The Kariste Times
OP-ED: Conservatism is failing. What is to be done about it?
By Johannes Jaanovits MP
Look around you, society in the past decades has moved inexorably towards the left. This trend has manifested itself in many ways, from policy decisions to cultural norms. Progressive ideals have gained traction in areas such as social justice, environmental policies and increasingly socialist economic reforms around the world. Media, educational institutions and popular culture increasingly reflect and promote these values, influencing public opinion and shaping the opinions of the younger generations. On the other side are the opposition, the valiant conservatives, working tirelessly to protect and conserve traditional values from the ‘evil progressives’ who want to disregard it all. Despite this, in most places they have utterly failed. Conservatism is in a state of crisis.
The left wing parties are, in a majority of cases, the winners. Some leftists might think this is an exaggeration, but their preferred parties are ascendant in most advanced democracies. Look no further than Hexastalia, Andrenne, or Sutherland, where the leftist parties have pushed aside their conservative rivals with very little difficulty. Even Predice, long considered a stalwart of conservative governance, saw the Coalition swept from power, and if polls are to be believed, it is unlikely they will govern again following this year’s elections. In Sutherland the present centre-right government is in the final stages of the conservative death cycle. In Hexastalia, the conservatives have largely been sidelined already. Only by massive political and societal repression do anti-leftist forces remain in power, like in Waltalriche or Krawiterska, both examples of repugnant and undesirable systems. In Scalvia, the ascendancy of the Union Party is driven by two factors and two factors only: its opposition to the leftists, and the devastating infighting on the left. This is not sustainable for the long term.
It seems as if no matter what, progressives always advance and conservatives always retreat, only occasionally managing to delay the advance of the progressives but the direction remains unchanged, with conservatives eventually forced to make concessions and adapt progressive policies from a decade ago that are not seen as all that progressive these days, while abandoning their more ambitious goals. Look no further than Predice, where the platform of the Coalition has, when compared to its 2020 manifesto, been watered down and ‘modernised,’ with former policy planks like the privatisation of the defence industry or tightening abortion regulations disappearing from the manifesto.
Naturally as a consequence of this, many young people who are dissatisfied with the constantly advancing tide of progressivism are increasingly frustrated and alienated from the mainstream conservative parties, which leads to a buildup of extremism and the vile violence we have seen from these people in recent years.
The big question becomes: “Why is conservatism failing?”
The answer does not lie only with the left, but also squarely with conservatives themselves. The strategies adopted by conservatives have doomed conservatism to defeat in the long term. The constant leftward shift in society is something that can be laid at both the left and conservatives equally.
Mainstream conservatism as seen in most of the advanced world enables the success of progressivism, and occasionally even when conservatism wins, it ends up turning into the modern definition of liberalism.
If you pay attention to the modern developments in conservative parties, you will notice a striking pattern. A pattern that will inevitably lead to their defeat. This is the conservative death cycle. This is an unchanging pattern that continues as society advances on and on. This cycle has three elements: fear of change, lack of answers, and hopelessness, leading to each other in sequence in a circle or cycle. If we follow these three elements from start to finish and examine them more closely, it becomes evident why current mainstream conservatives are doomed to failure, no matter what.
The idea of conservatism is to conserve something, as the name implies. Be it tradition, social norms, religious values, or others, the wish to conserve them makes conservatives well… conservatives. Their rivals, the progressives do not care for conservation, and seek only to advance society consistently forward. The issue here is that this type of conservatism that mainstream conservatives in the advanced world strive towards is inherently self consuming. The reason many conservatives prefer preservation and are suspicious of youth and innovation is a fear of change. Conservatives value order, stability, and predictable results over experiments. This is all well and good in a system where conservatives do not face a serious political challenge, indeed this approach’s great virtue is its long term outlook, being able to prevent crises and combat them effectively when they arise. When competing for power with several other political forces, however, this falls flat. So what are ‘experiments’ as I have mentioned here? It is the fear of utilising new innovations and strategies to further one’s cause. Take, for instance, social media. While conservatives remained suspicious and ignorant when it came to social media, their rivals jumped on board and exploited it to its fullest extent to further their political goals. This is exactly the problem. Conservatism often goes hand-in-hand with old age because it typically lacks a youthful innovative spirit. As people age, they lose their taste for excitement, their bodies and minds become less flexible, and they have less energy. All of this makes it harder for them to handle sudden changes and high stress situations. While it’s true that people as they age typically become more conservative, this is not something to take pride in. It is important to maintain a youthful mindset and delay the aging process. When something is described as ‘old,’ it is often equated to dull and boring. People naturally, especially young people, desire variety, but conservatives resist change which causes them to age quicker.
Lack of answers is the next step in the cycle. Conservatives’ fear of change highlights their lack of creativity. To be creative is to break patterns, to be unpredictable, to make surprising connections. All of this is lacking in the modern mainstream conservative movement. Conservatives are confused by change because they don’t know how to respond to it. When change inevitably occurs, they react slowly and focus on symptoms, not underlying causes. Fear initially drives conservatives, but eventually it is that same fear that paralyses them. Much to the mainstream conservatives’ chagrin, the world is always evolving and the gap between generations is always widening. No tradition is eternal. Our traditions will also end one day. The real question isn’t about protecting tradition from modernity but rather how we can adapt it to fit current material and societal conditions. Tradition must always also go hand in hand with evolution. As long as tradition can avoid stagnation, it can continue to inspire those who engage with it. As long as our people remain creative and can generate new metaphysical ideas when the old ones fade, we will continue to thrive and shape our own destiny. Mainstream conservatives, however, lack creativity and often seek answers in the past, as is the case in Waltalriche or Krawiterska for instance. They go beyond learning from history, avoiding risks and distrusting new innovations. They see the present as merely an extension of the past. This is different from the progressive worldview which sees the present as an obstacle to the future, while traditionalist conservatives see the present as a fleeting moment between the past and the future. Mainstream conservatives seek to preserve the past and mistake tradition for conservation. They fundamentally fail to understand that tradition requires renewal.
Conservatives are comfortable with what is dead, embalmed and artificially sustained. Both progressives and mainstream conservatives are fixated on the past, conservatives lament its loss while left wingers complain it isn’t disappearing quickly enough. One side is almost necrophilic, the other is murderous, both are preoccupied with death. Traditionalists see life as a cycle of birth, growth, maturity, death, and renewal. Dead things can still be interesting and seem exotic, especially if they’re old, and with the right mindset and creativity they can be used and still seem relevant, allowing people to look back on their traditions with pride. Conservatives, however, preserve things not out of a genuine respect for tradition, but because they want a static world. Slow, safe, comfortable, and with predictable outcomes. Such an existence is pleasant under ideal conditions but it isn’t exciting. Excitement comes from change and conflict, which conservatives fear and try to avoid. This inevitably leads to conservatives being inherently boring. Try to remember if any mainstream conservative parties have done anything unique and exciting that they are remembered for? If you can’t think of any, I can’t blame you. But there is an innovative and exciting approach for conservatives to follow. The National Democratic League in Prydania, a political force spearheaded not by the old conservatives fearful of change, but by the youth, with a constant drive for innovation and renewal. This is why the mainstream conservatives in Prydania eventually had no choice but to accept this new reality of a youth conquered by Peace Not Blood and were forced to accept a merger as a junior partner. This would have been unthinkable just five years ago. The mainstream conservatives were hopelessly boring and became irrelevant because they were afraid of pushing for innovation and new ideas.
Finally, however, we have hopelessness. The focus on the past, resistance to change, and distrust of new things eventually made conservatives irrelevant, particularly in a world that favours progress and constant innovation. As a result, conservatives become political relics. Instead of exercising power and leading people, they become like museum tour guides. Eventually, their refusal to adapt until they become irrelevant leads to conservatives constantly lagging behind. Filled with anger, misunderstanding and frustration, they start to resent the world. To survive they must either surrender to the left or come to terms with them, earning their reputation as hopeless losers in constant retreat. In order to stay relevant they adapt to some principles of the progressives that in the current year are not seen as too progressive anymore. They will always stay one step behind the progressives on every issue, and then advocate for that exact progressive policy around a decade in the future. Instead of firmly standing their ground and developing new strategies to sell their beliefs in the material and societal conditions we find ourselves in.
There remains a final key element that puts the final touches on the ultimate inevitable defeat of conservatives, if we do not act. That is the dogma of ‘we just want to be left alone.’ It is this mentality that, to some extent, all conservative parties share that delivers the killing blow. This position fundamentally puts conservatives on the permanent defensive, while their opponents, the leftist progressives, are always on the offensive. The aim of the leftists is to make their views the norm, and force them upon others by any means necessary, essentially, their aim is to win. Conservatives, however, just want to be left alone. They are only mobilised by threats to their way of life, in all other cases being among the last to take initiative because being a pioneer means facing risk, stress, and uncertainty. Therefore, conservatism is a constant defensive movement against a never ending flood. This is not sustainable, as the facts bear out. After a wave of liberalisation, conservatism only delays the next wave to give its citizens time to prepare for the next wave. They focus on holding their current positions, and if they retreat, on fortifying the next position. Once they lose a position, it is hard to regain it and they achieve only partial success. They don’t dare go on the offensive, they don’t dare to fight fire with fire and that is why conservatism is constantly on the retreat. The only weapon they have is pointing out the hypocrisy of the left, but they don’t comprehend that their opponent doesn’t follow the same principles as them, they simply want to win at all costs. The key to victory here isn’t to dismantle state power so you can be left alone, the left will find other ways whether you like it or not. The key is to use state power against the leftists, to same way they use it against conservatives. There is either total victory, or total defeat, that is the cold truth many conservatives cannot bear to think about. The side that wants to win will always beat the side that wants to be left alone. If conservatism is to survive, it must move away from being a controlled opposition to liberalism without the impetus to fight back. Most importantly we must avoid being the reaction. Conservatism is often defined by what it opposes, which traps them in an never ending cycle of conflict and opposition. Many of the terms conservatives use to describe themselves are negative and oppositional, often starting with the prefix ‘anti-‘. The problem with this mindset is that it is defined by what it opposes, rather than what it supports, and its success makes it tied to the enemy. If that enemy falls, a conservatism without principles will fall alongside it. We must adopt for conservatives positive and supportive terms and fight fire with fire if conservatism is to survive.
About the Author
Johannes Jaanovits is a member of the Scalvian Chamber of Representatives for the Union Party who describes himself as a “traditional conservative.”
Serving since 2021, he is seen as one of the most prominent figures in the Party’s Centre-Right faction.
