The conservative believes that the True, the Good, and the Beautiful are interrelated, and that all things are measured against these three transcendentals.
Conservatism seeks the Truth that has emerged over time, drawing from the deep wellsprings of human experience, and builds anew on foundations that have withstood the tests of time. It fosters order and the flourishing of human beings as they live in relationship with one another. We are united in the eternal contract between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.
Conservatism is rooted in the acknowledgement that God is our Creator and that the human soul sojourns through this realm toward its eternal transcendent fulfillment. We are all flawed human beings in need of redemption, capable of great evil as well as great good.
Because man is fallible by nature, the conservative seeks to limit the damage that can be done through the abuse of power by limiting its concentration.
The conservative fosters the fullness of human potential by protecting the freedom and dignity of each person, acknowledging that responsibility comes with freedom. Rights and duties are always linked.
For the conservative, each man and woman is equal in dignity and equal before the law, but gloriously individual and unequal in talents, aptitudes, and outcomes. The conservative celebrates the uniqueness of individuals and does not level to eliminate differences.
The conservative honors the family as the essential building block of civilization, the house of worship as the locus for forming culture, and the community as the matrix for human interaction. Culture and community grow from relationships and affinities over time, rooted in place. Conservatives value the rich diversity of relationships, organizations, and private associations that make up civil society and intermediary institutions.
The conservative values subsidiarity because we know many of the best solutions to human problems are found at the level closest to the individual person. We foster personal, local care for persons in need, preferably face-to-face with someone whose name we know. We believe that human transformation occurs best in the context of a personal, loving relationship, with accountability, over time.
The conservative is more concerned with the culture than politics, because the political realm is a derivative one, not primary, in human existence. Political problems are at their root moral and spiritual problems, which blend into the economic realm. Political change is rooted in cultural change.
Conservatives believe that caring for our neighbor is so important that it should not be left to the government. The one thing government cannot do is love. That is what we are called to do in the private sector, with our own time, talent, and treasure.
The conservative believes that that the True, the Good, and the Beautiful are interrelated, and that all things are measured against these three transcendentals.
We believe that there is Truth, that it is knowable, and that it is our duty to seek Truth and live it throughout our lives. The conservative believes that the virtues of Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance should be practiced in both private and public life. We believe that virtues, not values, define the human soul.
We believe that Love is the highest motivation of the human person and that the purpose of life itself is to know God, to love Him and serve Him, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Our ultimate fulfillment is in the transcendence of love.
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Beautifully and eloquently stated, Barbara. Thank you for crafting this quotable summary.
What a fine summary and what incisive intuitions. Can this all be tied up in terms of that other transcendental of St Thomas Aquinas, the One, unity?
This article also puts in stark terms the contrast between what is now called ‘democratic socialism’ and the value, the intrinsic inviolable infinite value, of each human being.
Guy McClung, Texas
Absolutely beautiful.
It couldn’t have been said any better than this!
This is the best description of conservatism I have ever come across. The only thing I would add is that the word love is often misunderstood. A proper definition of love would be helpful to those who may not have a clear idea of its meaning. The fact that many think of love as a physical attraction and caring of another, don’t clearly obtain its true meaning. Many don’t realize that love is an act of the will, whereby one wills the good of another by virtue of the fact that we are made in the image and likeness of God, who is love. The other aspects are emotional traits that contribute but don’t define it. Thus, one must love thy neighbor as thyself as commanded by Jesus, however, one doesn’t necessarily have to like them. In this context, Jesus’ command makes perfect sense.
Thank you for Connecting the Truth with the Good and the Beautiful! Seeking and living by the Truth will always bring goodness and beauty!
Our culture should abandon the childish notion of “equality,” If we seek to be equal, we abandon excellence and subside into mediocrity. Responsibilities necessarily precede rights, for rights are meaningless when no good thing can be made of them. Once we accept that responsibility is individual and not collective, we see that we can not be “equal.” Everyone of us is individual and different.
I agree with your thoughts here. At face value, it is true that the government cannot love, but there are more options than exporting the responsibility for our neighbor to the government or handling it in the private sector. Milton Freedman, in a response to a student who asked him as questions about the government’s responsibility to the poor, answered something along the lines of, “Governments don’t have responsibility to people. Individuals have a responsibility to their fellow man, and the question is how can we best fulfill that responsibility.” Government is certainly not capable of love, and we should not export our duty of charity to the institution of government, but as conservatives government remains a viable tool for fulfilling our obligations to our fellow man.
I believe some of the extreme negative views towards government have crept in from conservatism’s decades long alliance with libertarianism, as well as some American thinkers such as Thoreau in “Civil Disobedience” (and I believe Thomas Paine in “Common Sense”) believing that government is at best a necessary evil and that the best government would be no government at all. As a conservative, I VERY MUCH agree with Barbara that we must distrust the concentration of power, but a government that promotes human flourishing, protects communities, and is not, “a terror to good conduct, but to bad,” (Romans 13:3) seems like a worthwhile endeavor to me.
That being said, sometimes the best thing the government can do is not interfere, but none the less, I agree with your observation.
“Rights and duties are always linked.” I was particularly struck by this line. It is so short and you can almost lose it at the end of the paragraph, but there is a whole world of ideas here to unpack. In popular understanding, conservatives are often seen as the stuffy pragmatists (or even pessimists), while the progressives and liberals are seen as the compassionate ones who dream big even if they don’t have all of the means figured out. I think this line much more accurately captures the difference, and this connection between rights and duties was only recently introduced to me. Perhaps this is part of the left’s constant push to make the government do more. As long as there is an all powerful, all knowing, ethereal entity known as “Government”, then they never have to consider who’s duty their entitlements will be, or whether or not that duty is reasonable to place on someone. The “Government” can bear all duties in their eyes. All that’s left for them is to ‘advocate’ and ‘agitate’ until the “Government” finally fulfills its duty to give them their rights. We, on the other hand, always consider both sides of this problem and perhaps all too often default to blocking insane legislation only on the grounds of unreasonable duties (i.e. we need to reduce spending) rather than taking them head on in the debate over rights (i.e. you, sir, are in no sense entitled to free education just because you think it ought to be so).
Anyways, I’ll stop my essay. Well done!
Right on! I couldn’t disagree with anything said.
I believe that the core of conservatism revolves around “truth”. When seeking truth, we will find God, justice, and all of the noble virtues.
You write with clarity to the essence of what it means to be awake, not merely woke, to be Christian not merely a good person, and to be humble and not merely educated by the standards of popular culture. Thank you very much.
I found this to be a fantastic summarisation of what it means to be conservative, in the truest sense of the term, which I think is perhaps more adequately expressed as ‘Traditionalism’.
I heard it said recently that conservatives can be thought of as liberals who just want things changed at a slower pace. This was in the English context, albeit, where we don’t have true Conservative representation in government, thus I am sympathetic to the aforementioned point i’ve mentioned but perhaps its just that the term Conservative needs recapturing?
Either way, a wonderful read something i’ll be reiterating and taking onboard in my thoughts going forward.