21st Century Conservatism
Sihanoukville, Cambodia, November 24th, 2014.
Salaroche


The West is decadent, they say, it is greedy, materialistic, irreverent, débauché, so they try to turn time a few decades or centuries back, where they believe things will once again be ok. The present is spreading too much power over the masses, they think, so they fear their traditional hierarchical elites are in serious danger of forever losing their worn-out claim to leadership.

There are too many ideas and beliefs floating around the world today that differ from their customary (read archaic) ones, they say, so they try and often succeed in manipulating the public opinion within their reach by disseminating dogmas and fallacies that tend to denigrate any sort of diversity of thought and behavior, which they characterize as decadent, which in turn they usually equate with “Western”.

Conservatism has taken a serious turn toward extremism this year. If anyone ever thought that pluralistic, democratic, socio-capitalist societies of the European sort (or even of the American variety) were the unavoidable destiny of human society they should better revise their rationale for arriving at such conclusion rather seriously, for at this point in time any such rationale looks highly flawed.

As the events that have unfolded thus far in the year 2014 demonstrate, there are masses of people willing to sacrifice their comfort and even their lives in an effort to keep western influence at the gates and away from their social environments. And if you think of the above as an abstract or rhetorical statement, just check out the high level of support Vladimir Putin’s anti-western stance is getting from the great majority of Russians or the constant easy inflow of recruits populating the ranks of ISIS, some of which even hail from Britain, France, the US, and others.

So, what is happening here? Where is such a brand of “moral indignity” stemming from? What “higher” moral grounds do those “holier than thou” leaders and masses of people claim to be standing on? What makes them think their social mores and lifestyles should be gaining ground across the world instead of those of the west? What alternatives to western options do they really have to offer?

The question of ethnic, religious, and even cultural identity appears centrally at play here, although some historical factors most likely take precedence over them. The real or imagined glory of the past may easily be summoned to the fore in a nations’ psyche by cunning politicians whenever their peoples are experiencing a real or perceived lack of economic progress and diminishing standards of living relative to the rest of the world. Questions of national, personal, and hierarchical power then gain the upper hand and the rest of it becomes mostly a matter of how convincing the involved leaders are when playing the role of demagogues. 

How else could we explain such resentful reaction to the west’s clear cultural preponderance over the world? Is there at this point in time any economic or sociopolitical trait more characteristic of western societies than plurality? Pluralism could easily be singled out as the most threatening aspect of western societies as perceived by those who fear exchanging the imaginary security of their past for the relative uncertainties of an innovative future.

Yes, western democratic sociopolitical and economic structures are quite far from perfect and they often look chaotic in the eyes of their critics. They even look so in the eyes of some of us who consider them irreplaceable. But that is more or less the way democracies are supposed to be. Constant Political Effervescence should be the best synonym for the concept of Democracy, as it was never supposed to be an end, but a process. Democracy was never meant to be a static institution, but a constantly evolving one.

And that is exactly the problem with neo-conservatism of this century’s (or any other) sort. Too much possibility for change in the sociopolitical structures spells too much insecurity for traditional hierarchical societies and elites, so both the conservative people and their leaders opt for extreme solutions of the isolationist or even the murderous kind.

Am I being fair to the Russian people in bundling them together with the likes of ISIS? Yes, but only insofar as they refuse to accept responsibility for the failure of their own sociopolitical and economic system and only as long as they blame the west for it. And this I say knowing that Russia has historically been much closer to western values than the Arab-Muslim world ever did, which makes Russia’s anti-western stance a much easier target for criticism.

The glory of the bygone Tsarist times and the long-deceased world-power status of the failed Soviet Union probably haunt the shattered dreams of many Russians who cannot turn a blind eye on the stagnant state of affairs in their country just as much as the glorious centuries of the Ottoman Empire probably haunt those of many Arab Muslims who constantly witness the sad results of their obstinate clinging to their obscurantist socioreligious dogmas of the distant past.

The West is the culprit, they say, so a good majority of Russians figure that locking themselves out of western influence will solve their self-inflicted problems while a good number of Arab Muslims across the world think that enslaving or killing anyone who has any pro-western tendencies will heal the social maladies stemming from their own archaic ill-conceived stubborn interpretation of their own worn-out dogmas.

The truth is western societies are indeed to blame for generating malaise and frustration in the non-western world, but not because the west aims at imposing such malaise and frustration on them, as Mr. Putin keeps falsely asserting time and again. The west is to blame because, in being the way it is, i.e., progressive, pluralistic, tolerant, democratic and, yes, even chaotic at times, it has proved to be much more creative in every sense of the word than most of their non-western counterparts, while those non-western nations like Japan, India, South Korea, and even China, who have shared in the progressive innovative trends of the West, have done so only by emulating to different degrees some of the core western social, industrial, business, or political practices.

If western values can ideally be considered unaccepting of intolerance of all sorts and of authoritarianism or totalitarianism of any kind then yes, the West should be considered no less than a serious rival by any individual or sociopolitical/religious organization whose principles run contrary to those values. But it should be noted that such animosity would be born out of any other nation’s unwillingness to respect the rights of the members of their own societies, and not because the West is back in time to the era of the Crusades, sword in hand, telling everyone else what to do.

In other words, if the contrast between progressive western nations and any other stagnant non-western societies hurts the latter while exalting the former, why should the former be to blame? If your partners are better runners than you are, shouldn’t you try to learn from the techniques and practices they use rather than complain about them and break your relationship with them?

Human beings, of course, are usually complex creatures, so we cannot always expect them to do the most logical thing that may benefit them in the short or the long run. When questions of ego, religion, nationalism, and power over the rest are involved, emotions usually prevail over reason, so, from this perspective, there’s nothing new under the sun.

Still, shouldn’t it be clear to our Russian brethren that in riding on Mr. Putin’s conservative train they're headed straight into an abyss? Shouldn’t Mr. Putin and his clique be aware that they can only go so far in swimming against the unavoidable tidal wave of sociopolitical progress? Shouldn’t our Arab-Muslim brethren have learnt by now that there is no way to face the rest of the 21st century poorly armed with such archaic socioreligious and ideological tools?

The problem with auxiliary verbs of the “should, could, and would” sort, is that they only refer to conditional possibilities, never to factual acts. This means that a logical sequitur for the use of any of those verbs is “but didn’t” (Or, as they say, “should’a, could’a, would’a, but didn’t ’a”)

In the meantime, conservatism of a slightly milder kind has just made some considerable inroads in the American political scene after the midterm elections, and “Judocracy” keeps steadily striding right into the heart of Israel’s identity.

No doubt about it, 21st Century Conservatism is something worth keeping an eye on, or, as Pete Seeger used to sing, “When will we ever learn?”*


Salaroche

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* “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”, Pete Seeger, 1955 (+Joe Hickerson, 1960)