With some people this is a choice; in others it is a disposition which appears, in their preferences and aversions, and is not chosen or specifically cultivated.
Now, all this is represented in a certain attitude towards change and innovation; change denoting alterations we have to suffer and innovation those we design and execute.
Conservatives believe that social order is hard to achieve and easy to destroy, held by discipline and sacrifice, and that the indulgence of criminality and vice is not an act of kindness but an injustice for which all will pay. Conservatives therefore maintain severe and – to many people – unattractive attitudes. They favor retributive punishment in criminal law; they uphold the traditional family, the sacrifices it requires, and think that the father is an essential part in it; they believe in discipline in schools and value hard work and military service. They see welfare provisions as necessary, but also as a threat to genuine charity, easily rewarding antisocial conduct and creating a culture of dependency. They value the hard-won legal and constitutional inheritance of their country and believe that immigrants must also value it before being allowed to settle here. Conservatives do not think that war is caused by military strength, but by military weakness that tempts adventurers and tyrants. And that a properly ordered society must be prepared to fight wars, even in foreign lands, if it is to enjoy lasting peace in the homeland. In short conservatives are an unfriendly bunch who, in today’s world, must steel themselves to be reviled by people who make compassion into the cornerstone of the moral life.
Liberals are of course very different. They see criminals as victims of social hierarchy and unequal power, people who should be cured by kindness, not threatened with punishment. They wish privileges to be shared by everyone, the privileges of marriage included. Children should be allowed to play and express their love of life; the last thing they need is discipline. Learning comes from self-expression; and as for sex education, there’s no better way of liberating children from the grip of the family than teaching them to enjoy their bodily rights. Immigrants are just migrants, victims of economic necessity, and if they are forced to come here illegally that only increases their claim on our compassion. Welfare provisions are something we owe to those less fortunate than ourselves. As for the legal and constitutional inheritance of the country, this is certainly to be respected — but it must “adapt” to new situations, so as to extend its protection to the new victim class. Wars are caused by “boys with their toys”, eager to flex their muscles once they have them. The way to peace is to get rid of weapons, reduce the army, and educate children in the ways of soft power. In today’s world liberals are self-evidently lovable — emphasizing in words and gestures that, unlike the social conservatives, they are in every issue on the side of those who need protecting, and against the hierarchies that oppress them.
The above portraits are familiar to everyone. But conservatives are motivated by compassion at least as much as liberals, and their cold-heartedness is only apparent. They are the ones who have taken up the cause of society, and who are prepared to pay the cost of upholding the principles on which we all — liberals included — depend. Social conservatives must lose hope of an academic career; they are denied prestigious prizes, from the MacArthur to the Nobel Peace Prize, which liberals confer only on each other. For an intellectual it is renounce a favorable review – or any review at all – in the New York Times or the New York Review of Books. Only someone with a conscience could possibly wish to expose himself to the vilification that attends such an “enemy of the people.” And this proves that the conservative conscience is governed not by self-interest but by a concern for the public good. Why else would anyone express it?
By contrast, the compassion displayed by the liberal is precisely that — displayed and often not felt. He knows in his heart that his “compassionating zeal,” as Rousseau described it, is a privilege for which he must thank the social order that sustains him. He knows that his emotion toward the victim class is (these days at least) more or less cost-free, that the few sacrifices he might have to make by way of proving his sincerity are nothing compared to the warm glow of approval when he declares his sympathies. His compassion is a state of mind, a costless ticket to popular acclaim, not the painful result of a conscience that will not be silenced.
[. . .]
. . . what makes a conservative disposition in politics intelligible is nothing to do with natural law or a providential order, nothing to do with morals or religion; it is the observation of our current manner of living combined with the belief that governing is a specific and limited activity, namely the provision and custody of general rules of conduct, which are understood, not as plans for imposing substantive activities, but as instruments enabling people to pursue the activities of their own choice with the minimum frustration, and therefore something which it is appropriate to be conservative about.
[. . .]
And the office of government is not to impose other beliefs and activities upon its subjects, not to tutor or to educate them, not to make them better or happier in another way, not to direct them, to galvanize them into action, to lead them or to coordinate their activities so that no occasion of conflict shall occur; the office of government is merely to rule. This is a specific and limited activity, easily corrupted when it is combined with any other, and, in the circumstances, indispensible. The image of the ruler is the umpire whose business is to administer the rules of the game, or the chairman who governs the debate according to known rules but does not himself participate in it.
[. . .]
. . . the office he attributes to government is to resolve some of the collisions which this variety of beliefs and activities generates; to preserve peace, not by restricting choice and diversity springing from the exercise of preference, not by imposing substantive uniformity, but by enforcing general rules of procedure upon all subjects alike.
Government, then, as the conservative in this matter understands it, does not begin with a vision of another, different, and better world, but with the observation of the self-government practised even by men of passion in the conduct of their enterprises; it begins in the informal adjustments of interests which are designed to release those who are apt to collide from the mutual frustration of a collision. Sometimes these are no more than agreements to keep out of each other's way; sometimes they are of wider application and more durable character, such as the International Rules for the prevention of collisions at sea. In short, the intimations of government are to be found in ritual, not in religion or philosophy; in the enjoyment of orderly and peaceable behaviour, not in the search for truth or perfection.
[. . .]
. . . politics is an activity unsuited to the young, not on account of their vices but on account of what I at least consider to be their virtues.
It is not easy to acquire or to sustain the mood of indifference which this manner of politics calls for. To rein-in one's own beliefs and desires, to acknowledge the current shape of things, to tolerate what is abominable, to distinguish between crime and sin, to respect formality even when it appears to be leading to error, these are difficult achievements; and they are achievements not to be looked for in the young. Everybody's young days are a dream, a delightful insanity, a sweet solipsism. Nothing in them has a fixed shape, nothing a fixed price; everything is a possibility, and we live happily on credit. There are no obligations to be observed,or accounts to be kept. Nothing is specified in advance; everything is what can be made of it. The world is a mirror in which we seek the reflection of our own desires. The allure of violent emotions is irresistible. When we are young we are not disposed to make concessions to the world; we never feel the balance of a thing in our hands - unless it be a cricket bat. [Jim Morrison: "We want the world, and we want it now!"] Urgency is our criterion of importance, and we don't understand that what is humdrum need not be despicable. We are impatient of restraint; and we readily believe, like Shelley, that to have contracted a habit is to have failed. These, in my opinion, are among our virtues when we are young; but how remote they are from the disposition appropriate for participating in the style of government I have been describing. Since life is a dream, we argue (with plausible but erroneous logic) that politics must be an encounter of dreams, in which we hope to impose our own. Some unfortunate people, like Pitt (laughably called "the Younger"), are born old, and are eligible to engage in politics almost in their cradles; others, perhaps more fortunate, belie the saying that one is young only once, they never grow up. But these are exceptions. For most there is what Conrad called the "shadow line" which, when we pass it, discloses a solid world of things, each with its fixed shape, each with its own point of balance, each with its price; a world of fact, not poetic image, in which what we have spent on one thing we cannot spend on another; a world inhabited by others besides ourselves who cannot be reduced to mere reflections of our own emotions. And coming to be at home in this commonplace world qualifies us (as no knowledge of "political science" can ever qualify us), if we are so inclined and have nothing better to think about, to engage in what the man of conservative disposition understands to be political activity.
Mercredi 9 septembre 2015, à quelques encablures du tea time, Elisabeth II a battu un record. Pas celui du chapeau le plus étrange mais celui de la longévité sur le trône, record détenu jusque-là par sa trisaïeule Victoria. 63 ans, trois mois et sept jours. On dirait l’âge auquel prennent leur retraite, en France, les tout derniers surgeons de la génération lyrique des baby boomers. Elisabeth II est sur le trône depuis le 6 février 1952. Chez nous le 6 février, on se souvient plutôt de celui de 1934, quand des ligues nationalistes et fascistes pour une fois unies ont voulu en finir avec la République. Voilà des choses qui n’arrivent pas en monarchie, de vouloir en finir avec la République. C’est pour ça que les monarchies sont moins convulsives, plus calmes.
On a assez vite l’impression qu’on peut se débarrasser par la force d’un président de la République. Après tout, c’est un homme comme un autre, chez nous, surtout les deux derniers, Sarkozy et Hollande. L’un a couru en sueur avec un tee-shirt du NYPD, l’autre s’est carrément déclaré « normal ». Alors qu’il n’y a absolument rien de normal dans l’exercice du pouvoir pour une grande nation.
Il faut incarner, avoir deux corps distincts dans l’exercice du pouvoir, on le sait depuis Kantorowicz: l’un qu’on occulte, son corps réel, celui qui prend des scooters nocturnes pour aller voir une maîtresse ou celui qui dit « Casse-toi pauvre con » à un passant. Et l’autre que l’on montre, un corps donné au peuple, à la nation, à l’histoire.
On n’imagine pas De Gaulle roulant sur un Solex ou changeant d’Yvonne en cours de septennat. C’est qu’il se faisait une certaine idée de la France et justement qu’il voyait la France comme une monarchie, républicaine certes, mais une monarchie. Finalement, on peut se demander s’il n’avait pas raison. On dit même qu’il poussa son envie de restauration rapide assez loin puisqu’il existe entre lui et Henri, le Comte de Paris, prétendant au trône, une correspondance et des rencontres régulières à partir des années cinquante. De Gaulle l’aurait bien vu lui succéder. La constitution de la Vème était taillée pour un roi. Il aurait suffi de changer deux ou trois détails. On voit bien d’ailleurs que le costume a été un peu trop grand pour ceux qui ont suivi ou alors, au contraire, les a contaminés de telle manière qu’ils ont fini par se prendre pour des monarques comme Giscard ou Mitterrand mais sans la légitimité.
Mais l’immense avantage d’un roi est qu’il n’est pas élu par un camp contre l’autre. Il ne gouverne pas, il règne. Il règne pour tous. Il ne sert pas une faction ou des intérêts catégoriaux, il incarne. Il incarne un pays, une histoire, une tradition. Il a le temps de son côté, comme dans la chanson des Rolling Stones.
C’est bien d’avoir le temps de son côté à l’époque des infos continues, du « small talk », des réseaux sociaux et du touillage spasmodique. Un roi ou une reine ne tweete pas. Eventuellement on tweetera pour eux. Eventuellement. C’est bien aussi de ne pas à avoir besoin de communicants à l’époque où la communication a remplacé la politique. Imaginer un Séguéla près de De Gaulle. Ou d’Elisabeth II. De Gaulle en jean, Elisabeth II en maillot de bain. Les communicants, dans une monarchie, ils retrouveraient leur vrai boulot, vendre des yaourts et pas s’occuper de la France. Ne serait-ce que pour ça, la longévité et le style d’Elisabeth II nous donne des envies de monarchie, vraiment. Choisir un capétien pour un millénat, renouvelable ou pas on verra. Quand on demandait son régime idéal à Stendhal, il répondait « la monarchie absolue tempérée par l’assassinat ». Ce n’est pas plus mal qu’une démocratie confisquée par des élections bidon qui ne changent rien puisque le Politique a abandonné devant l’Economique, on l’a bien vu en Grèce où un gouvernement de vraie gauche a été victime d’un coup d’Etat financier.
Puisqu’on parle d’élection, un roi nous éviterait en plus la honte ou la catastrophe d’élire au pouvoir suprême des gens qu’on regretterait pas la suite. Dans une monarchie, ils seraient au maximum Premier ministre. C’est bien suffisant et ça limite les dégâts quand les Français ont un coup de chaud populiste, ce qui leur arrive régulièrement. Vous imaginez Bernard Tapie hier, Marine Le Pen aujourd’hui à l’Elysée? On peut ; mais tout de même.
Il est fort probable, en plus, que la monarchie permettrait un passage plus aisé au communisme réel, libertaire, c’est-à-dire à la disparition de l’Etat, du capitalisme pour un peuple qui vivrait , comme le disait Marx, dans un monde où le libre développement de chacun serait la condition du libre développement de tous. C’est qu’une monarchie bien comprise, comme la définissait Maurras, « c’est l’anarchie plus un ». Le roi serait ainsi le garant et le principe d’unité entre toutes les communautés affinitaires, genre Tarnac ou Notre-Dame-des-Landes qui couvriraient le territoire harmonieusement. Oakeshott 9uk 30soc 071 9scruton
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