Over on the excellent Gaw's Ragbag blog, there's a ten-point 'Am I a conservative?' test. Unsurprisingly, being a thoroughgoing retroprogressive reactionary, I scored a straight 10, but I wonder how many in the current party that bears the Conservative name would... As the long-awaited (or dreaded) general election draws near, here, to set us all aright, are wise words on politics and its limitations from the conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott:
'In political activity, then, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea: there is neither harbour for shelter, nor floor for anchorage, neither starting place nor appointed destination. The enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel: the sea is both friend and enemy: and the seamanship consists in using the resources of a traditional manner of behaviour in order to make a friend of every hostile occasion.'
If the Great Helmsman Brown - and Blair before him - had heeded those words, we wouldn't be in the state we're in now.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Thanks Nige - however, I had you down for a 12/10 at least.
ReplyDeleteRegarding recent events, it's Cap'n Brown's hubris that's so egregious: "An end to boom and bust!". An absurd claim. 'The facts of life are conservative' as Mrs T rightly observed. A shame in some ways, but there you are.
The current party bearing the name are not Conservatives, but Tories -- a party with policies more akin to the principles of Thatcherism than those of Edmund Burke expressed over two-hundred years ago. What did they ever "conserve"? This was a woman who tried to make us forget the existence of society, a concept very far removed from the true nature of conservatism.
ReplyDeleteSee also Russel Kirk's famous list.
ReplyDeleteAs Churchill said, 'If you're twenty and are not a liberal, you have no heart. If you are forty and not a conservative, you have no mind.' Having turned 30 it appears I'm now a 10/10 conservative. My 20-year-old self would be ashamed!
ReplyDeleteThat's my girl!And thanks for the list Mike - welcome aboard.
ReplyDeleteKate,
ReplyDelete"As Churchill said, 'If you're twenty and are not a liberal, you have no heart. If you are forty and not a conservative, you have no mind.' Having turned 30 it appears I'm now a 10/10 conservative. My 20-year-old self would be ashamed!"
If, as I suspect, you're substituting the terms conservative for Right and liberal for Left, which would be inaccurate and, thus, a sign that you're not as clever as you like to think, I would draw your attention to this little list:
Left = Albert Einstein (genius), Bertolt Brecht (great playwright), Antonio Gramsci (probably the greatest political philosopher who ever lived), Arthur Rimbaud (great poet) and the list goes on and on; and,
Right = Radio Shock Jocks (imbeciles), Pauline Hanson (racist twit), Fred Phelps (religious sociopath), rightwing journalists (college dropouts), Virgil Lee Griffin (KKK Grand Wizard), and, again, the list goes on and on.
Anyone who believes that voting conservative equates with intelligence is, ironically, a complete and utter moron.