whom it was the “normal thing” to burn their widows to death. Today, India is slipping back into that wickedness. Modern city people believe that it is the “normal thing” to stop at car accidents and watch the victims bleed to death, others think that it is “normal” and “acceptable” to abort foetuses.

Slow drift:

Social drift usually remains unnoticed because it occurs so slowly. The slide may continue over several generations, so that the total impact is never noticed by any one generation. Instead, each generation only makes small adjustments which they consider legitimate.

The only institution to set a boundary on such slide is organised religion. Because of this, religious teachings will always seem old-fashioned, out of tack with current ideas about morality.

For centuries, people have adhered to the seemingly outdated morality propagated by such religious writings as the Bible. This has enabled them to stay a more stable course in a fluctuating world. Religion that fails to set up such a rigid standard will simply dissolve into the tide.

The fact that religion sets itself up in confrontation with social developments, means that it will always be scorned by the bulk of society. In this sense, the measure of mockery a church endures is a good measure of its effectiveness.

Just like Paul, Joe and Tom, we run the risk of taking our cue from others, making the same mistakes, living the same dull lives, running the same rat race and chasing the same dreams. By doing so, we are ignoring our own unique, God-breathed potential. If life is more than money, or sex, or politics, we will only find it by stepping out of the claustrophobic box of conformation, and face the choices ourselves.