This is part 3 in a series of articles outlining the reasons for choosing
the name of my political party the Imperial British Conservative Party. If
you haven't already, read Part 1.
CONSERVATIVE
The final two parts of this series on the Imperial British
Conservative Party are devoted to explaining why I chose to use this
particular word.
CONSERVATION
The idea of conservation is vital to the continuance of life on earth at
present yet I know of no other party in the world which has embraced a
truly conservative philosophy.
There is a political party in the UK which bears the name Conservative but
it no more represents conservative values than the Labor Party there
represents the interests of laborers.
GREENS OR REDS?
Most of the members of the various environmental or green parties turn out
on examination to be what certain commentators have called ‘melons’,
green on the outside but red on the inside. These parties gain support from
people dissatisfied with the obvious pollution and destruction of the
environment caused by big business and big government, but like the other
parties they too subscribe to materialistic values. Furthermore they have no
coherent practical policies for governing. In this they have a lot in common
with socialists.
ONE-DIMENSIONAL POLITICS
One needs to dig deeper to find out why the present political scene is so
one-dimensional. Since the collapse of orthodox, established religion in the
17th and 18th Centuries, national governments have increasingly pursued
policies which have placed economic development as the absolute good,
with religious and other cultural values altered or abandoned to fit in with
the new ideology.
ECONOMIC DETERMINISM AND SCIENCE
Science as an alternative explanation of the meaning of life as nothing but
health and wealth has also provided the means for the achievement of
these ends and is handsomely funded through the military-industrial
complex. The twin ideologies of materialism and reductionism are the
basically irrational but unquestioned absolute values of the scientific world
view. This ideology is everywhere the basis of compulsory educational
systems set up by national governments.
THE EXCEPTION - NATIONAL SOCIALISM
The only exceptions to belief in economic determinism as the “absolute”
value of modern governments have been totalitarian governments whose
ruling elites have been prepared to sacrifice the lives of their own people
and to destroy their own economies for the sake of maintaining and
increasing their political power.
ABSOLUTE VALUES
My rejection of the ideology of economic determinism, of both capitalist
and socialist varieties, is not just an irrational emotional reaction to the
destruction of the environment; physical, biological, psychological, social
and cultural. It is a logical step to take since for a hundred years no
reputable thinker has been prepared to openly support the idea of any
“absolute” value system, even economic determinism.
Humanist ideologies offering physical health, material wealth and a
technological Utopia are no more “absolute” than religious beliefs offering
mental peace, stable family structures and an after-life reward.
WHAT DOES THE WORD “HUMAN” MEAN?
Anthropologists make it quite clear what is considered “human” is not an
absolute concept but, within obvious limits, varies from culture to culture.
We are only the same when we are dead. There is always the possibility
that one day all human beings will share the same ideology or belief
system. This might be anything from Buddhism to Taoism, Fascism to
Communism. Why assume it MUST be humanism? There is basically no
such entity as the humanists’ idea of “mankind”.
HUMAN RIGHTS ESTABLISHED BY FORCE
Human rights imposed by force by governments believing in economic
progress is much the same thing as the forcible imposition of good
behaviour by governments believing in spiritual progress.
In “developed” nations religious values which conflict with materialism
and economic determinism are rejected by teachers in all government
educational institutions. Private ‘spirituality’ and dumb ‘ new age’ notions
which are no threat are tolerated or even encouraged, but the very idea of
orthodox and established religion is regarded with an irrational horror.
PARALYSIS OF THE WILL IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
The massive trauma of the First World War, together with the acceptance
of relativity in all fields, including values, destroyed the beliefs of the
ruling elites in all developed countries.
In the crisis of confidence that developed early in the 1920s unbalanced
people with an “ism” buzzing in their bonnets, or decadent irresponsible
individuals who hated responsible honest people, rushed in to fill the
vacuum.
Fanaticism and corruption spread rapidly in all parts of society except for a
brief period when the threat of national socialism in both Germany and
Russia and their mutual non-aggression pact of 1938 made it essential that
the self indulgence and political extremism had to end and an ethical war
was fought to halt the Nazi expansion. During this war the revival of
traditional values was a vital part of the morale boosting needed to tackle
such an obviously evil enemy.
THE COLD WAR
Atomic weapons and the fact that many leading teachers and writers were
supportive of the Communist regimes mean that no similar war was
possible to stop the post-war expansion of the Russian version of this
pernicious ideology . The superior atomic weaponry of the NATO alliance
prevented the Russians from realizing their plan to invade Europe but since
the war remained only a “cold war” the decadence and the extremism of
the pre-war period returned.
In the USA in particular the superior propaganda skills of the left wing
extremists in the schools, universities, and mass media forced their army to
abandon their South Vietnamese allies just after the Viet Cong and North
Vietnamese communist armies had destroyed themselves as a fighting
force in their suicidal Tet offensive.
THE BLOOD-SOAKED 20TH CENTURY
To characterize the history of this horrific century I can do no better than
quote from the famous poem of W.B.Yeats, “The Second Coming”,
written in 1921.
‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity....’
IN THE NAME OF GOD OR IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE
Belief in the relativity of all values is an inevitable consequence of the
Death of God phenomenon which provided the traditional “centre” which
“cannot hold”.
Those governments not based purely on economic ideologies derive their
authority from divine legitimacy, which flows down through aristocratic
heads of state to the governments and civil servants that exercise power in
their name.
In republican France, the USA, the USSR, Nazi Germany, Communist
China and, more recently, the “United States of Europe”, legitimacy,
which is based on materialistic criteria, comes from “the people”, and
flows upward. To put it crudely, 51% is Right, 49% is Wrong!
Of course “The People”, like “God” is a concept in whose name power is
exercised and in itself leads to nether good nor bad government, as the
past few hundred years has demonstrated. Comparisons of Communist
China with Buddhist Tibet and of Democratic Turkey with Theocratic Iran
should caution people from assuming that either system is somehow
intrinsically superior.
“THE BEST LACK ALL CONVICTION”
The realization that no set of values has a monopoly of truth or virtue is
based on the paradoxical assumption of cultural relativity. However there
is a great paradox at the heart of every all inclusive theory and relativity
theory is no exception, it claims absolute validity for itself!
WHO OBSERVES THE OBSERVER?
Relativity theories in all fields depend on the point of view of an observer,
and are thus ultimately subjective. Nobody lives outside history. Everyone,
except madmen, lives by a set of rules which are part of the real historical
world.
The way to break out of the vicious circle is to establish the social status
of the observer, and their material and ideal interests. This will give a
useful indication of the likelihood of his or her point of view being
influential enough to be adopted as social policy and ultimately cultural
reality.
Read Part 4.
