Politics Essay: Conservatism

Explain the traditional conservative view of human nature

Unlike other ideologies who assume that human beings are naturally good or can be made good, conservatives argue that human beings are both imperfect and unperfectible.

Humans are thought to be psychologically limited and dependant creatures who fear isolation and instability and so are drawn to the safe and familiar and seek the security of knowing their place. This belief has led conservatives to emphasize the importance of social order and to be suspicious of the attractions to liberty. This belief also implies that human beings don’t and can’t exist outside society but need to belong and have roots in society. This has led to a conservative belief in organic society.

Humans are thought to be morally imperfect with immoral or criminal behaviour being rooted in the individual rather than society. Humankind is innately selfish and greedy with the desire of power being the primary human urge. Traditional conservatives explain this by reference to the Old Testament doctrine of ‘original sin’. People can only be persuaded to behave in a civilized fashion if they are deterred from expressing their violent and anti-social impulses. This explains the conservative preference for strong government and tough criminal justice regimes.

Humankinds intellectual powers are also thought to be limited. Conservatives believe that the world is too complicated for human reason to grasp fully. They are suspicious of abstract ideas and systems of thought that claim to understand what is incomprehensible. They prefer to ground their ideas in tradition, experience and history, adopting a cautious, moderate and pragmatic approach to the world and avoiding doctrinaire or dogmatic beliefs. For a conservative, to do nothing may be preferable to doing something.