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Introduction
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in which it appears. In Western culture, depending on the particular nation, conservatives seek to promote and preserve a range of institutions, such as the nuclear family, organized religion, the military, the nation-state, property rights, rule of law, aristocracy, and monarchy. Conservatives tend to favor institutions and practices that enhance social order and historical continuity.
The 18th-century Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke, who opposed the French Revolution but supported the American Revolution, is credited as one of the forefathers of conservative thought in the 1790s along with Savoyard statesman Joseph de Maistre. The first established use of the term in a political context originated in 1818 with François-René de Chateaubriand during the period of Bourbon Restoration that sought to roll back the policies of the French Revolution and establish social order.
Conservatism has varied considerably as it has adapted itself to existing traditions and national cultures. Thus, conservatives from different parts of the world, each upholding their respective traditions, may disagree on a wide range of issues. One of the three major ideologies along with liberalism and socialism, conservatism is the dominant ideology in many nations across the world, including Hungary, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, Russia, Singapore, and South Korea. Historically associated with right-wing politics, the term has been used to describe a wide range of views. Conservatism may be either libertarian or authoritarian, populist or elitist, progressive or reactionary, moderate or extreme. (Full article...)
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He is mainly remembered for his support of the cause of the American Revolutionaries, and for his later opposition to the French Revolution. The latter led to his becoming the leading figure within the conservative faction of the Whig party, which he dubbed the "Old Whigs", in opposition to the pro–French Revolution "New Whigs", led by Charles James Fox.
Burke was praised by both conservatives and liberals in the 19th century. Since the 20th century, he has generally been viewed as the philosophical founder of modern Conservatism, as well as a representative of classical liberalism.
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This outrage on all the rights of property was at first covered with what, on the system of their conduct, was the most astonishing of all pretexts-a regard to national faith. The enemies to property at first pretended a most tender, delicate, and scrupulous anxiety for keeping the king's engagements with the public creditor. These professors of the right of men are to busy in teaching others, that they not leisure to learn any thing themselves; otherwise they would have known that it is to the property of the citizen, and not to the demands of the creditor of the state, that the first and original faith of civil society is pledged. The claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount in title, superior in equity. The fortunes of individuals, whether possessed by acquisition, or by descent, or in virtue of participation in the goods of some community, were no part of the creditor's security, expressed, or implied. They never so much as entered into his head when he made his bargain. He well knew that the public, whether represented by a monarch, or by a senate, can pledge nothing but the public estate; and it can have no public estate, expect in what it derives from a just and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large. This was engaged, and nothing else could be engaged to the public creditor. No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.
— Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
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The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan was formed in 1955 as a merger between two of Japan's political parties, the Liberal Party (自由党, Jiyutō, 1950–1955, led by Shigeru Yoshida) and the Japan Democratic Party (日本民主党, Nihon Minshutō, 1954–1955, led by Ichirō Hatoyama), both right-wing conservative parties, as a united front against the then popular Japan Socialist Party. The party won the following elections, and Japan's first conservative government with a majority was formed by 1955. It would hold majority government until 1993.
Credit: WTCA
Did you know...
- ...that Ronald Reagan is the only president of the United States to have his diaries published into a best selling book?
- ...that the Duncan L. Hunter 2008 presidential campaign was endorsed by both Chuck Yeager and Ann Coulter?
- ... that Helen Grant became the first black female candidate to be elected as a Conservative member of Parliament?
Selected anniversaries in December
- 1860 – the Reform War ends with the surrender of conservative General Miguel Miramón outside of Mexico City
- 1937 – a bipartisan coalition releases the "Conservative Manifesto" which was critical of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies.
- 2003 – the Conservative Party of Canada is formed
- 1834 – Sir Robert Peel publishes the Tamworth Manifesto which lays the foundation for the modern British Conservative Party.
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