Conservativism & Utopian Thought
Patrick_Ross @ Fri Jan 19, 2007 11:58 pm
I'm reading a book about Political Culture and Ideology. I found an intriguing passage, written by Karl Mannheim:
$1:
Conservative mentality as such has no predisposition toward theorizing. This is in accord with the fact that human beings do not theorize about the actual situations in which they live as long as they are well adjusted to them. They tend, under such conditions of existence, to regard the environment as part of a natural world order which, consequently, presents no problems. Conservative mentality as such has no utopia. Ideally it is in its very structure completely in harmony with the relaity which, for the time being, it has mastered ... The conservative type of knowledge originally is the sort of knowledge giving practical control. It consists of habitual and often also of reflective oridentations towards those factors which are imminent in the situation.
In short, conservative thinkers are too practical to conjure utopic visions. Anyone agree or disagree?
Thoughts?
lonewolf23k @ Mon Jan 29, 2007 9:08 pm
That sounds about right. We Conservatives don't try to achieve Utopic visions, we just try to solve existing problems.
Because most of us remember that the word "Utopia" originally means "Place that does not exist." Utopias, by definition, are unattainable.
Patrick_Ross @ Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:58 pm
But what it basically shows us is that there may be something lacking in the conservative vision of the world.
For example, public health care was part of the NDP's utopian vision for Canada. Just because you can't achieve the utopian vision in its entirely doesn't mean that you can't accomplish good things in the pursuit of that vision.
I think conservatism, considering that conservatism as we know it is only a different strand of established liberalism, could benefit from a utopian vision of some sort. The only question is: what kind of utopian vision can we imagine that still fits with our principles?
Preston Manning, when creating the Canadian Alliance, urged conservatives to think big. I partially agree. I think we should think bigger.