Date democracy but marry authoritarianism
The “fifth principle of conservatism” amounts to bad relationship advice
This is another installment in my critique of “Ten Conservative Principles” by Russell Kirk, one of the most influential “conservative” writers.
(Earlier installments are at these links: Overview, Principle 1, Principle 2, Principle 3, and Principle 4.)
Now it’s time to tackle the fifth “principle.” (You can read all ten of them HERE.)
[C]onservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems. For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at levelling must lead, at best, to social stagnation. Society requires honest and able leadership; and if natural and institutional differences are destroyed, presently some tyrant or host of squalid oligarchs will create new forms of inequality.
Detailed consideration of the “fifth principle of conservatism”
We begin, as usual, with the initial statement.
[C]onservatives pay attention to the principle of variety.
This is surprising. It seems that Kirk is espousing some sort of pluralism. There is nothing “conservatives” are less known for that an attraction to pluralism. Perhaps that means Kirk is not talking here about pluralism, about fostering a diversity of backgrounds and ideas in society. Perhaps he means something different. Let’s read on to find out.
They [conservatives] feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems.
We see here that Kirk in fact is not talking about what we would call pluralism. He has something quite different in mind. In order to see what he is up to, it is necessary to recall some historical context surrounding Kirk’s attempt to fabricate an identity for “conservatism.”
In the early 1950s, when Kirk was beginning his work, the nations of the world were separating into two political camps—democratic countries like the United States and communist/socialist countries like the Soviet Union. This rivalry was regarded as an existential threat on both sides of the divide. It was believed that either communism or democracy would come to rule the globe.
The democratic nations thought, with reason, that communism/socialism achieved its political ends by stamping out the individuality of its people. By making the populace compliant and uniform, it was easier for those in power to control the system, since they only needed one messaging operation and one secret police to eliminate rogue actors. Democracies saw this, rightly, as an intolerable intrusion upon the rights of individuals to think for themselves and determine their own destinies.
The communist/socialist nations thought, with reason, that democracy achieved its political ends by pandering to the personal desires of its people. By making the populace self-interested and diverse, it was easier for those in power to control the system, since they only had to message to people whose energies were too dissipated to think for themselves. Such people can be easily manipulated by feeding them messages they already take for granted. Communist/socialist nations saw this, rightly, as a dissipation of national will and resources.
When you look under the hood of these two systems, each has a single source of energy. In Communist/Socialist societies, the real motive force is power. In theory, such societies claim that they want to redistribute power from the few to the many. But in practice, especially in the largest communist/socialist nations, this claim belies the fact that the leaders are authoritarians, concentrating all power in themselves while denying that they are doing so. By repressing the individuality of their people, autocrats not only consolidate their power within the system, but they are able to project that consolidated power into world affairs by controlling or subjecting weaker nations.
In democratic societies, on the other hand, the real motive force is equality. Tocqueville came to this conclusion two centuries ago:
The very essence of democratic government consists in the absolute equality of rights which it recognizes among citizens. . . . Equality is the soul of democracy; and, if that principle were once shaken, the whole fabric would soon crumble into dust. (Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter IV.)
Democratic nations claim that equality allows individuals to direct their forces in the ways that seem best to them. They regard this release of individual power as an engine of creativity and industry that ultimately benefits both the individual and the nation, which can project its wealth and power onto the international stage by convincing other nations to follow their example. Such individual creativity may be profligate, as genuine creativity always is, but the results are prolific—far beyond what can be attained by miserly marshaling more meager resources.
Now what does this historical context tell us about Kirk’s strategy here?
In the 1950s and right up until the fall of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s, a sizable number of Americans felt that communism was democracy’s mortal enemy. Recognizing the authoritarianism behind the communists’ claims of redistribution of power, Americans viscerally rejected those claims. This popular sentiment provided the ground of plausibility for Kirk’s assertion that such societies, based on what he called “radical systems,” produce “narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism.”
(Kirk was also wrong in thinking that only one side of this rivalry produced uniformity. Democracy has its own levelling forces, as Emerson and Thoreau recognized long before the twentieth century. But that’s another story.)
As is usual with “conservative” assertions, their plausibility is merely superficial. While it is true that authoritarian societies depend on a narrowing and deadening uniformity to control their people, it is a mistake to identify this as “egalitarianism.” Such societies only pretend to be egalitarian. In fact, they are highly unequal. Only the leaders have power. The people have none.
This is the fundamental untruth that Kirk leverages in this “principle.” By conflating uniformity with egalitarianism, Kirk gains a superficial plausibility for “conservative” approval of inequality.
And now we can understand why Kirk uses the term variety. By leading with that term, which has a neutral-to-positive valence, and by passing through the erroneous identification of uniformity with egalitarianism, Kirk gives “conservatives” the impression that approving of inequality is a virtue.
For an American, nothing could be further from the truth. “All men are created equal” is political bedrock. In Philadelphia, it began our revolution. In Gettysburg, it rededicated the Union. To suggest that inequality is fundamental is political heresy. Nothing is more un-American, more politically perverse, or more damaging to the foundations of our democratic order.
In sum, Kirk’s surprising support for “variety” is a rhetorical trick that paints an extremely dangerous political belief as benign or even positive. It is the thin edge of the wedge that grants “conservatives” the dispensation to advocate the most un-American and undemocratic “principle” of all—that all men are not created equal.
Not surprisingly, Kirk’s “principle” is the opposite of the truth.
For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality.
Having fraudulently identified deadening uniformity with egalitarians, Kirk immediately, and just as fraudulently, identifies life-enhancing “variety” with inegalitarians. This is a logical mistake, inasmuch as the opposite of a falsehood is not necessarily a truth. But it is much more than a logical error. It is also immoral.
As usual, Kirk relies on the tendency of “conservatives” to mistake what is for what must be—as long as current state of things benefits them. Their affection for the status quo, like all “conservative” traits, is rooted in fear. They fear losing power, which they believe to be they only thing that sustains them. So it is of utmost importance to “conservatives” that inequalities continue to exist—and that “conservatives” control the situations that confer more power.
It is this desperate pursuit of power that generates almost all of the world’s inequalities. Those who pursue and attain power keep others unequal in all sorts of ways. It is these differences in power that create “orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality.”
So the fear that dominates “conservatives” generates their immoderate desire for power, which in turn generates most of the inequalities that keep humans from realizing their innate potential. Kirk’s trick here is to manufacture a superficial justification for “conservatives” to examine their own handiwork and declare it to be good—a “healthy diversity” instead of a cancer, a natural and life-affirming condition instead of a diseased and debilitating state.
Indeed, this self-delusion also hides from “conservatives” the truth about themselves and their political aspirations—namely, that they really side with authoritarians, not with democracies.
Both the “conservative” and the authoritarian desire power above all else. Authoritarians try to attain power by flattening the orders of society. In the 1950s, “conservatives” could claim to do it by promoting “variety” in those orders.
But this posturing about "variety” was always a lie. It was convenient in the mid-twentieth century for “conservatives” to claim that the inequalities in society were healthy—it supported their continued power at that time. But history sandblasted that disguise away.
Already in the 1960s, it was becoming clear that American democracy was unjust and stifling the human spirit in different ways from authoritarian communism and socialism.
The civil rights movement demanded more equity and more diversity. The women’s movement even more. The gay rights movement even more. And so on. “Conservatives” hated them all, regarded them as communist or socialist enemies to their continued power. As a result of continually lashing back against these movements, “conservatives” began to internalize the notion that Kirk was wrong about “variety.” One egalitarian movement after another was demanding greater and greater “variety” in society—the opposite of Kirk’s assertion that egalitarians were agents of uniformity.
The more these movements demanded equity and diversity, the more “conservatives” opposed them, until finally, “conservatives” became the opponents of variety, the champions of uniformity. This development perhaps turned the corner with the appearance of the so-called Moral Majority in the 1980s, which eventually took over “conservatism” and replaced Kirk's principle of variety with the rigid uniformity of Christian nationalism and white supremacy.
This evolution is not that surprising, if you understand, as we now do, that Kirk’s “principle of variety” was just masking the desire for power above all. Even in the 1950s, “conservatives” actually shared the lust for power with authoritarian communist and socialist governments. They were just able to hide it better because they had the excuse of the cold war to give them something to pretend to oppose.
Today’s “conservatism” no longer even tries to hide its authoritarian tendencies. Trump expunged its last vestiges of conscience. “Conservatives” now make no bones about hating diversity, inclusion, and equity. They oppose every trace of non-conformity to their prejudices, waging political war on minorities, women, LGBTQ+ people, and non-Christians. The Republicans party cemented its authoritarianism in 2020 by refusing to have a platform and pledging complete fealty to the first full-fledged authoritarian to ever become president, Donald Trump.
In the end, the “principle of variety” had diminishing utility to “conservatives” between 1950 and 1990. It now has none at all. It was a lie all along, as history proves. “Conservatives” were happy to claim it when it helped in their quest for power. But they were quite ready to jettison it when it no longer served that purpose. In our time, “conservatism” has openly revealed its fundamental commitment to conformity, which is the autocrat’s metier.
This is not surprising if you consider the “principles” Kirk has laid down up to this point. Sticking to the old ways, preferring the status quo to innovation, refusing to reconsider past mistakes for the sake of convenience and ease—all of this points to stasis rather than progress. “Conservatives” were champions of uniformity even when they claimed to be champions of variety.
Once again, there is no truth in Kirk’s assertions.
The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at levelling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.
As we have already seen, identifying equality with levelling is both a logical and a moral error. Kirk’s further attempts here to justify this error are also unsound.
If there is a God of the Christian sort, then he indeed would treat each individual justly according to his merits, as does a just court of law. But limiting the notion of equality to juridical contexts is fatuous.
“All men are created equal” does not mean “All men are judged fairly.” It means that every undamaged human being comes into the world with a capacity for self-determination that demands fulfillment. This capacity cannot become actual where there is no government, because only government protects individuals from the depredations of others. Nor can it become actual without just courts of law, which are creatures of government, because only law protects individuals from the depredations individuals who misuse the power of government.
In America, “All men are created equal” is the animating force of government and of law. As such, it stands above them, and is implicit in all human relations. It is the foundation of decency, regulating both handshake agreements and the most complex codes of honor. It breathes life into marriage and all committed relationships. What Kirk considers “true forms of equality” are an artificially cramped list of two, whereas equality of worth in the eyes of God is, for the believer, the very foundation of “the love that moves the sun and other stars,” as Dante put it. Whether Kirk or his “conservatives” can actually be believers, judging from the immoral “principles” they espouse, is questionable.
Why does Kirk limit this “principle” to legalistic matters? Because he is trying to give the impression that equality is some sort of liberal fantasy. But it is no such thing. It is the very touchstone of decent human society, not to mention of democracy itself. To the extent that it is not realized in the world, we should weep, not celebrate.
The last clause about “other attempts at levelling” is even more deranged and self-deluded. As is now clear, attempts to achieve equality do not necessarily “level” society. Where such attempts are actual and not deceptions concealing the desire for power, they elevate society, creating more cooperation, more sociability, more vitality, and more creativity.
What actually leads to social stagnation is the lust for power, whether pursued by straightforward authoritarians or by crypto-authoritarians pretending to a “principle of variety” that actually locks society into a rigid structure keeping them in power and others out of power.
Society requires honest and able leadership; and if natural and institutional differences are destroyed, presently some tyrant or host of squalid oligarchs will create new forms of inequality.
The self-deceptions and lies told so far in the “ten principles” really start to add up here.
It is true that society needs honest and able leadership. But you will be disappointed if you seek that from “conservatives.”
By now it is clear how much the “conservative” lies to himself about his own deepest motivations and proclivities. He who tells lies to himself can hardly be expected to tell truths to others.
And the person who lies consistently to himself and others will never be an able leader. As every decent person knows, telling convenient lies in the present only makes the future very inconvenient. When reality bites, it bites hard. The last thing society needs is a leader who lies so much that he takes the whole community over the cliff when he goes down.
Does the name “Trump” ring any bells here?
Society should never look to “conservatives” for honest and able leadership.
The second clause, which contends that tyrants or oligarchs will move in where equality has been established, depends on notion that societal inequalities are beneficial rather than harmful, life-enhancing rather than life-diminishing. We have seen, however, that this notion is false.
Equality does not necessarily deaden society. But it certainly does so when it is used as a pretext by authoritarians, whose precise aim is to deaden society and make it plastic to their will.
When equality spreads in a properly governed democratic society, it has the opposite effect. It vitalizes the society and dampens the baleful influences of those who lean toward authoritarians—those who call themselves “conservatives.”
Conclusion: The “fifth principle of conservatism” is superannuated and was only ever a cover for authoritarian inclinations
To sum up, Kirk’s “fifth principle” was a rhetorical trick intended to give “conservatives” an excuse for supporting anti-democratic inequality at the height of the cold war.
Since “conservatives” benefitted from societal inequalities in the 1950s, Kirk told them to argue that “variety” was good for society. But when “conservatives” saw their advantages being eroded by calls for more “variety” from disadvantaged groups, they abandoned that advice and started arguing against “variety” and for conformity with their “values.”
This situational logic shows that “conservatives” were never interested in “variety.” They were only ever interested in power.
“Conservatives” are wrong about equality. It does not enfeeble society, as they claim, but invigorates it.
And finally, “conservatives” cannot be trusted with leadership roles in society. They lie to themselves and consequently to others, which leads to disaster when reality collides with their lies.
In other words, once again, Kirk manages to get everything important wrong.
And so does “conservatism.”
Stay with me for further installments. It keeps getting worse!