Michael Oakeshott on being a conservative
As a way of understanding the world, not a set of ideas
One of the most important theorists of modern conservatism, Michael Oakeshott taught first at Cambridge and from 1951 to 1969 as Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics, succeeding the leftist Harold Lasky. His most known books are Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays and On Human Conduct. This is taken from his canonical essay “On Being Conservative,” published in Rationalism in Politics.
Oakeshott explains he is looking at conservatism as a “disposition,” not a “doctrine.”
The general characteristics of this disposition . . . centre upon a propensity to use and to enjoy what is available rather than to wish for or to look for something else; to delight in what is present rather than what was or what may be. . . . It [the present] is esteemed not on account of its connections with a remote antiquity, nor because it is recognized to be more admirable than any possible alternative, but on account of its familiarity: not, Verweile doch, du bist so schön [“Stay a while, you are so beautiful,” from Goethe’s Faust], but, Stay with me because I am attached to you. . . .
To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss. Familiar relationships and loyalties will be preferred to the allure of more profitable attachments; to acquire and to enlarge will be less important than to keep, to cultivate and to enjoy; the grief of loss will be more acute than the excitement of novelty or promise.
It is to be equal to one’s own fortune, to live at the level of one’s own means, to be content with the want of greater perfection which belongs alike to oneself and one’s circumstances. With some people this is itself a choice; in others it is a disposition which appears, frequently or less frequently, in their preferences and aversions, and is not itself chosen or specifically cultivated. . . .
The disposition to be conservative is, then, warm and positive in respect of enjoyment, and correspondingly cool and critical in respect of change and innovation: these two inclinations support and elucidate one another. The man of conservative temperament believes that a known good is not lightly to be surrendered for an unknown better. He is not in love with what is dangerous and difficult.
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Stop the world, Oakeshott might have said, I want to get off. Conservatism is in fact about the intergenerational bond among the past, present and future. To honor the past, the present must embrace risk as an old friend, as many of our forebears did and from which embrace we in the present enormously benefit. No thank you Oakeshott.
It's a great essay, and the second paragraph you quote in particular is superb.