Even wise and learned people are capable of saying stupid things. I was reminded of this recently when I came upon something once said by Jacques Barzun [1] — who is certainly wise and learned enough: “A man who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called a liberal as opposed to the conservative, who has both feet firmly planted in his mouth.”
It is actually hard to know quite what to think of this. It would seem to suggest that the difference between a liberal and a conservative is that the former is a fool and the latter a klutz. Oh, I know, I know. True-blue liberals will say that it only suggests that liberals are idealists and conservatives are, well, ill-spoken dolts (hardly a description of the late William F. Buckley, Jr.).
Have it your way if you like, but if I were given the choice — admittedly unappealing — I think I’d rather be a Mr. Malaprop than someone standing on his head all day.
Be that as it may, one person I am sure would object to Barzun’s differentiation is someone he and I both admire: Albert Jay Nock [2]. Here is what Nock has to say on the subject:
Conservatism is a habit of mind which does not generalize beyond the facts of the case in point. It considers those facts carefully, makes sure that as far as possible it has them all in hand, and the course of action which the balance of fact in that case indicates as necessary will be the one it follows; and the course indicates as unnecessary it not only will not follow, but will oppose without compromise or concession.
Do not think that this is a case of a conservative defining his position to his own advantage. This definition appears in a essay called “A Little Conserva-tive.” The essay was prompted, Nock says, because “I was mildly astonished to hear the other day that a person very much in the public eye, and one who would seem likely to know something of what I have been up to during all these years, had described me as ‘one of the most intelligent conservatives in the country.'”
The reason for Nock’s astonishment was that “for more than a quarter of a century I have been known, in so far as I was known at all, as a radical.” When called upon “to label myself with reference to particular social theories or doctrines,” he had described himself as “an anarchist, an individualist, and a single taxer.”
Nock’s essay takes its title from a patter song in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe:
I often think it’s comical
How Nature always does contrive
That every boy and every gal
That’s born into the world alive
Is either a little Liber-al
Or else a little Conserva-tive.
The point of his essay is that such labels are invariably misleading and that we should simply stop using them and ignore them when they are used by others. In the case of conservatism, precisely because it is a habit of mind and not a coherent philosophy, it is ‘unserviceable” as a label. It is, he says, “easily weaseled into an imposter-term or a term of reproach, or again into one of derision, as implying a complete stagnation of mind” (which would seem to be what Barzun was doing).
Politicians and the media use such words, Nock suggests — and I heartily agree — in order to short-circuit thought among the citizenry. A good way to start pushing back against this, I think, would be to consider another distinction Nock makes. It is common to suppose that the word conservative is the antithesis of the word radical. It is not. The antithesis of radical is superficial. What could be more superficial than to turn one’s thinking and acting into an array of pigeonholes?
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Frank Wilson [5]
Latest posts by Frank Wilson (Posts [7])
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